Interior designer Krista Watterworth Alterman of Krista + Home created a master bathroom and dressing area for Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach 2019, which celebrated its winter season opening in her local area of West Palm Beach, Florida.
The House Tipster Industry team was able to speak exclusively with the designer at the show house’s recent press unveiling event, and she shared the personal story behind “Le Bubble Lounj,” her gorgeous oasis of a space at the event.
“I have been in the industry since 2004, when I did my first design show with HGTV,” Watterworth Alterman said. “Then I went back to school to Parsons and became a bona fide designer instead of playing one on TV. And now I have a successful studio here in Palm Beach Gardens, where I have six employees and a full roster of high-end residential homes that we work on throughout Palm Beach County.”
The location of the show – and her studio workplace – greatly influenced her design sensibility.
“I have a brand or sense of style that I call The New Palm Beach: it’s not your grandmother’s Palm Beach anymore,” Watterworth Alterman said. “We definitely have respect for the classic elements of Palm Beach, and I put that in every home that I do. But my style and my brand is really a fresh, clean, organic take on the Palm Beach style and the lifestyle itself.”
For the 2019 Kips Bay Palm Beach Decorator Show House, Watterworth Alterman wove several elements of her personal design sense together to create a standout room.
“What you’ll see in this space are a few nods to the classic, which is the iron hardware, and the burnished brass or aged brass elements, as well as the authentic marble that we used throughout the space,” the designer shared. “Also, the black and white elements are pretty classic, but we have a contemporary spin on that. Everything has clean lines, and it’s elegant, sophisticated, sexy.”
When it came time to put together the bathroom space, Watterworth Alterman let many of her beautiful materials speak to her, and guide the direction of the design.
“The inspiration for the color palette itself came from this beautiful slab of marble that I found at a slab yard prior to beginning the full-gut renovation of this room,” the designer said. “That’s what we did, we tore everything down, gutted it, and renovated it. All of the color inspiration comes from the white lightning slab, which is really, honestly, the wow factor as you walk in. It gave us the black, gold, white, and gray elements that you’ll see throughout the space.”
But for the story behind the elegant room – and how it fits into the Mediterranean-style Fountain House this season – comes from the designer’s own personal life.
“The inspiration for what we call ‘Le Bubble Lounj’ is celebration, and getting ready for a celebration,” she said. “We wanted this to feel like an upscale lounge where you’re getting ready to go out and celebrate life.”
“That sort of came from my own personal story, because every Friday I get ready for date night with my husband,” Watterworth Alterman said. “We turn our master bathroom into a lounge – it doesn’t look anything like this but I wish it did! – and we have cocktails, that’s why we have a bar in the dressing area. We play music, so we have these amazing Kohler speakers. We really start the celebration, and that was the impetus behind this sexy lounge vibe.”
