Feature · Private villa · Key Biscayne, FL

Key Biscayne Villa 1

A two-storey house on the Key, handed to us with white walls, a black tile stair and nothing fitted. Walnut climbs the stair void in fins now, blackened steel carries lit shelves across it, and travertine glows at the back of every niche. The bar is the one thing you will not see: it closes into the wall.

Text and pictures: Nodum

Type: Private villa
Where: Key Biscayne, FL
Year: 2026
Views: 5

What we built

Walnut fin screen
Lit steel shelving
Concealed bar wall
Travertine niches
Walnut bed wall
Media walls
Landing wardrobes

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Hall

Two storeys of white wall

The hall as it reached us: one white wall the full double height, a branching chandelier hung in front of it and a dark tiled floor. The camera holds still and the work moves. The chandelier comes down, and the tile gives way to oak.

Before and after

The wall opens on the stair

One post of blackened steel goes up, then the frame round the flight, and the white wall gives way to the stair behind it. Shelves go in at every level and light up, the gallery above takes glass, and the room beyond is finished.

Stair

Walnut, fin by fin

Then the walnut, one fin at a time out from the steel, floor to ceiling, until the wall beside the screen is solid wood.

Bar

The stone we kept

Across the house, the bar wall as we found it: stone from end to end. It stays, as the back of every niche, and the lacquer drawers go in along the floor in front of it.

Before and after

Built in front of it

Steel shelving in the two outer niches, and the bar in walnut between them: a mirror, lit shelves and the wine set into the run. Two ivory leaves in brass come to rest either side, and the light comes on in every niche.

Final

Into the wall

The leaves slide in over the bar and meet in the middle. What is left is a wall of lit shelving, and nothing to say there is a bar behind it.

Turn the phone for the full frame

Before and after

Four pairs, and a wall that opens.

Four pairs are the same room twice: the day we measured, with the walls still white and the stair still in black tile, and the day we handed it over. The fifth is one wall on one afternoon, closed and then open.

Scroll rebuilds it · drag to take over

The finished hall: walnut fins and a blackened steel stair screen with lit shelves rising the full double height

The double-height hall as received: a white wall two storeys high, a branching chandelier and a dark tiled floor

Fig. 2 · Hall

Up the double height

Two storeys of white wall, a chandelier hung in front of it and the gallery crossing overhead. The wall is a screen now: walnut fins from floor to ceiling, then blackened steel, lit at every shelf, with the stair showing through it. The gallery and the room beyond it did not move.

The same stair finished: blackened steel and walnut beside the flight, lit shelves and a glass balustrade

The stair as received: black tiled treads, a black handrail on a white wall and a solid black balustrade

Fig. 3 · Stair

The flight

Black tile on every tread, a black rail on a white wall and a solid black balustrade. The flight kept its turn and its window. The white wall is the steel screen and its walnut now, lit at every shelf, and the balustrade is a sheet of glass.

The finished primary suite: an upholstered headboard wall between walnut slats, a walnut door and glass into the next room

The primary suite as received: plain walls, a dark wood floor, a single door and a pair of double doors

Fig. 4 · Primary suite

A wall for the bed

A long room on a dark floor, two plain doorways and nothing on the walls. The bed has a wall of its own now: an upholstered headboard to the ceiling between walnut slats, the door beside it cut into the same walnut, and glass where the double doors stood, so the room beyond reads through it.

The finished primary suite: the screen on a full-height walnut wall lit at its edges, flush doors and a glass entry

The primary suite as received: a bed in its packing against a plain wall under a ceiling grille, a dark wood floor and two oak doorways

Fig. 5 · Primary suite

Where the bed stood

The bed went in first, still in its packing, against the long wall under the grille, with two oak doorways at the end of the room. That wall carries the screen now: walnut from the floor to the ceiling, lit at its edges, with the grille cut into its head. The doors are flush and the colour of the walls, and the entry beside them is glass.

The bar wall open: the ivory doors slid aside to show a walnut bar with a mirror, lit shelves and a wine fridge

The bar wall closed: two ivory doors in brass frames between lit travertine shelving niches

Fig. 6 · Bar

Closed, then open

Closed, it is a wall of shelving: travertine niches lit from the side and two ivory leaves in brass frames between them. The leaves slide out over the niches and the bar is behind them, in walnut: a mirror under a line of light, lit shelves, a dark stone top and the wine set into the run.