In the sunny, sleep little town of Harbour Island, in the stunningly bright and tropical Bahamas, famed designer Trish Becker has recently completed yet another colourful, signature kitschy house renovation and overhaul, dubbing the wonderfully pink finished result Chatterbox House!
When New York based designer Trish Becker first fond the old Colonial style home that would become Chatterbox House, it was in need of not just repair from years of weathering in the tropical Bahamian climate, but also a restyling that would better show off the stunning traditional home’s positive attributes while still turning it into a modernized home that might provide more comfort to future owners and guests.
More specifically, the house is located in the heart of a beautiful little seaside community called Dunmore Town. The original cottage that this new, super fun dwelling was created from was first build in the late 1800s and, despite its rather dark interior and rather extensive wear and tear, was the perfect embodiment of what the designer described as old world Bahamian charm.
The first priority in the home’s redesign was to restore it to its original glory in structure and quality. After that came the modernizing steps, which happened in two parts. First, the home’s systems and amenities were updated to modern comfort standards. Next, design teams filled the home with colours, patterns, and textures that would excited any guest and provide all the typical visual draw of a beautifully unique Caribbean getaway.
Although colour is a central element throughout the entire home, the exterior combination might be our very favourite match up of shades. The powdery, petal pink main facade catches the eye of essentially anyone passing the house on the street outside, while a beautiful bright turquoise provides stunningly eclectic contrast. Both colours stand out excitingly against the natural, beachy setting in which the house is nestled.
On the front porch, visitors are greeted by a stunning tile inlay that contrasts once again with the two exterior colours we’ve already described. This piece is actually a reproduction of an original one that was created on the house in the 1800s but was too damaged to salvage in the update. Instead, design teams chose to recreate their own version from fresh but similar tiles in homage to the colonial piece.
The tile piece adorns the wall near a stunning porch swing that provides a sense of the home’s atmosphere immediately, before anyone has even walked through the door. This sense of rustic but impressive calm and casual permeates the entire space both inside and out; chairs and lounge spaces are positively everywhere, offering people countless places to bond and enjoy each other’s company in comfort.
The blend of bright, bold colours with visual texture and awesome patterning is a theme that carries throughout the entire house. This holds true for the fun throw cushions and circular teal chairs in the lower living room, the decor scheme in the kitchen, and all the way upstairs into the master and guest bedrooms as well. The colours and patterns shift from room to room, so that no two spaces are quite the same in their aesthetic.
At the top of the large house, two spaces in particular hold our attention the most. The first is a rooftop deck that offers yet another open-air seating space, this time with its own bar station. Even higher than this, up one last flight of wooden stairs, is a crow’s nest style nook that offers breathtaking panoramic views of the island, which are particularly stunning at sunrise and sunset.
Photos by Annie Schlecter
