Born in Paris, French designer Beatrice Faverjon first moved to California to pursue a directing career. After the birth of her second child, she shifted her focus to ceramics and interior design, creating homes “with the desire to elevate their functionality to the level of art while giving beauty and meaning to our daily lives.” She started with her own Los Angeles home and expanded from there.
But during COVID, a new opportunity presented itself. After years of traveling to the Hawaiian island of Kauai for holidays, Beatrice came across a house for sale with a view of Hanalei Bay. “I wasn’t able to fly to Kauai then, so I asked my real estate agent to visit the house on my behalf and FaceTime me,” she explains. “She first showed me the view of Hanalei Bay from the deck. I asked her to turn the camera around and discovered this gem.”
The gem in question is a redwood house built in 1973 by architect Douglas Ackerman for Donn Carswell, the engineer behind Kauai’s Princeville infrastructure during the 1970s. Situated on the island’s North Shore, the house remained in the Carswell family until Beatrice and her family purchased it in 2021. “The house had not been lived in for quite a while and had suffered from years of neglect. But despite the dusty carpeting and a 1980s remodel, it was still an incredible example of Hawaiian modernism.” Drawing on her background in both directing and ceramics, Beatrice approached the remodel with a sense of preservation. “I try to preserve houses more than redesign them,” she says. She maintained the floor plan, updating the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms just enough and with a sympathetic spirit. “I wanted to protect the house’s original beauty and give it a new life at the same time, while respecting the strong symbiosis between Hawaiian architecture, West Coast modernism, and Japanese heritage.” The house is also available as a vacation rental through Airbnb. Join us for a look around.
Photography by Kate Berry courtesy of Beatrice Faverjon.
