VERO BEACH — Stepping into a French-inspired condominium, a historic Castilian country style home and a British colonial estate, one could not be underwhelmed by the architecture, furnishings, decor and artwork of Vero Beach home owners, during the 19th annual Junior League of Indian River Tour of Homes.
“The opulence you see here is really striking,” Charles Karpowicz of Fairfax Station, Va., said while admiring vintage French Limoges china, set upon a French fruitwood double-extension table from 1850 located inside of a 70-foot-long lanai overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
“The underlying wealth that’s here to support this is impressive,” said Karpowicz, a retired dams engineer with the National Park Service and Army Corps of Engineers. “Yet it is subject to bad devastation if a hurricane hits it.”
In various rooms through the French-themed condominium in The Victoria were hand-colored lithographs of French soldiers, French-themed fabrics on furnishings, tassels on curtains, a French day bed from New Orleans and other French antiques, including an armoire from the Vendee region. A lemon tree in a large pot, an all-Tiffany bar and other magnificent touches drew the attention of a steady stream of ticketholders. Not to mention a urinal in the men’s section of the master bathroom.
“I’m a Francophile,” explained Abi Babcock, owner of the condominium, who has an interior designs and decoration business called Atelier Inc.
It’s the 12th place she’s lived in since being married, she said, explaining, “I’m trying to compile the things we have into the smallest residence we’ve had.”
Each year, select homes open their doors to visitors for the benefit of the Junior League, which promotes volunteering and performs a variety of community services. The Tour of Homes is its largest fundraiser.
Among the 750 people who paid $35 to visit two condos and four houses on the tour was a self-proclaimed “drapery lover,” Rosemary Drummond, who was on her fourth League tour.
“I love to sneak around and see how well a drape is made, the detail,” she said. “We don’t want to see the same thing in every house, and it’s fairly easy to go into a beautiful house around here, but what’s especially enjoyable is seeing how these homes reflect the individual character of the owner.”
Further down the hallway from Babcock’s French treasure, people paused before entering the next pristine space, to swap street shoes for disposable slippers. Ahead: white carpets, a crystal chandelier and a little French desk once owned by actor Betty Hutton.
Impressive artwork was scattered throughout the lovely stretches of rooms, including a floral oil painting by actor Janet Gaynor, a wooden civil war sugar safe, plates from Prague, hand embroidered artwork and more. All of this, before a sweeping view of the ocean.
Also on the tour: Villa Festiva, dating to 1927 and the area’s first home built by the ocean. It was once considered the “Party House” of Vero Beach, where friends were invited to have a “sip after a dip.”
The house is now owned by Dawn and Ted Michael, and the Castilian architecture is a head-turner. The introduction to this spectacular house is a walled-in front yard that leads to an open-sky enclosed patio with two Polynesian handcrafted benches, a brightly painted turtle in the middle of it, and folksy artwork mostly done by a Florida artist.
Inside Villa Festiva are walls of Pecky cypress and Dade County pine floors original to the house. The living room features a grand piano from 1906, and the bathroom off the first floor master bedroom has a secret passageway to the study.
Two balconies jut out from a second story hallway, overlooking the large living space below. An opposing balcony was enclosed and converted to an office, and looks over treetops on Ocean Drive and beyond. The Swedish room, with original pieces from Sweden, needlework done by the owner’s mother, and dolls once owned by her grandmother, accentuate the upstairs motif.
Fans and ocean breezes blew in through large windows, welcome relief to hot tour-goers.
“Here is where you get the feeling of an old Florida home,” said Kay Layton of Vero Beach.
“The house has a big story to tell,” said Dawn Michael. “We have a lot of art, but it is mostly done by family members – grandfather, parents – and some from local museums. It’s full of family heirlooms, but not expensive ones.”
“My friends say it is a homey house. It’s a mama bear house, not a huge one like a papa bear house would be.”
At Smugglers Cove, visitors toured a classic British-style colonial estate with eight sets of mahogany doors leading to an expansive courtyard, a signed Remington bronze cowboy on horseback and a 165-foot ocean view.
In the Gracewood neighborhood is David and Julia Carter’s newly built home. David was only 3 years old in 1967 when his family moved into a 1 1/2 bedroom, two bath cottage within eyeshot of the ocean. A new house was built on the site in 1979, remodeled in 1997, and then a new 4-bedroom house was completed in 2011, after a major hurricane ravaged the property.
The home is enriched with family artwork, some Haitian paintings and pieces from Tiger Lily Art Studios and Gallery, owned and operated by Julia Carter and five other professional artists whose work is featured exclusively there.
“I like this one because it is very casual – the colors of the walls, artwork, the lovely landscaping,” said Pam Hendrix of Vero Beach, who was awaiting a shuttle van to take her to the next home on the tour.
At the house on Seagrape Lane in the Old Riomar neighborhood, it was hard not to notice the owners’ love of horses and choice of colors.
“There are a lot of beautiful homes here and we are all naturally nosey in a way, curious about how other people live,” said Lori Higdon, chairwoman of the event. And people always come away with decorating and architecture ideas, she added.
