Palm Beach designer to create a warm welcome at Kips Bay show house
Justin Moreland is among the interior designers taking part in the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach, which opens Feb. 24 with a special preview day in West Palm Beach.
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- Palm Beach interior designer Justin Moreland is creating the entry hall in the main residence of the upcoming Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach.
- Moreland is one of nearly two dozen design professionals taking part in the ninth annual fundraiser in West Palm Beach.
- The show house will be open to the general public for tours Feb. 25 through March 24 on North Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach.
- The show house jointly benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in New York City.
Is there a doctor in the (show) house? Well, sort of.
When Palm Beach interior designer Justin Moreland, 34, was a pre-med student at University of Texas at Dallas, he was studying biology. But in his junior year, he began to “lay out” a different career path, so to speak.
“I ended up going back into design,” he says. “It was pretty clear to me.”
His mother, he explains, had transferred her love of interiors to him. “She loved looking at beautiful spaces and talking about them,” he says.
On Feb. 24, Moreland’s traditional-style “Gracious Garden Entry” — a space he bills as “designed not simply to be passed through, but to be experienced” — will welcome guests at a by-special-ticket preview of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House on North Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach.
The next day, the fundraiser will open to the general public for four weeks of tours of designer-decorated rooms to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in New York City.
Moreland’s design studio is among 23 design firms from across the country participating in the showhouse, which this year will take place at a lakeside house — with a view of Palm Beach across the water — as well as at a cottage across the street. The two-house configuration is a first for show house organizers.
In its ninth year, the West Palm Beach fundraiser is a satellite of the venerable Kips Bay Decorator Show House sponsored in New York by the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club.
Show house is a first for Moreland
Originally from Dallas, Moreland hung out the shingle to his Palm Beach studio, Justin P. Moreland Interiors, in 2022 at 205 Worth Ave. He also works out of his homes in Dallas and in Locust Valley, New York.
After earning that biology degree, Moreland completed design internships in New York City at the Manhattan firm of Drew McGukin and, in Dallas, at Jan Showers.
But Palm Beach beckoned, and he accepted a position with Kim Coleman Interiors on Peruvian Avenue.
“At that point, I was already coming to Palm Beach for weekends. I had a small condo on the South End, and I would come to see friends and spend fun weekends here. I just fell in love with Palm Beach,” he says.
In 2020, he landed his first solo project on the island. “It was on Bradley Place — a complete gut-renovation for a young couple. I’m working with them again on their home in Wayne, Pennsylvania,” he says.
This show house will be his first.
“It’s a really great opportunity and was just the right timing,” he explains. “I’ve been on my own enough years, and I thought it would be good for me to do.
“I’ve gone to all of the show houses here, and I really wanted to be involved.”
He also likes that his work will help support the two Boys & Girls Clubs.
Moreland looked to the walls for inspiration
In the main house, the entry he has created was inspired by a single design element.
“For the last six months, I have been obsessing over Colefax and Fowler’s Honeysuckle Garden Sisal wallpaper. I have wanted to use it (in a project), but it just hadn’t made sense. So I knew immediately that I would use it at the show house,” he says.
“It has a beautiful, embroidered design of honeysuckle with butterflies flying throughout. I love the colors — gray blues and pretty greens, some yellow-golds. I just love everything about it.”
For the rest of the room, he chose a blue from the wallpaper and painted the wood trim and ceiling the same color, Benjamin Moore’s Saratoga Springs.
He added solid yellow drapery made from a fabric by Jane Churchill and adorned it with a Colefax and Fowler trim.
“I placed (the drapery) at the opening to the living room to add texture and warmth,” he explains.
He designed a console in collaboration with Casita of Dallas. He added brass sconces and a ceiling fixture by Vaughan Lighting, along with a mirror from Meg Braff Designs in West Palm Beach.
He chose a 1988 untitled painting by Susan Rothenberg, sourced through Acquavella Galleries in Palm Beach, to add “drama and movement,” as he puts it.
Other accents include a classic slipper chair by Billy Baldwin Studio and a small custom table with butterflies from Claire Crowe of Dallas.
The narrow room — just a little more than 6 feet across — posed his biggest challenge, he says.
“Since so many people will walk through this space, I had to be cautious about the depth of everything. My console table is only 12-inches deep, and the slipper chair is pushed far into the corner, so that there’s an easy flow through the space.”
Morehouse also offers visitors to his room something to notice after they’ve toured the house and are exiting through the front door: “The same designer who built my butterfly table sent me a handful of little iridescent blue butterflies that I’ve installed over the entry door and in one of the corners. I’m hoping that as people leave the show house, they’ll catch their eye.”
DESIGN FIRMS AT THE SHOW HOUSE
In addition to Justin P. Moreland Interiors, the show house’s roster of participating design firms will include Alexander Interiors, Amy Young Designs, BAMO, Inc., Bell Design, Inc., Colleen Rosar Design, Danielle Balanis Design, Eerdmans and Firefinish Interiors.
Other firms participating are Kate Ives Design, Lisa Erdmann Interiors, Lopez Group Inc., Lori Morris Design, LTA Interiors, Pappas Miron Design, River Brook, Sherrill Canet Interiors and Sire Design.
Rounding out the lineup are Steven Walsh Design, Tartan & Toile, The Lewis Gallo Design Group, Wecselman Design and Yarn Design Associates.
IF YOU GO
The Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach will take place in West Palm Beach at 3410 N. Flagler Drive as well as at “Palm Cottage” across the street. The fundraiser will be open to the general public for tours Feb. 25 to March 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Tickets are $50 in advance and $60 at the door, if available. A special preview day will be held noon-8 p.m. Feb. 24 with entrance by special ticket, beginning at $400. For tickets and information, visit KipsBayDecoratorShowhouse.org.
Traffic notice: Because of a City of West Palm Beach infrastructure project, North Flagler Drive will be closed between 34th Street and 33rd Court during the run of the showhouse. Limited street parking may be available on surrounding side streets, and visitors are encouraged to use ride-share services. Drivers should follow posted detours and approach the neighborhood from the south, allowing extra time for arrival.
For more than 20 years, Christine Davis has written about Palm Beach real estate, interior design and related topics for the Palm Beach Daily News.
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