Grand but never glitzy

Luxury Palm Beach interior design meets personal art collection in Tommy and Dee Hilfiger's landmark Coral House residence.

Tommy and Dee Hilfiger's Coral House — a 21,000-square-foot Palm Beach mansion designed by architect John L. Volk on three acres along South Ocean Boulevard — stands as one of the most richly detailed and personally expressive examples of luxury Florida residential interior design in recent years. Completed in collaboration with interior designer Cindy Rinfret of Rinfret, Ltd. Interior Design, the home is described by its owners as Palm Beach with a twist: a landmark luxury estate that combines the classic grandeur of Palm Beach architecture with vibrant colour, exceptional craft, and an extraordinary private art collection.

The home's material identity is defined by Dominican Republic coral stone, used throughout the walls, wainscoting, and custom-designed pedimented bookcases — all waxed and glazed in fine coral-stone dust — establishing a warm, mineral palette that gives Coral House its name and its character. Interior designer Cindy Rinfret's approach to the luxury interior design scheme balances the grand and the casual throughout: raw silk curtains from Holland & Sherry, hand-embroidered in raffia with a custom palm design, frame the neoclassical living room, where Picasso's Mousquetaire aux Oiseaux II (1972) anchors the space alongside sisal, silk, and raffia area rugs — a layered luxury material palette that is, as Rinfret describes it, grand but never glitzy.

Grand but never glitzy — Coral House is proof that a flawlessly designed home and a genuinely lived-in one are not, in the right hands, contradictions at all.

The entry hall, with its North American pecky cypress ceiling and flanking Andy Warhol silk screens — Flowers (1963) and Self-Portrait (1986) — establishes the home's private art collection credentials from the moment of arrival. The Palm Court interior courtyard, featuring de Gournay custom-embroidered raw silk wall upholstery, twin sculptural velvet sofas with contrasting silk piping, a lacquered emerald-green ceiling with applied palm rosettes, and a custom Charles Edwards chinoiserie lantern, represents what Rinfret calls the most unique space she has ever designed — a masterclass in luxury indoor-outdoor living room design. 

The Coral Bar, with its lacquered coral walls and bamboo trim detailing, functions as the social heart of the home and a showcase of tropical luxury interior design at its most considered.

The dining room, with de Gournay hand-painted lemon tree panels and Accents of France trellising, creates the atmosphere of a luxury garden gazebo dining room, while the Officine Gullo custom kitchen — described as the Ferrari of kitchens — features Charles Edwards lighting, Soane Britain stools, and a dramatic picture window framing the Hilfigers' automobile collection, including a pink 1957 Ford Thunderbird and a Rolls-Royce Corniche. Additional design highlights include a grotto-style shell-encrusted powder room by artisan Christa's South Seashells, a primary suite with custom Gracie Studio palm-tree wallpaper and panoramic Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth views, bespoke boutique-style dressing rooms, and a home office featuring works by Alex Guofeng Cao, Robert Indiana, and artist Shyglo.

Coral House is featured in Hilfiger Homes, a new publication by Tommy and Dee Hilfiger documenting seven of their most iconic residences across fifteen years. In the landscape of Palm Beach luxury residential design, celebrity home interiors, and collector's estate design, Coral House defines a new benchmark — proof that a flawlessly designed home and a genuinely lived-in one are not, in the right hands, contradictions at all.

Key takeaways

• Coral House's material identity is defined by Dominican Republic coral stone — waxed, glazed, and applied to walls, wainscoting, and custom pedimented bookcases throughout — establishing a warm mineral palette that grounds interior designer Cindy Rinfret's layered luxury scheme of raw silk, raffia, sisal, and hand-embroidery.
• The Palm Court interior courtyard — featuring de Gournay custom-embroidered raw silk upholstery, twin velvet sofas, a lacquered emerald-green ceiling with applied palm rosettes, and a custom Charles Edwards chinoiserie lantern — represents the project's most singular spatial achievement, described by Rinfret as the most unique space she has ever designed.
• The home's private art collection — Picasso, Warhol, Alex Guofeng Cao, Robert Indiana — is integrated throughout rather than displayed, reinforcing the owners' central ambition: a flawlessly designed collector's estate that reads, first and last, as a genuinely lived-in home.