FEW PACES away, off the foyer, a short corridor leads dinner guests toward the rear of the home and the living room.
“It’s their runway,” Jo says.
A pit stop in the powder room finds a tiny water closet festooned with a collection of Joanna’s mother’s antique
tennis racquets. The quirky display is as much an homage to Joanna’s victories on the juniors’ circuit, as it is to her
coach. The leather bindings were the inspiration for the custom Benjamin Moore wall paint.
The living room’s palette is a subdued version of more lively colors and patterns and the area was purposely left open for large
gatherings, Jo says. The idea is to relax after dinner on oversized Turkish-style pillows arranged on the Oriental rug. In the tradi-tional,
American-style setting, she adds, “It’s nice to be more loose and casual.”
Open to the kitchen and the breakfast nook and a backyard cabana and pool, the living room was centered on a firebox with
granite surrounds flanked by built-in bookshelves, niches and cabinets. Mark Schmidt completed the renovations, replacing the
firebox with a true wood-burning fireplace, and the granite finishes were replaced with hand-blocked tiles. After selecting a tile
pattern, the choice was customized with tones that echoed the colors found in the mask collection. Scalamandre’s red lacquer
wallpaper against the off-white cabinetry helps showcase Nick’s hand-thrown pottery collection and the couple’s treasured objet
d’art.
In New York, the vibrant earthy tones of their apartment echo the proliferate use of wood found throughout; in the New Orleans
house, the interior walls are hot pink and the exterior painted a shade of purple.
Of her exotic, playful surroundings in Wilmington, Joanna says, “Color just makes me happy.”
ANDREW SHERMAN
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WBM march 2019