When designer Alex Alonso first walked into this home just south of Palm Beach, the situation was decidedly bleak in a very specific way. “There was some decent stonework in the house, but pretty much everything was white,” says Alonso, whose firm, Mr. Alex Tate, has offices in Miami, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City. Previous owners had reportedly owned a stone and marble company, and it showed. Their rare sprinkling of colorful choices throughout were even less appealing to the modern aesthete’s eye, right down to the pinkish-red bathroom. “It almost looked like a butcher’s house.”

Still, Alonso tried to salvage as much as he could. “We literally tried to put lipstick on the pig, so to speak, and it was not working,” he says. Nearly 10 months into their renovation on the 6,000-square-foot retreat, reality set in. “I just looked at the client and said, ‘This is not working, right?’ She said, ‘No, it’s awful.’ ” The solution? Admitting defeat and starting over with a full gut job. “We really didn’t want to add more expense, but it needed to be done,” Alonso adds.

The splurge was worth it, because this was no ordinary address. Built in 1965, the house originally belonged to artist Orville Bulman, whose fantastical tropical scenes made him South Florida’s answer to David Hockney. (Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress who built Mar-a-Lago, was a collector, along with the Duchess of Windsor.) That lineage alone demanded more than a modest refresh.

Instead of defaulting to a level of polish that has become almost predictable in this town, Alonso leaned into experimentation. “We got a little bit funky with it, especially in terms of the furniture that we layered in,” he says. “It really just kind of gave us an opportunity to be playful with it and add a little bit of whimsy and not necessarily do the obligatory Palm Beach with lots of pom-poms and sea motifs.” The owner, whose previous home on the island had a Moroccan Mediterranean feel, was game.

Alonso pushed the proverbial envelope in the living room, where he installed treillage on the tray ceiling. “It felt Palm Beach without necessarily having it be ‘so Palm Beach,’ ” he says. A wall is wrapped in a Gucci wallpaper featuring a restrained flock of large-scale herons. The property sits directly on Audubon Causeway, named after the naturalist John James Audubon. “We wanted to make sure that we brought in a little bit of that Florida vibe with birds, and give a nod to [Audubon],” says Alonso of the impactful avian accents.

Anchoring the space are vintage finds with serious pedigree. “The two sofas are actual 1970s Adrian Pearsall sofas that we bought on Chairish and reupholstered in this beautiful Schumacher velvet, which totally glammed them up,” the designer says. Overhead, two antique Palme crystal chandeliers designed by Austrian architect Josef Hoffman draw eyes upward, adding gravitas to the historic home. “Originally the house had one [chandelier] in there, and I felt it was a big enough room to take two,” Alonso notes. “Let’s have a little bit of fun with it.” He spotted them at an antique shop in Palm Beach and immediately contacted his client, suggesting they consider something similar. “These are kind of pricey, so I’m not quite sure you want to invest so much in these,” he recalls telling her. She arrived to buy them within 15 minutes.

It felt Palm Beach without having to be ‘so Palm Beach.’ 

In the wine room, a similar level of decadent drama reigns. “We definitely wanted a very moody vibe there,” Alonso explains. On the ceiling, a suede Scalamandré wallcovering delivers the sensory impact of leather—without the impracticality. “It still kind of gives you a little bit of that depth and texture,” he says. Even utilitarian spaces received bold treatment. In the bathroom that adjoins the home gym, a soft-pink marble steals the show. “She was super big on pink,” Alonso says simply, but the choice was strategic: because it sits next to the masculine-leaning home gym, office, and a sauna. “We wanted the space to be a little bit more balanced.”

For a guest suite that peers out on the Intracoastal Waterway, Alonso custom designed a scalloped bed that adds movement and charm against the striped walls. (Birds reappear here, too, in the Pierre Frey fabric selected for the draperies). Now, after his revamp, the house has achieved something truly uncommon in the Palm Beach area—a whiff of humor and a dose of edgy elegance.