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By Dylan Roche
Photography by Steve Buchanan
Give a creative mind freedom, and you’re bound to get something surprising and beautiful. That was what the owners of this Annapolis home on Spa Creek discovered when they hired Wesley Pehlke of Simply Wesley to do the interior design of their three-story luxury house at the South Annapolis Yacht Centre. Developed by Bret Anderson, president and founder of Pyramid Builders, the SAYC defies the expectation that a marina is a place of harsh industrialization. Instead, it’s as stylish and sophisticated a waterfront community as you could find anywhere in Annapolis.
Designed by ABS Architects, The Residences at SAYC is a quaint village of 11 uniform residences, completed in 2022. Each homeowner selected their own interior designer, so each interior has its own character.
Inside the home Pehlke designed, the surprises continue, thanks in large part to the homeowners being open to her creative ideas. “One of the big things they conveyed to me is that they wanted this house to feel very different from their primary house, so they felt like they were going away on vacation,” Pehlke says.
With this as her guideline, Pehlke was faced with a challenge. Her normal process is to start by talking with the clients about their likes or dislikes and the style they want the home to reflect. “They really gave me almost 100% carte blanche on the design,” she says of the emerging plans. But embracing the challenge, she admits that it allowed her to stretch her creative capabilities.
The finished design has a transitional feel, combining traditional elements with contemporary ones, and is distinguished by its bright, colorful palette and whimsy. “The project has so much complexity to it and so much uniqueness to the client that it’s almost impossible to put a word on it,” Pehlke says. “It’s not a design you look at and think, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s coastal,’ or ‘That’s modern.’”
Yet, the design still has consistent motifs throughout. Nods to the waterfront stop short of being coastal clichés, and elements of many different styles are brought together in a cohesive way. “It’s like there are surprises throughout the entire house,” she explains.
One of the starting points for this unusual project came from the pressed European agate slab used on the kitchen island. “It’s the thing that led the design on the whole first floor for me,” Pehlke explains. “The colors are beautiful, and I carry those colors throughout the house.”
The agate boasts shades of green, aqua, and blue, all of which appear in places like the artwork by Thomas Hager and the table base in the dining room, the sconces in the stairway, and the accent pillows throughout. Having these colors provides a consistent flow throughout the design, meaning all the rooms are connected. “I don’t like rooms to feel disconnected, even though the colors change some,” Pehlke says. “I don’t like walking into a house and being like, ‘Oh, here’s the red room, here’s the yellow room, here’s the green room.’” On the contrary, this home has a lot of color but still feels very connected.
Even in rooms where she uses whites and neutrals, we find pops of color. The family room on the lower level is dominated by a white wraparound sofa, but the shades of blue and aqua in the rug, the accent pillows, and the television cabinet bring plenty of interest to the room.
Another novelty that provided inspiration is the porthole cabinet from Bobo’s Intriguing Objects. It consists of hand-finished galvanized iron and brass-framed doors. The cabinet served as the starting point for the design of the bar on the lower level. Pehlke recalls how she found the cabinet in Atlanta. “I saw the porthole cabinet and designed the entire bar around it,” she says. “It’s just so different.”
A standout feature in the home, the bar built by Pyramid Builders, consists of high-sheen cabinets painted a “country squire” shade of green, with walnut interiors. The stone top is Calacatta Gold, whose edges are trimmed with a 2” band of patinated brass and matching rivets. The hardware in the shape of a miniature ship’s wheels and the latch ring pulls complete the full effect. “All the little details were supposed to be reminiscent of a ship,” Pehlke says.
Each bathroom in the home has its own unique personality, starting with the way Pehlke dresses up the walls with bold wallpaper. In one of the bathrooms, one wall is tiled entirely with penny rounds. Blue vanities are of back-painted glass, and the lacy mirrors are textured resin from Made Goods.
In another bathroom, this one on the home’s lowest level, colorful ceramic horseshoe crabs pop out against the white wall. These horseshoe crabs, like the porthole cabinet, are another example of unique finds that Pehlke was more than happy to incorporate into the design. “There’s not a space in the house that doesn’t have something to make you go, ‘Where the heck did you get that?’” she says.
For all the visual appeal the house offers, the design works well on a practical level as well. The lowest level of the house, which opens out onto the waterfront, was originally set up as bedrooms. However, by removing a wall, the space now opens up into a large multipurpose room with a desk for a home office, a game table for recreation, and a sofa with two chairs for sitting.
These distinct spaces are united by a large wool rug that brings the room together, making it feel cohesive. The room then opens onto a back porch with a hanging bed from Lowcountry Originals. Pehlke explains that arranging the room in this way makes it a place the owners can readily use for so many occasions—which is especially important when it has the most beautiful view in the whole house. The view looks out over the lush lawn designed by Campion Hruby Landscape Architects and installed by Walnut Hill Landscape Company, as well as the marina beyond.
“If you’re taking people out on your boat, how nice will it be to come back and go to the porthole bar, make a drink, sit at the game table, and lounge outside on that hanging bed?” she says.
This home’s colorful and surprising design provides the perfect atmosphere for the occasional escape and creates the feeling that you’re on vacation any time of year.
ARCHITECT: ABS Architects, Annapolis, Maryland. CUSTOM BUILDER: Bret Anderson, Pyramid Builders, Annapolis, Maryland. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Kevin Campion, Campion Hruby Landscape Architects, Annapolis, Maryland. LANDSCAPE INSTALLATION: Walnut Hill Landscape Company, Annapolis, Maryland. INTERIOR DESIGNER: Wesley Pehlke, Simply Wesley, Annapolis, Maryland. ADDITIONAL ACCESSORIES AND ART STYLIST: Amy Richardson. GRANITE: In Home Stone, Annapolis, Maryland.
© Annapolis Home Magazine
Vol. 15, No. 2 2024