At Porsche Design Tower, no homeowner waits for the valet. That’s because every unit in the 60-story Miami-area tower enjoys its own adjacent parking garage for multiple vehicles: 284 spaces for 132 units. And one of three elevators can whisk owners—and their vehicles—right to their homes. “You don’t have to leave your car until you are inside your apartment,” says Juergen Gessler, CEO of Porsche Design Group.
The imposing spire, a technological marvel wrapped in a sleek cylinder, is also one of the tallest buildings in Sunny Isles Beach. Designed by Sieger Suarez Architects with dynamic common areas by Michael Wolk, Porsche Design Tower was built for speed.
It fell to the Fort Lauderdale-based husband and wife duo Brett Sugerman and Giselle Loor, aka B+G Design, to do the unexpected: create a family-friendly vacation home within this new tower for some new clients, a Canadian couple with four kids. The residence is equipped with a two-car garage, and Sugerman notes that the building’s calling card demands attention. “When you’re in the lobby, you can see the car elevators going up the building,” he says. “Both the concept and the execution are cool.”
Loor emphasizes that durability—as well as the cool factor—was required. The 4,500-square-foot residence with four bedrooms and 3.5 baths was designed for children and teens, yet masquerades as a sophisticated, tailored vision in white, blue and grayscale. Liberal use of slick surfaces and metallics refer to the building’s automotive theme. “They wanted it to be fashion-forward because the husband and wife dress to the nines,” Loor explains.
Their home had to reflect that interest, but it also had to work for the way they live. For example, B+G Design modified the floor plan to create a kids’ hangout space. And Loor points out that the family room’s oversized sectional represents the home’s marriage of aesthetics and resilience: It’s upholstered in a durable, two-tone basketweave Holly Hunt fabric. (B+G custom-made the piece with their go-to collaborator, Grafton Furniture.) The throw pillows are covered in Romo fabric; the room’s swivel chairs and leather lounge chair are B&B Italia, sourced at Luminaire.
Such names demonstrate that compromising on taste was never an option. Even the hangout room, with its functional sleeper sofa by Arravanti, features icons of style, such as Herman Miller’s adjustable Sayl desk chair from Design Within Reach, and metallic blue velvet throw pillows swathed in Holly Hunt fabric. Très chic. Don’t call this a rec room.
With children’s needs not an issue in the master bedroom, B+G Design was able to focus on a different balancing act—one that has become something of their signature: the tension between male and female. If the lovingly quilted velvet armchairs by Moroso tend toward the feminine, the ribbed lacquered bed wall and wood panels, which Sugerman says illustrate “architectural integration,” are more manly.
As a result, it’s difficult to imagine a single woman or a single man inhabiting this bedroom. The chamber, which even in its softness manages to suggest the aerodynamics of a sports car, telegraphs a union. “We’re always addressing gender balance,” Loor says, “even when we’re designing for ourselves.”