After growing up in Palm Beach County and returning to the charming town of Jupiter, Florida, as a post-grad, architect and contractor Christian Thomas of Thomas Melhorn has become more than just a designer of homes—he helps his clients achieve their wildest dreams of coastal living. Not only will you find him selecting the best local, sustainable materials to give each project a true sense of place in South Florida, Thomas will also assist clients in purchasing the right boat for their needs, dreaming up the perfect dock on the right spot along the Intracoastal Waterway, and even highlighting the best boating routes to get one from their new waterfront home to the Bahamas.

"Christian and I are working on our fifth client together, and a client I've recently brought him just adores him and appreciates his knowledge of the area," says Birmingham-based designer Betsy Brown. Brown met Thomas on a project 20 years ago when he was a college intern at an architecture firm in Alabama. "Everyone loves this guy who can teach them anything and everything, from how to build a house to how to live a south Florida lifestyle in the best way possible."

Thomas was clearly the right person to tap for a large New Jersey family looking to find their slice of paradise in Jupiter that would be a retreat for generations to come, but the clients' faith was immediately put to the test when he suggested they purchase an overgrown plot of land site unseen. Thankfully, the family trusted Thomas's intuition, fell in love with the property's killer ocean views, and asked him to essentially design a property that he would create for himself if he wanted to live in Jupiter for the rest of his life. Though it had been nearly two decades since they'd worked together, Thomas knew Brown was the perfect designer to team up with to turn this family's vision of a timeless yet ultra-livable seaside home a reality.

betsy brown jupiter island front exterior

Before this 9,000-square-foot home and guest house were built, the property was overgrown with trees and housed a dilapidated home from the '50s.

Nicole Franzen

"The evolution of this project began with one of the clients' requirements being that, as a tight-knit family, they really wanted this home to be a legacy that could live on for a long time, so we started off with this concept of memory and recording time throughout the house," says Thomas. "As the house grows older, those marks and nicks and scratches don't have to be looked at as a negative but as a marking of time from all the different inhabitants that call this place home. Every material was selected in that vein so that it would grow more beautiful with age."

Thomas says that his firm likes to restrain the palette to as few materials as possible and attempts to ensure they are sustainably sourced. The four materials that comprise this home are a lime cypress wood that is native to south Florida, a raw white oak, wax plaster, and a Romanian stone that evokes the textured, lightly colored coral found in this part of the country. His team used various techniques to create different hues and textures with the materials, from antiquing and brushing the stone to age it and make it more durable to fuming the wood floors in order for them to be able to better withstand wear and tear.

betsy brown jupiter island butlers pantry

Even though the home is a new build, Thomas's use of native woods and techniques gives the materials an effortless patina and makes it feel deeply rooted in the landscape.

Nicole Franzen

"What's nice about all this is that you're just playing with very naturally occurring colors instead of trying to mix the right color brown for a wood or the right paint for walls," says Thomas. "The wood will tell us what it wants to be and, over time, the wood has really mellowed out and found its own voice in the home."

Wabi-sabi, the Japanese design principle that emphasizes the perfectly imperfect, became a design imperative beyond the floors, cabinets, and stone, impacting how the rest of the home was decorated. Brown says the couple has collected some wonderful pieces from their world travels, and from there, it was all about selecting the right vintage items to be part of a home that's prepared to age gracefully. She shopped coast-to-coast to find just the right items that were still beautiful but could hold up to a house full of kids and dogs for years to come.

Jupiter Island Home Tour

betsy brown jupiter island front exterior

"It was all about building imperfection," Brown says. "As a family grows, this house will only continue to add memories. We sought a lot of comfortable furniture, durable fabrics, and worn work tables without finishes because the wear would be an added benefit. We wanted a house that could take a lot of living without being frustrating to anyone." Brown says some of her favorite pieces came from Bill Gardner Antiques in Houston.

The home was completed in November 2019, shortly before COVID-19 began to sweep the tri-state region and right as snowbirds begin fleeing to South Florida for the winter. All three of the clients' grown children came to quarantine with their parents in this house, and their first grandchild spent their initial months out of the hospital here. With Thomas's vision, Brown's skill for designing livable luxury, and Jupiter's easy, breezy way of life, this family retreat is sure to leave an outstanding legacy that will be cherished for generations to come.