Marc Anthony and Shannon de Lima Muniz Create an Oasis in the Dominican Republic

                                 

As anyone who has ever undertaken a home-construction project knows, setting a completion date you can count on is tricky. So when Miami-based recording artist Marc Anthony and his wife, model Shannon de Lima Muniz, began renovating their dream getaway at the Casa de Campo resort in the Dominican Republic, they opted for a bold, if risky, strategy: scheduling the start of their marriage festivities for the very day they were to move in. “Our housewarming party was literally our wedding week,” Anthony says of the couple’s 2014 nuptials. “Everybody flew in from around the world. We were seeing the house and living in it for the first time just as our guests were. We all explored it together!”

                                                     

“Explored” in this case is no overstatement. The property, capable of sleeping 24, encompasses a 10,000-square-foot main residence, a variety of pavilions, guest bungalows, and cabanas, two swimming pools, and a spectacular array of outdoor entertainment and lounging areas, including a man-made beach—all linked by meandering, densely landscaped pathways. “We made it big with the idea we’d be sharing it,” Anthony says of the compound, which is situated away from the coastline, ensuring maximum privacy for the couple, their seven children, and frequent visitors.

                                                  

Still, thanks to the many truckloads of sand brought in as ground cover, you’d think you were mere feet from Casa de Campo’s pristine waterfront. That was hardly the case when Anthony bought the commodious main house three years ago. The plot, which didn’t comprise much more than the house and pool immediately behind it, was “surrounded by wild vegetation,” says the musician, who immediately began to imagine more—much more. “The second we moved in I started drawing my ideas on napkins and buying up the adjacent lots. I just had a vision for it.” 

                                                     

To help realize his concept, Anthony turned to local architect Dino Barré of DM Dominicana, the man responsible for designing the original residence, which was fashioned after the sugar mills that once proliferated here. Among other amenities, Anthony requested an outdoor movie theater, a sports-bar pavilion, and a series of palapas and villas to serve as guest quarters, many incorporating indigenous materials such as eucalyptus wood and coral stone. “We put up four guest bungalows around the new sand-bottom pool, just like you’d see at resorts in the Maldives or Bora-Bora,” Barre says. Notes the singer, “I’m glad I didn’t think about the scope of the undertaking for too long—I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it.”

                                                   

 

The project, Anthony says, was driven as much by his love for design as a desire to create the ultimate retreat. “I’ve been touring for 20-something years,” he explains. “And when you’re locked in a hotel room, you learn how to enjoy spaces.” It’s knowledge he put to good use here, personally outfitting the rooms with a mix of furnishings custom made by local craftsmen as well as Indonesian and Balinese furniture and accessories fashioned from teak, mahogany, and sapele. “Marc appreciates detail and will spend as much time as it takes on something he’s passionate about,” De Lima Muñiz says. “Sometimes we’d stay up until 5 A.M. just looking at colors and textures.”

                                                     

                                                      

Anthony’s aesthetic interests extend to painting, too—a pastime he pursues in the artist’s studio he set up in one of the palapas. “There’s not so much imagination in performing a song that’s already a hit, so I need outlets like painting,” says the multiple Grammy winner, who will be touring in New York City in February. “I also like to do nothing,” he confesses of his ideal day at the compound. “I can sit in one spot for hours and simply watch my wife and kids in the pool or listen to the music playing on the sound system.” Adds De Lima Muñiz, “Music fills the house, inside and out, at all times!”

                                                     

 

Anthony and De Lima Muñiz take pleasure in watching their guests embrace a toes-in-the-sand attitude as well. “The first day people get here, they want to do everything,” Anthony says. “But by the second day they’re like, ‘Maybe I’ll just grab a margarita and sit on the beach.’ And by the third you don’t see them until 6 P.M.” 

                                                   

                                                       

In the evenings everyone usually gathers around the 20-foot-long teak dining table next to the pool. “I love that we can all sit down together at dinner, no matter how many we are,” says De Lima Muñiz. Anthony agrees: “It’s great to sit back and see how happy this place makes everyone. It’s priceless.”

                                                      

Basic Styles in Interior Design

Your home decor should be comfortable but should also be trendy so that you don’t feel out of trends and other get a good impression of your house. Try the below mentioned Five ways to adapt the basic styles in Interior Design at Your Living space.                                                     

Nice and Roomy

Granted, the sectional stuff of family rooms around 1987, however it returns in a major manner, and there isn’t any good reason why it shouldn't be? As parlours have turn out to be more casual spots for relaxing, we have less requirement for formal couches and more love for an adaptable cushioned zone that gives us a chance to sprawl out anyway we like. This sectional, wearing exquisite dark upholstery, welcomes one to rests with a rich toss and a decent book or diversion. 

                                                   

 

Deep Colors

On the off chance there's one thing that causes the famous group to hit the "like" catch, it’s a room covered in an intriguing, soaked blue. Customarily, blue has been quieting shading. We think individuals like the thought of cozying up in the tints of the most profound ocean. On the off chance that you've effectively done dark or charcoal, here's another approach to include abundance and show.

                                                     

                                                      

Vintage

We are seeing a considerable measure of insides in which contemporary seats are combined with rural tables. Possibly it’s simple that individuals need it both ways; however we imagine that there's something else behind the prevalent look. Via matching two things that don't appear to go together, you are really underscoring the best characteristics of both. 

                                                    

                                                    

Outline to Emphasize

When you draw a dim line around something, you point it out. It appears like the famous magazines can't get enough of windows with dark trim, and this photograph shows why- the dull shading not just attracts the eye to the perfect embellishment on these numerous paned windows; it likewise pulls one's look to the verdant trees outside. 

                                                    

                                                   

A Sense of Place

The Inn at Little Washington’s Patrick O’Connell dishes about design in his former home on the property

                                                    

When self-taught chef Patrick O’Connell opened The Inn at Little Washington in a former auto repair shop in 1978, few would have wagered that the venture would not only succeed but would garner top accolades from restaurant critics for decades to come.

                                                 

Though it has grown to include 24 guest rooms in the original structure (which also houses the restaurant and public spaces) and several outbuildings, the Inn still recalls another time and place. Inspired by notable European properties, O’Connell’s fanciful creation centered on the main streets of rural Washington, Virginia (population: 150), transports guests into a world where walls are painted in monkey motifs, cheese is served atop an anatomically correct cow sculpture and ceilings are bedecked in kaleidoscopic cutouts of designer wall coverings—and that’s just for starters. No two guestrooms are alike.

                                                    

“What is lacking today [in hospitality] is a sense of place, an identity, an authenticity, a personality,” says O’Connell. “We want guests to feel like they’re in someone’s home and we want it to look as if it has been here a long, long time.”

                                                   

To O’Connell, nailing the ambiance and timeworn patina is just as critical as serving an impeccable foie gras. “Your eye can never be bored, just as your palate can never be bored,” he says. “It’s all parallel, to keep guests intrigued and amused and to sustain that fascination.”

                                                 

O’Connell grew up in “big” Washington, where he studied theatre at Catholic University. One could argue that he hasn’t strayed far from his first calling. In his forthcoming book, The Inn at Little Washington: A Magnificent Obsession (Rizzoli, New York, April 2015; $50), O’Connell reveals that in his mind the Inn is a “healing cocoon” and a “folly and stage set for whatever drama is being played out” in guests’ lives.

If the Inn is theatre, O’Connell’s leading lady is Joyce Conwy Evans, a London-based set designer who has decorated every room on the property—most of them sight unseen. After she receives a blueprint of a new project, he explains, “Joyce goes into a trance and starts painting a rendering in watercolor. She has a vision and then steps into it. It’s been a wonderful collaboration for over 35 years.”

                                               

 

In addition to guest quarters, Evans also collaborates with O’Connell on his private residences on the “campus.” One of these was Claiborne House. After O’Connell purchased the 1899 “eyesore,” he hired Alexandria architect Allan Greenberg to transform it into a stately, two-bedroom cottage that would look like it had always been there. The architect’s plan created a kitchen, library, media room and veranda and gave the house presence with a front porch and two-story foyer.

Named for a frequent guest, food writer and critic Craig Claiborne, the cottage was O’Connell’s own home until 2006, when he moved into an 1885 Victorian he’d purchased nearby. Soon after, Claiborne House became the Inn’s presidential suite. In addition to its namesake, the retreat has hosted Al and Tipper Gore, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, designers Carleton Varney and Charlotte Moss and many a celebrity chef.

                                                     

In the design of his current home, O’Connell and Evans are following their proven approach. “Each space, each piece of architecture, has a narrative that it needs to have told. It’s a little like raising a kid; it can’t necessarily be exactly what you want it to be. You follow its orders—and try not to go broke doing it,” O’Connell quips. Once they find a “clue,” whether it’s a piece of furniture, a color or wallpaper, everything falls into place. While his master bathroom is done (heated floors, marble-slab walls, Waterworks tub), the residence remains a work in progress.

                                               

However, readers will soon be able to survey the rest of O’Connell’s domain in his handsome and eloquent new book. “People who have worked here for 10 years have never seen it all,” he says. “The book is a window into the extent of the nuttiness.”

Chef, proprietor, co-designer and star of the show, O’Connell has clearly found his oeuvre. “My love,” he concludes, “is the art of transformation. Transforming anything. Like a turnip into something incredible, or a tear-down into something magical.”