The Best of Design: Personalized Luxury with Carlitos Matta

Personalized Luxury

Carlitos Matta

[highlight_text] Matta cites two other important aspects of his business. For him, “It is all about having the right sources and most of all a flawless service.”  [/highlight_text]

By Mary Mullaj
Photography by Hector O. Torres

Architecture, art, and design are only a few of the distinctive qualities that make Carlitos Matta one of Miami’s top licensed realtors and coveted interior decorators. He combines these specialties to create a higher standard for contemporary luxury living by allowing clients to purchase real estate and then have it decorated to suit their needs and tastes. “I can find a unique, exclusive property and transform it into a dream home,” says Matta. He prides himself on his ability to visualize a home’s potential and refashion it into a unique, personalized space that will suit each of his elite clients perfectly.

Matta’s custom creations are always based around his customers’ personalities and lifestyles. “My clients’ best interests and desires always come first,” he explains. “When searching for a home with a client, I only present exceptional properties that I know will suit their lifestyle, and then I offer them a turnkey residence, where all they have to bring is their clothes.” Matta’s conviction that uniqueness and exclusivity can be achieved in all types of ambiance makes him just as likely to choose a 19th century chandelier as a contemporary Ingo Maurer creation. In the same vein, in one client’s room he chose to mix an antique Indian mirror with blue and white porcelain accessories from Williams Sonoma Home. In choosing pieces, he never loses sight of the reasons for his designs: the space, the place, and above all, the person. The results are all embracing, timeless interiors where each piece has a rationale and a story.

Suiting his clientele is the most important piece of the design puzzle for Matta, but his personal favorite part is envisioning and choosing the perfect details. They are integral components of his interiors, and for him, details are the path to achieving ultimate luxury in a design. One example of this can be found in Tahiti Beach in Coral Gables, which he personally perfected. The most spectacular space has to be the family room, in which Matta chose to surround the Kreiss sectional, round table, and chairs by beautiful flowering plants by Citiscapes. The room is accented by silk pillows, throws, silver pedestal lamps, a wood tray and window curtains by Williams Sonoma Home. Antique Louis Vuitton trunks from Paris and a crystal chandelier from Prague provide the final touches. The mix of the contemporary furniture and details with the antique accents creates an amazing environment that is both welcoming and luxurious.

Matta cites two other important aspects of his business. For him, “It is all about having the right sources and most of all a flawless service.” With over a decade of experience in the design industry, he has a plethora of worldwide sources at his fingertips that allow him to tailor his designs to his clients’ exact needs and wants. These are the last ingredients in Matta’s array of exceptional services that culminate in the creation of luxury dream properties. That Matta handles all aspects of the process makes the experience pleasant and the personalized results even more enjoyable.

www.CarlosMatta.com
305.457.9700
Understated Elegance

Charlotte Dunagan Avot

This refreshing-and rare-professionalism has produced the rapidly growing demand for interior designer Charlotte Dunagan Avot. In just six years, she has become the go-to creative guru for the rich and famous all over the world. Her company, Atmosphere Creations, in Miami’s hot Design District, works on a referral-only basis, with the waiting list to prove it.

Charlotte’s sought-after style can be simply expressed in two words: understated elegance. Her refined eclectic taste, respect for client’s needs and wishes, along with a flawless ability to create timeless, versatile spaces, draws a sophisticated international clientele of luxury homeowners and boutique businesses from South Florida, the Caribbean and Europe. She is fluent in English, French, and Spanish, which adds to her global appeal.

Style and creativity are literally in Charlotte’s genes. The daughter of an interior designer mother and antique dealer father, she was born and raised in Paris. Traveling with her parents throughout Europe, she developed an eye for exceptional workmanship and the quality of collectible pieces of art and furnishings. She began her formal training at the MJM Graphic Design School in Nice, France, and received a bachelor’s degree from the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, graduating first in her class with the Academic Achievement award and Most Outstanding Thesis award. Her extraordinary talent for combining color, textures, and styles has since earned her a reputation as a designer’s designer. Since a home is so personal, this chic Parisian credits her clients as her true inspiration. Charlotte invests a great deal time getting to know who they are and how they live, which often results in long-lasting relationships.

As the proud mother of two active and beautiful boys, Liam and Morgan, Charlotte knows how a home has to function. “A home must suit your way of being,” she says. “You must want to live in it. A space can be very beautiful and formal, but it has to work for your lifestyle.”

Whenever possible, she collaborates with the architects on a project to create livable spaces that balance both form and function. Impeccable attention to proportion and the details of a room, even down to custom hardware, make all the difference. She refuses to rely solely on ready-made showroom stock, calling instead upon international resources to find new materials and one-of-a-kind pieces, combining furniture with history and character.

Also renowned for her commercial work, the versatile designer loves the buzz about her just-completed shoe store, Tuccia Di Capri, and restaurant project, the up-scale Maison D’Azur at the Astor Hotel in South Beach. She’s already at work on its offshoot, Brasserie D’Azur, in Midtown Miami.

Charlotte’s success is based on more than just her creative talents: her professional and business savvy are razor sharp. “I am in the service industry,” she says. “I am here to facilitate the process and make the experience as enjoyable as possible while making my clients’ dreamhouse come true. That is my true passion.”

Atmosphere Creations
2 NE 40th St.
Suite 505
Miami, Florida 33137
305.438.0130
www.atmospherecreations.com
Koji Collection

By embracing nature’s example as inspiration for conceptual design, going green never looked so cool.

By Jeremy Lissek

Nature is not just a strong influence. It’s not just a pervasive manifestation. Nature, and more importantly, the concepts and principles it embodies, provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration, comfort, and example. At the Koji Collection, art and nature are indistinguishable, inspired by the Asian ideal of bringing nature indoors, and distilled into designs that consider humanity’s relationship with the surrounding world-captivating the imagination thoroughly and powerfully.

At the Miami-based Koji, the bounty of nature is quoted, adapted, and celebrated in streamlined shapes and organic twists-literally and figuratively. Lotus leaves. Ripples. Clovers. Turtles and olives, eagles and half oranges-they’re all wickedly interpreted into furniture and accessories. Koji provides ultra-modern, high-end pieces for those who want their living space to be a place where myth and dreams are set free to play. These pieces are not shadows of reality, but produce new existences and essences in their own right. From chairs to daybeds, tables to dog and cat cabins, Koji lyrically arranges elements and utilizes organically derived motifs to create an unprecedented design vocabulary. It reminds us how great design can make the mind sing.

It can also recreate and redirect the function of nature itself. Koji is one firm that doesn’t just preach the environment; it’s its entire reason for being. The core mission is to offer a hand-made collection from natural, easily renewable materials-nuisance vines like rattan, liana, and jute; the kind of vine that overgrows in the forest, chokes out the old and prevents new tree saplings from sprouting. Another type is water hyacinth, a vine that clogs up rivers and shallow waterways. By helping to control and repurpose these eco-hazards, Koji provides indoor and outdoor furniture that modern living, forward thinking, eco-conscious people can take pride in.

Some Koji pieces have an overt geometry; some are somewhat softer. Yet no matter the specially selected motif, there is always a consistency that speaks of an organizing intellect of detail intended to symbolize the essential character of habitats, objects, and organisms. The Koji imagination is boundless: the Amazon, shells, roots, fossils, caribou, abalone, jellyfish stools, bug day beds, bottle gourds, rolling stone hanging lamps. When you sit in an olive pit chair, you essentially become the pit. And Koji’s avant-garde vision extends beyond terra firma, into outer space. There are space crab chairs, as well as a wormhole table, called “Space-Time,” which is supported by so many paradigm-busting legs that it seems to stand on the great wall of the universe itself.

The chic confluence of subtle shapes and intelligent materials is why the hospitality industry and interior designers are already flipping out over the collection. It’s also why Koji Collection is the official collection of the 2009 Academy Awards. It will be creating Koji Collection luxury suites for celebs and V.I.P. guests at the Beverly Hilton Hotel during Oscar week.

I’m sure those A-listers will also experience what I did today, how when the whimsy of art meets the necessity, form, and function of craftsmanship, it can be a powerful vector for change. At lunch, as I was eating a salad, I stopped, stared at, and picked up a green olive. I had never looked at it in quite the same way before, and never will again.
International Design

Interiors by Steven G.

By Beth Brody

When stepping into a room designed by Interiors by Steven G., the initial reaction is often sheer awe. The sleek designs accented with luxurious global influences transform beautiful spaces into exceptional rooms that simply take your breath away.

Steven G.’s design approach is best defined as a flawless marriage between Art Deco and globally inspired sophistication. With the striking and luxurious ambiance conveyed by his designs, Steven G.’s all-inclusive creative process continually satisfies even the most discerning clientele, both commercial and residential, and the company is actively commissioned to work on projects by prominent developers in Florida, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Honduras, Trinidad, and Tobago.

The company has worked with many high-profile individuals including athletes Patrick Surtain, Warren Sapp, Waldimir Klitschko, and Jason Taylor. Even with the non-stop schedule that they operates under, Steven G. and his team believe in philanthropy, and are actively involved with Marines Toys for Tots, the Jason Taylor Foundation,  Magnums Force, and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society among others.

The two showrooms-Ft. Lauderdale and Manhattan-display everything that a discerning patron would need to decorate a space, laden with antiques and textiles from around the world. The new Manhattan showroom, Interiors by Steven G. and Antiquities, offers a plethora of high-demand French Art Deco pieces and a variety of antiques and the exclusive new Fall and Winter jewerly line of the Soltice Collection. “We have purchased a private collection of more than 300 pieces of Lalique that will be on display in the showroom of Interiors by Steven G. at prices below that of any other gallery,” Steven G. explains. There is also a multitude of pieces from various eras available on the website.

With more than 30 years in the interior design industry, Interiors by Steven G. is the ultimate authority when it comes to globally influenced interiors and stunning aesthetics, and its services are unmatched in the industry, offering rare all-inclusive detailing. From selecting paint to upholstery, from delivery to assembly, every aspect is taken care of by the highly qualified staff. Although Interiors by Steven G. is based in Florida, Steven clarifies that there is unlimited access to all products, including antiques from around the world. “The world is really at our fingertips,” he says.

The luxury of such detailed personalization in addition to the stunning designs makes it clear why Interiors by Steven G. is rapidly expanding.

Additionally, the company has just relocated its corporate office and showroom to Pompano Beach. The new locale is a “statement in design,” allowing interiors by Steven G. to be a leading force in the interior design industry.

www.interiorsbysteveng.com
2818 Center, Port Circle.
Pompano Beach, FL. 33064