Feature · Waterfront residence · Miami Beach, FL

Hibiscus Island

A house on the bay that reached us as taped board, bare concrete and a view. Oak runs through it now, from the kitchen to the dressing rooms, against travertine, with one green marble kept for the places that are meant to stop you.

Text and pictures: Nodum

Type: Waterfront residence
Where: Miami Beach, FL
Year: 2026
Frames: 252

What we built

Oak library wall
Green marble island
Full-height oak kitchen
Walk-in dressing rooms
Floating vanities
Media wall

Fig. 1 · Film

In from the bay

The drone comes in over the water to the house, then the camera walks the rooms as we handed them over: the oak library, the green marble island, the dressing room under its clerestory, and the suite on the bay.

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Hall

Down the hall

Bronze glass on the left, oak underfoot and the bay at the far end. Halfway down, the camera turns into an oak portal, and the room behind it is still bare board.

Dressing room

Into the shell

Through the doorway and into the room as it reached us: taped board, a concrete floor and one strip of window, high on the back wall.

Before and after

The room fills in

The camera turns for the corner and the room builds as it goes: oak over the concrete, the carcass up three walls, the lit mirror under the window and the island settling in the middle.

Dressing room

Round the island

Round the end of the island and down its length. Glass tops over the drawers, the hanging bays lining through, and the shoe shelves running up on the left.

Detail

Lit from the side

Back and round to the left. Every shelf takes its light from a strip set into the upright, so the whole room glows and not one fitting shows.

Hall

Back out to the hall

Past the island and out beside the oak column, then left: an oak console under two lit shelves, and the suite already showing through the next opening.

Primary suite

Into the suite

Through the opening and the room widens. Travertine behind the bed, two armchairs on a pale rug, and glass from floor to ceiling onto the water.

Primary suite

Across the water

Past the foot of the bed and along the glass. The waterway runs the length of the window, the city sits on the far shore, and the camera stops on a plain wall of stone.

Before and after

The media wall goes up

The stone stays and the oak builds out across it: lit niches, the screen hung in the middle, and the shelves filling as they go.

Final

Square to the wall

Round to face it head-on. Oak set into travertine, light under every shelf, the armchairs drawn up in front and the water still on the left.

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Before and after

Four cameras, one house.

Each pair is the same spot twice: the day we measured, with the joints still taped on the board, and the day we handed it over. The windows are the only thing in both.

Scroll rebuilds it · drag to take over

The finished living room: an oak library framed in travertine, a travertine wall beyond it and the same glazing

The living room as received: taped drywall, a bare concrete floor and sliding glass onto bamboo

Fig. 3 · Living room

The long wall

Sliding glass onto the bamboo on one side; on the other, taped board and two slot windows. The first bay of that wall is an oak library now, lit under every shelf and framed in travertine. The second is travertine to the ceiling, behind the dining table. The slots did not move.

The finished dressing room in oak: a lit mirror under the clerestory, glass shelves and a glass-topped island

The dressing room as received: taped drywall, a concrete floor and a clerestory window in the back wall

Fig. 4 · Dressing room

Under the clerestory

An empty box of board with one strip of window, high on the back wall. The carcass runs round three sides now as a single piece: hanging at the ends, glass shelves either side of a lit mirror centred under the window, and a glass-topped island of drawers in the middle.

The dressing room finished in oak, seen from the corner: a glass-topped island, a lit mirror and glass shelves

Fig. 5 · Dressing room

From the corner

With the window running away to the right, the room reads as one run of oak. The island follows its length, the hanging bays line through on the left, and the light sits in the uprights, so every shelf is lit from the side and no fitting shows.

The finished primary suite: an oak and travertine media wall, a sitting area and the bay through the same glass

The primary suite as received: taped drywall, a concrete floor and glazing onto the bay and the skyline

Fig. 6 · Primary suite

Facing the bay

Glass on two sides, the bay and the city beyond it, and between the windows a single wall of taped board. That wall carries the room now: oak shelving set into travertine, the screen hung in the middle of it and light under every shelf. The water is still on the left.

Oak runs through it now, from the kitchen to the dressing rooms, against travertine, with one green marble kept for the places that are meant to stop you.

Details

Oak, and where it stops.

Green marble waterfall island with a curved oak breakfast bar and dark stools, the window splashback beyond — Fig. 7 One slab down to the floor, the bar in oak

Kitchen window splashback framed in green marble under pale flat-fronted wall units, inside a full-height oak run — Fig. 8 The splashback is a window, framed in the stone

Oak library shelving lit under each shelf against travertine, with a block of green marble set into the grid — Fig. 9 Oak boxes on a travertine ground

Floating green marble vanity with an integrated basin, under a mirror cut into a green marble wall — Fig. 10 Powder room: the mirror cut out of the marble

Stone vanity with an integrated basin on a floating oak drawer, under a backlit mirror on a fluted stone wall — Fig. 11 A stone slab on a floating oak drawer

Hallway lined with bronze glass wardrobe fronts and oak, track lights overhead and the bay at the far end — Fig. 12 Bronze glass down the hall, the bay at the end

Oak-lined opening framing a dressing room, with a lit mirror and an island of drawers under a clerestory window — Fig. 13 In through an oak portal

Built-in oak chest of drawers with recessed shadow-gap pulls, under two lit floating shelves — Fig. 14 No pulls, only the shadow line

Oak dressing-room bays with light strips set into the uprights, open shelves over drawers — Fig. 15 The light sits in the uprights

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