Zeal Interiors

human nature One St. Augustine couple brings the outdoors in.

Words by Kerry Speckman

| Photos by Bradley Stookey

MOLLY AND LARRY PAYNE weren’t even thinking about building a house on the oneacre lot they purchased in Palencia in 2003. Nor did the couple, living in Virginia at the time, have any plans to move south. Larry, who owns an aviation services company, traveled to Jacksonville often for business and thought buying real estate would be a good investment. One day, they figured, they might build a home and relocate to St. Augustine—but not anytime in the foreseeable future.

When they learned that Palencia was offering incentives for property owners to build, they decided to start construction earlier than they had planned. Though the house was being built on spec, Molly says she and Larry couldn’t help but think of their own style and preferences when designing the home.

“It’s hard not to get personally involved in a project especially in [my] industry,” says Molly, who owns Zeal Interiors, a full-service interior design company. “You can’t help but put a little bit of yourself into the design. In a way, [my clients’ homes] become my personal space, too.”

At some point during the project, Molly and Larry decided that the house had become too personal a project for them to let go, so they sold their 1,800square-foot condo in Virginia and moved into the 4,100-square-foot Spanish Mediterranean villa in St. Augustine.

“We love it here. [North Florida’s] feel and climate are much closer to California, where I’m from, than Virginia was,” says Larry. “And the house is so comfortable and really fits our lifestyle.”

Molly is particularly enamored with their surroundings. “There aren’t as many houses on our street, so we’re kind of isolated. We’re surrounded by nature out

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The home's heavily wooded lot attracts wildlife like raccoons, otters, foxes and deer.

Osage orange tree planks, which Molly calls "nature's art," serve as the focal point of the circular vestibule.

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(This page) An open floor plan creates a sense of flow between the living room, kitchen and dining room. The living room showcases unique artifacts from Bali, Sweden, China and Guam. (Opposite) Molly's love of minimalism and natural materials is reflected in the dining room, which features Balinese furniture, a cow hide and a view of the courtyard. Since guests tend to congregate in the kitchen, the Paynes created a six-foot by ninefoot island in the center of the kitchen.

here,” she says. “It feels like we’re living in an environmental sanctuary sometimes.”

On occasion, they’re a little closer to nature than they’d like.The first week they lived in the house their Doberman pinschers, Keely and Kaden, were bitten by a rattlesnake and had to be rushed to an emergency veterinary center. (Both received anti-venom serum and are fully recovered.)

Larry recalls his own tense wildlife encounter. “I was training for a marathon and was cooling off. I looked up and there was a bobcat about 50 feet away. He froze. I froze. I think we were both startled,” he says. “We stared at each other for about five seconds, then he lifted up his paw and walked away.”

In two years, they’ve also seen deer, foxes, alligators, raccoons and owls in their yard, had a family of otters in their driveway and found fiddler crabs in their pool. Every night they are serenaded with a “symphony of frogs.”

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(This page) One of the most unusual design elements in the home is the headboard in the master bedroom: It's covered in concrete. (Opposite) Larry says it took at least 100 hours to design and build the crib in Ayla's future room. A monochromatic bird mobile will stimulate the baby visually while still reflecting Molly's design aesthetic.

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Even without wild creatures crawling and slithering through their neighborhood, the Paynes capture the great outdoors inside their home thanks to Molly’s design philosophy, which she describes as “modern organic.”

“In college, I majored in biology/pre-med and had a dance minor, which allowed me to develop my analytical and creative [skills]. I think that’s why there’s such diversity in my design—because I have an art and science background.”

One of Molly’s best qualities as a designer is her ability to envision nature as art, she says. Take, for example, two planks from an Osage orange tree that hang in the circular foyer. She found the 20-year-old tree uprooted during a hurricane and had it milled, then brought it home, sanded it and finished it with tung oil. Larry was challenged with backlighting the piece, a task he accomplished with rope lights hidden behind the planks.

There are plenty of other examples of “nature’s art” throughout the house, like a gemsbok in the master bedroom sitting area (a gemsbok, for the record, is an African antelope) and small stacks of river rocks Molly has collected from Mexico, California and the Baltic Sea. Nature is also reflected

in clever decorative details including a bamboo screen that takes the place of a shower curtain in the guest suite, a flagstone slab that serves as a step to get into the garden tub, window treatments made of rice paper and a pecky cypress beam that functions as a fireplace mantel (Molly gets extra points for recycling as she rescued the beam from the trash at a cypress mill). Her most unusual detail might be the headboard in the master bedroom: It’s made of concrete.

The color palette reflects Molly’s love of nature, as well. Earth tones pervade the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathoom house on the walls, the floors and cabinetry.

Even the baby’s room (Molly is pregnant with the couple’s first child) gets the nature treatment with brown walls, a cowhide rug and bird theme. It took Larry more than 100 hours to build the “rustic and chunky” crib that his wife envisioned. He also did extensive research on safety issues—such as what to do with the spaces between the slats and which chemicals used to treat and/or paint the wood—to best protect the baby.

Another signature of Molly’s interior designs is her ability to mix furniture and accessories from a variety of different

(This page) The Paynes use natural materials as much as possible, not only because they like the look, but they also tend to be low maintenance. (Opposite) A detached guest suite includes a cozy bedroom and private bathroom.

Guests enter the home through the courtyard, a tranquil space with a free-form pool, jacuzzi and summer kitchen.

cultures. This “global twist” enables her to combine artifacts she and Larry have collected on their travels as well as pieces given to them as gifts with more traditional pieces. In the living room, a chocolate leather sofa by Vladimir Kagan is complemented by a hand-carved bench from India and a worldly collection of accessories that includes a stone wheel from Sweden, a wooden bowl from Guam and an antique rice jug from China. Her penchant for Indonesian design is evident in nearly every room in the house, and she cites the Bali Cargo Company in Jacksonville Beach as one of her favorite places to shop.

Given the Paynes’ love of the outdoors, it should come as no surprise that the most spectacular space on the property is the courtyard.

Situated in front of the house, the courtyard (which features a free-form swimming pool, spa, fire pit and summer kitchen) is surrounded by a six-foot-high stucco wall and is accessible through two massive 200-year-old doors found in Beijing, China, that weigh 300 pounds each.

“The privacy is great,” Molly says. “It’s like having your own tropical retreat.”

Lending to the island feel are the palm trees and plants around the pool and river stones used as ground cover. Larry came up with the idea, not only as a nod to his wife’s love of rocks and their trips to Mexico, but as a more convenient alternative to mulch. “I got tired of having to clean mulch out of the pool and having to replace it all the time,” he says. “Of course, bringing in 3,000 pounds of river stones was no easy task. I feel sorry for the next people who buy the house if they don’t like [the stones].”

Until that time comes, the Paynes will continue to fine-tune the design, which Molly says is “constantly evolving,” and create new ways for nature to make an impact in their home. In September, they’ll welcome their most significant project, a baby girl named Ayla Gray.

“Ayla means ‘oak tree,’” Molly says. “And we didn’t even plan that.”