Photography by Taylor Hall O’Brien
Playful patterns, electric pastels, beachy nods and sophisticated furnishings fill every corner of this Orlando, Florida, family home. Built in 2015, the 4,300-square-foot waterfront property on the site of a former Naval training center features Mediterranean-style architecture, an hacienda-inspired courtyard, a clay roof and 12-foot ceilings. Yet despite its promising vernacular, the interiors felt more like a blank canvas than a homey retreat.
Then, in 2023, Minneapolis designer Deidre Webster of Studio Day, who had previously collaborated with the owners on their Los Angeles abode, was hired to execute a simple yet personal brief: create a home that felt “creative, welcoming and storied,” with nods to Floridian style and historic character.
For Webster, the design had to be more than aesthetics alone. She drew inspiration from the 1996 movie The Birdcage, celebrated for its themes of authenticity, family and love. A favorite line from the movie — “There’s only one place in the world I call home, and it’s because you’re there. It’s ours.” — became the project’s compass. For the couple, dads of 8-year-old twins, the film’s spirit and theatricality offered the perfect starting point. “They wanted to foster their kids’ creative spirits and provide a home that encouraged them to explore,” she says.
Visually, that meant fusing the home’s backdrop with bold hues and graphic motifs like porthole geometry, dotted screens, Spanish archways and tonal terrazzo, similar to elements found in West Palm Beach. “It’s very bright and lively, like the house in The Birdcage,” Webster notes. A limewashed entry and layered art and tile bring both modernity and patina, while curtains feature birds and tigers, nods to the film. “There’s a scene in the movie where the characters are eating breakfast and one of them is wearing a tiger robe,” she points out.
To make the open interiors feel more intimate, she incorporated architectural elements: an archway between the breakfast nook and kitchen, a redesigned arch in the living room and a chandelier lowered to balance the soaring ceilings. Furnishings were scaled up to suit the volume of the spaces. “It’s wild with lots of color — everything is sprung from the aesthetic of the movie,” she says.
At first, Webster was cautious about leaning too heavily into the film, but her clients were on board. “This queer cult classic was very impactful for them,” she explains. “It came out in the nineties, which was an important moment for that community.”
Throughout the process, the guiding principle was “nothing precious.” Given that the couple has two young kids, no space could be off-limits. That ethos is embodied in the antique French play backdrop that the clients discovered for the dining room. It’s dramatic yet approachable. “It’s beautiful and, if someone were to touch it, it would be just fine,” Webster says. Many of the furnishings are vintage, and art was chosen with the same thoughtfulness, from Gertrud Bauer’s 1981 portrait by Peter M. Bauer in the primary bathroom to French artist Caroline Beauzon’s chair piece in the bedroom.
Builder Simon Gomez, principal of Florida-based Gomez Contractors, and Lead Project Manager Chris Masten brought the collective vision to life with a scope that included the living room, kitchen, dining room, entryway, powder baths and primary suite.
“The remodels we do are usually more vanilla,” Gomez says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but it was refreshing to have a lot of life and color that made this project exciting and different.” His team painstakingly laid mosaic tiles one by one in the entry and bathrooms, and coordinated the complex tilework of the deco-inspired shower cave.
Standout details abound: authentic terra-cotta flooring in the kitchen from Mission Tile West, custom American Restoration Tile mosaics in the bathrooms and a vintage sink carefully re-plumbed by Gomez’s crew. The “circus bathroom” features a rainbow-colored floor and palm tree wallpaper. The primary bedroom shines with Imogen Heath wallpaper and an early 19th-century hand-painted Swedish cabinet concealing the TV, while a vintage Kagan sofa sourced from Sarasota’s Carpenter Studio anchors the living room. “I would say 90% of the lighting in the house is vintage,” Webster says.
In the kitchen, cosmetic updates were made in lieu of a full renovation. The perimeter cabinets were refreshed with new paint. The island, once a two-level bar with seating and sparkly tile, was reworked with burl insets, brass and copper detailing, and a single dramatic stone slab.
Every space was designed with family life in mind. The kids’ rooms are imaginative, the family room splits between afternoon crafting sessions and movie-night set ups, and the courtyard invites gatherings. One parent ends most evenings with a bath, the other unwinds with a book. “They want to be the home that the kids and their friends come to after school,” Webster says.
In the end, the house captures both intentional character and ease. There is spectacle, whimsy, nostalgia and quiet comfort, all of which embody the family’s story. “It was always about making a place that felt authentic to them — nothing too precious, just a home where everyone could come as they are,” Webster says.
Project Partners
Interior designer: Studio Day
Builder: Gomez Contractors
