Palm Beach designer transformed her home, listed at $25.5 million
Rafferty shares the house with husband Nicholas at 6709 S. Flagler Drive on West Palm Beach’s waterfront.
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- The lakefront home of interior designer Caroline Rafferty and her husband, Nicholas, is on the market for $25.5 million at 6709 S. Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach.
- The 1990s house was completely renovated, inside and out. “I could see the potential in it,” says Caroline Rafferty.
- With water views from most rooms, the five-bedroom house has 9,535 square feet of living space, inside and out.
Shortly after selling their Palm Beach home, interior designer Caroline Rafferty and her wealth advisor husband, Nicholas, bought their current house on the Flagler Drive waterfront in West Palm Beach. That was in 2021 — and with the residence completely renovated, they have listed it for sale.
“Historically, we’ve sold homes that we’ve lived in. It’s just time for us, but we are staying in the area,” says Caroline Rafferty, whose namesake design studio is in Palm Beach, where she once owned a shop named “The Grand Tour.”
Finishing up a major renovation is always a little poignant, she adds, and that was certainly the case with the house at 6709 S. Flagler Drive.
“I lay in bed for three years, thinking: If only I could do this or that — (but) when I’m finished with a project, my work is done,” Rafferty explains.
Then she adds, with a smile in her voice: “What do I think about (now) at night?”
On a lot of about a half-acre, the Raffertys’ five-bedroom home has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and two half-baths. With 9,535 square feet of living space, inside and out, it is listed for $25.5 million through broker Simon Isaacs of Simon Isaacs Real Estate LLC. The furnishings are available separately.
Just north of Forest Hill Boulevard, the house was built in 1995. And although it hadn’t been altered since then, it was well maintained, had generously proportioned rooms and fine views of the waterway, Rafferty says.
“It had a lot going for it. It had space, and I could see the potential in it, but it was a neither-here-nor-there (architectural) style,” she says, describing its exterior as Mediterranean Revival mixed with British West Indies.
The house, in short, was “a confused home. I had to pick a lane, and the architecture in the massing of the home lent itself to the British West Indies style.”
Because their home purchase coincided with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the Raffertys decided to initially do just the basics. They painted, removed the carpeting upstairs, installed wood flooring and just moved in.
But “over the course of a couple of years, things showed their age,” she says. “We were going to replace the windows, doors and roof, but then the renovations took on a life of their own. It took longer than we thought, but we just went for it and replaced everything in the home.”
From Rafferty’s full-service design studio on Peruvian Avenue, she and her team managed the entire down-to-the-studs project in-house.
“We changed some of the layout, we enclosed some of the double-height open spaces to create guest-bedroom space and we reconfigured some of the downstairs (areas) and the primary suite,” Rafferty says.
Centrally located, the living room and the foyer are accessed from a front east-facing terrace. Of interest, Rafferty explains how the living room did not open to the front loggia in its previous iteration. Today the double-height room features French doors that open to the front terrace and frame views of the Intracoastal Waterway and homes on Palm Beach’s Billionaires Row beyond. The living room has a bank of clerestory windows to help bring in natural light.
The renovation included replacing the home’s mechanical systems, and the windows and doors now have impact-resistant glass. Floors throughout have been covered in white oak, and bathrooms are finished in marble, decorator tile and limestone.
Rafferty’s main design goal with the living area was to “unify the space,” she says. “It was a funky-shaped room, so to ground it, we paneled the walls and painted them in a lime-wash finish, and on one side, we added white-oak built-ins.”
Across the room, a bank of west-facing French doors leads out to the covered loggia and the pool. “If you open the doors front and back, you get a nice cross breeze through the home,” she says.
In the north section of the house are the dining room, kitchen and family room, along with the pantry, mudroom, a laundry area, a half-bath, a storage room and the three-car garage.
The family room features a water-view bay window and molding that delineates the ceiling. In the open-concept floorplan, the family room ties into the center-island-style kitchen.
“For the counter and backsplash material in the kitchen, we used Taj Mahal leathered quartzite, which is really durable — and the sinks are integrated. We have Waterworks plumbing fixtures, and Thermador and Décor appliances. Lots of drink fridges, produce fridges and bread boxes are built in,” Rafferty says.
In the dining room, the walls are covered in sheets of bespoke dyed-and-painted pulp paper, carefully layered.
The south wing is home to the other powder room, the elevator, a guest-bedroom suite and a study. The latter has an ensuite bathroom, so it can double as a guest bedroom. The walls are finished in a wood-veneer paper, and the room features a bay window with views of the waterway.
The nearby guest bedroom offers double views. French doors on the east side of the room open to a private terrace with vistas of the waterway, while windows on the west side view the pool area. Describing the wall treatment, Rafferty says: “It’s called a suede finish. Colonial Decorators in Delray Beach did all the specialty plasters in the home, and they did a good job.”
A stairway off the living room ascends to the second floor, where the main bedroom suite is in the south wing. Accessing an east-facing balcony, the bedroom is topped by a tray ceiling and is finished in a cream Phillips Jeffrey grass cloth.
“I wanted it to feel like a hotel (room) and keep it very clean (visually),” Rafferty says.
The suite also comprises her office, with custom white-oak cabinetry, along with two walk-in closets and a marble-appointed bathroom with a soaking tub, dual sinks and a walk-in shower.
“I have a pass-through space (by the bathroom) that is all wrapped in wood, where I have a vanity, fridge and storage. Also there’s a full-length floor-to-ceiling mirror that’s actually a medicine cabinet that I love. There’s a lot of hidden storage in the bathroom and dressing area.”
In the second floor’s north wing are two guest bedroom suites, a sitting room and a second laundry area. One of the bedrooms accesses the east balcony.
Originally, the entire backyard was paved, Rafferty says. “We put turf down back there and rehabbed the pool. Before, it had a rock waterfall.”
The driveway winds around the front of the house, then north under a porte-cochere to the motor court and garage. Across Flagler Drive is a full-service dock with a boat lift.
“When we decided to move off the island (of Palm Beach), we really wanted to live on the water,” she recalls. “We wanted a boat, but now we found out, we are not boaters.”
Renovating her own homes, she says, always gives her insights into how she can better serve her clients.
“I see what works and it keeps me and my team on our toes. It makes me think of the process and how I can improve it for my clients — and it shows what the team is capable of.”
As for selling this house, she says: “I put a lot of energy into it. It’s a little bittersweet. I like every detail in the home, but it’s time for someone else to love it.
“I’ll miss the views, and I love the neighborhood. It’s been a peaceful, quiet place to live.”
To see more photos of 6709 S. Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach, click on the photo gallery near the top of this page.
For more than 20 years, Christine Davis has written about Palm Beach real estate in the “On the Market” feature in the Palm Beach Daily News.
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