Casa Grande

Designer Krista Watterworth Alterman transforms a house into a home for an active family of fve

WRITTEN BY CAMILLE S. YATES PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN

Like a breath of fresh air, a waterfront home in Tequesta, which once had heavy, dark, Mediterranean accents, has been transformed into a true saltlife, tropical paradise. Both Russell and Kara Grande were born and raised in Miami, but with three young children, they decided to relocate to a more family-friendly community. In 2012, they chose a home that is nestled on the bank of the Loxahatchee River, only a 10-minute boat ride to the Jupiter Inlet leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

“We thought we’d be in this house for just a couple of years,” says Kara. “We not only fell in love with Tequesta, but we also became so connected to this house and the neighborhood that we didn’t want to leave.” That’s when the family decided they would give their home a huge makeover. “I’d been looking at different designers and met Krista Watterworth, whose children go to the same school as my kids,” says Kara. “I looked at some of her projects and was really impressed.”

Krista Watterworth Alterman started her interior design frm, now called Krista + Home, in 2003, while living in New York City. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the New School in Manhattan and furthered her studies at Parsons School of Interior Design. “It has always been my goal to create beautiful, luxurious homes that are livable,” says Krista. “I bring extreme functionality to rooms, yet they look like they are jumping off a glossy magazine page.” She is not only a designer, but also a television personality, having hosted HGTV’s “Splurge & Save” and “Save My Bath.” She has also been featured on the Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible” series and DIY’s “The Vanilla Ice Project” for seven seasons.

Her talents inspired Kara and Russell to begin their major home renovation project with Krista + Home. “When partnerships like this happen organically, it’s special,” says Krista. “Our kids all go to a private K–12th grade school. We will be connected for a long time. It’s a great family feel.”

“The Grande family is Italian. The whole family, including their three children, ages 7, 11 and 13, love to cook,” says Krista. “I grew up with an Italian grandmother, and we were always in the kitchen together, so I knew how important the kitchen space was to this family.” They wanted a true chef’s kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances and plenty of room for food preparation and storage. They also wanted to maximize the outdoor spaces and the view of the Loxahatchee River.

Krista and her team began to renovate the Grande home in November 2016 and completed it in December 2017. With a budget of $500,000, they removed and replaced walls, paint, carpets, foors, kitchen and bathrooms, and added lots of windows to brighten the interior and create a seamless fow from the inside to the outdoors.

“I always ask for Pinterest boards or Houzz page invitations. That’s a wonderful jumping-off point for a design discussion,” says Krista. “But the Grandes trusted my vision and allowed me to run with it. They wanted a coastal vibe that brought the tropical feel seamlessly indoors.

“We actually started the design concept outdoors frst. Usually the interior selections dictate what the outdoor space will look like, but the tiles in the pool were falling off, and we didn’t want the children to get hurt. So we started by resurfacing the entire pool and adding glass tile to the pool and hot tub. The smoky baby blue color of the tile was the springboard for the interior.”

Seventeen years ago, Russell and Kara Grande started a business called Ocean Detailing. It is now a successful company that employs 500 people. The Grandes love their work, but they also make a point to have family time. Intentionally, they do not have offce space in their home, since they like to keep work and play separate from one another. They love boating and have a Boston Whaler for the kids and an Intrepid they take down to the Keys or over to the Bahamas.

With 3,500 square feet under air, fve bedrooms and a huge outdoor pool lanai along with a covered front porch, this home gives the Grandes just what they need. “This house is the perfect size for us,” says Kara. “I didn’t want something really big. When we frst moved in, we redid the docks, added a tree house for the kids and also added a small putting green off to the side. We just love to be outdoors.” Many of their friends are also boaters, so the Grandes enjoy gathering everyone at their home after a day out on the water. This is why Krista focused so much attention on connecting the interior with exterior.

Krista changed the heavy feel of the home to give it the coastal, contemporary atmosphere the Grandes wanted. “Living happens outside the home,” says the designer. “There is a clear connection between the indoor and outdoor design elements with a beautiful fow of color palettes. It’s important for all of the colors to be connected. I used gorgeous blue and gray colors to create a tropical feel.” Tile and foor selections came from ASD Surfaces in North Palm Beach, choosing “nimbus” for the pool tile color.

The home’s exterior was originally painted a dark mustard color, with many of the interior walls a similar, but lighter shade. Krista brightened up the entire exterior with a beautiful bluish-gray. The huge front porch is light and airy with bright white trim. The shiplap ceiling is also white. The interior has been given a coastal ambiance, much of it painted with Benjamin Moore’s “cliffside gray” and trimmed with “chantilly lace.”

Krista’s favorite room to design was the kitchen. “It was disjointed, oddly laid out and, mostly, underutilized,” she says. “I focused on this being the heart of the home, and I wanted it to be a space full of connection and family fun. We removed a half wall, closed up two windows and put in a huge island with seating on two sides. I love the chevron pattern wood-look tile in the kitchen, which also fows to other areas of the house. Instead of doing a white kitchen, we did platinum-colored cabinetry with black square handles.”

“This is truly a professional chef’s kitchen,” says Kara. “The Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances are amazing. I love the Kohler Prolifc stainless steel sink that has great features like a built-in cutting board and colander. My kids are always in the kitchen. My 13-year-old had a friend over and made seared tuna with sesame seed, and my 7-yearold likes to make omelets. The only rule I have is that they can do anything in the kitchen that they want, as long as they clean up.”

The dining room, though small, is open to the communal spaces: the family room and kitchen. Here, Krista mixed rustic wood elements with clean, white fnishes and beige, tailored, upholstered seating. The dining console was custom made by Hammer Fine Furniture. The wooden dining table, by Lexington Castel Harbour, seats 12, and overhead is a hand-carved driftwood-fnish chandelier from Currey and Company. “After the main renovation was completed, the chandelier was one the frst lighting fxtures to go up,” says Krista. “Kara walked in and was so inspired by seeing this. It meant things were all coming together.”

In the family room, Krista painted the high shiplap ceilings white, along with the two-story freplace and built-in shiplap bookcases and cabinets surrounding the freplace. The high ceilings with windows and doorways leading out to the lanai bring in the light and offer amazing views of the pool and the Loxahatchee River.

The entire Grande family loves to cook. The professional chef’s kitchen sports top-of-the-line appliances and plenty of room for both prepping food and eating at the large center island.

Krista put special touches in the master bedroom to create an upscale appeal with calming shades of aqua, gray and neutral tones. “What I love about the master bedroom is that Krista added windows,” says Kara. “Now, we can see the Loxahatchee River from the bedroom. It’s so calming and peaceful, and the sunsets are beautiful.”

The designer also put many coastal touches in the outdoor patio areas. She added the same tile used in the pool area to the outdoor kitchen. There is a huge dining table made from reclaimed porcelain tile and club seating around the fre pit. The outdoor furniture is from the OW Lee Gios Collection.

“The house is like a resort now,” says Kara. “We fnd on weekends that we don’t want to go anywhere. It’s like Grand Central Station here with the kids and their friends. We cook, grill and sit by the outdoor fre pit roasting marshmallows. It is truly our tropical paradise.” ❂

The Grande family enjoys entertaining friends after a day of boating. They frequently cook outside in the summer kitchen and roast marshmallows over the fre pit.

Krista Watterworth Alterman’s Tropical Tips:

Tropical Tips

“ I’m not a huge fan of thematic design. A nod to the coastal vibe is more my speed. A vibe that is not so obviously tropical but rather maximizes on the coastal energy is ideal. Ways to do that are through a beautiful, cool color palette of greens, grays, blues and crisp white. Utilizing warm cotton and linen fabrics as well as painted wood cabinetry and furniture is also a wonderful place to start. And accessorizing with handmade or one-of-a-kind distressed wood, woven and blown glass features will fnish the look.”

Twenty years ago, Vero Beach Magazine was founded to be a positive force in the community by engaging readers with truthful, quality editorial and photography, generating support for nonproft organizations and promoting local businesses. Later came the Offcial Vero Beach Handbook and the Guide to Giving to further that mission. Last year, we expanded our family of publications to include Tropical Home. Tropical Home is a special view of the architecture and design specifc to a climate without winter, with the unique challenges