Inside The Tranquil Miami Oasis Made For Inspired Living

Interior designer Bea Pila and her husband, architect and general contractor Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa, were facing a problem common to many empty nesters: “I still loved my house,” she says of the residence where the two raised their family. “But I had what I call neglected and abandoned rooms that used to belong to my children. There was also a living room and a dining room I had to force myself to use.” For the interior designer, the issue was especially acute: Several years ago, she wrote a book called Sacred Spaces for Inspired Living, in which she provides seven steps for aligning “your interior with your interiors,” as she puts it. Basically, Pila had seen too many people fail to do the soul-searching necessary to create a truly personalized and functional residence—one that supports the owners’ actual lifestyle. But here she was, living in an environment that didn’t agree with her authentic self and the couple’s day-to- day reality. “I felt out of alignment with my own philosophy,” the interior designer says.

For years, the pair had been watching an empty lot on their beloved street pop on and off the market. So when the property last became available, they took the opportunity to acquire it and construct what Pila calls “the first Design Enlightenment home.” She elaborates: “It means that your house rises up to meet your needs—and not any superfluous or pretentious demands from outside influences.”

Using the interior designer’s own enlightenment process, the two explored in-depth how they truly live and then planned the structure, which Gonzalez-Ochoa drew and built. For instance, instead of a formal dining room, they incorporated a dining area into a “great lounge room,” as Pila calls it, which also functions as the primary gathering space. “I want people to come and sit at the integrated bar and lounge in my living room, like I do in the cool hotels I love,” she explains. A pair of dining tables expand to seat 16 people, and when the interior designer opens the nearby sliding doors, she can easily accommodate 30 guests without breaking a sweat. With the salvaged square footage, the couple also prioritized office space for each of them, a large design workshop and a Zen garden and meditation area.

This last element points to one of the pair’s driving forces as they determined the residence’s aesthetic: a relationship to nature. Expanses of glass, both doors and windows, provide a visual and physical connection to the lush lot (Pila designed the landscape herself ). Light infiltrates every space, including through an atrium in the heart of the house and clerestory windows in the kitchen and the workshop. What’s more, the interior designer integrated three water features on the property: an indoor fountain near the entry, an element in the Zen garden and a trio of waterspouts in the pool, all of which combine forces to infuse the home with the sound of bubbling water.

Other decisions about the structure’s style grew from the couple’s love for midcentury modern design, especially as it developed around Napa, California, where they had seen architecture that interpreted the warm materials they desired in a contemporary way. “I’m not a cold modernist,” Pila says. “I cannot live in a white house. It makes me nervous.” So, she infused the spaces with color and personality. The kitchen’s sleek cabinetry of mixed materials, for example, blends with a state-of-the-art gas range and an exposed red flue. “It’s the closest I’ll have to a fireplace in Miami,” the interior designer laughs, “and the red represents the heat, the fire, the hearth, the heart.” Terrazzo floors extend through most of the rooms, which are filled with furnishings that meet her standard for comfort and connection. “Furniture is the architecture of behavior,” Pila observes. “The way we place our furniture teaches us how to behave in a space.” That’s why, in the great lounge room, she skipped a sofa and opted instead for smaller seats— including swivel chairs for easy rotation toward the bar—that help foster conversation and gathering.

Ultimately, the house is a testament to Pila’s philosophy and the Design Enlightenment process she has developed. “I wrote the book because I felt residential interiors are still answering to a past that no longer serves us today,” Pila says. “I ask my clients right off the bat, ‘How do you want to feel in your home?’ Carlos and I wanted to feel tranquil, and now we do.”