This Chic Home Pushes Back on Las Vegas Style Stereotypes
Everyone knows the quintessential Las Vegas style: From outfits to cars to casinos, it’s all about glitzy opulence. Outside the card rooms and cocktail bars, this more-is-more ethos has crept into home design—especially the condo complexes built in the 1990s and 2000s, when the city was one of the fastest-growing in the United States. For Chris and Kim, a young couple who love Vegas but not its ubiquitously extravagant interiors, renovating their 3,000-square-foot condo to fit a more minimal aesthetic took vision, restraint—and the right interior designer.
“There’s a dominant decor style here that Chris and I call ‘Casino Bathroom,’” says Kim, who is originally from Chicago and works for a nonprofit organization. “We didn’t want that over-the-top, gold-and-marble look.”
“We both work at home, so we placed a premium on minimalism,” Chris continues. “The less stuff we have, and the less potential for clutter, the better. A lot of what drives what we like about the homes we’ve lived in stems from the art we’ve collected and how everything else reacts to or works with the art, whether that’s from a physical perspective or an energy perspective.”
Interior designer Daniella Villamil, with whom the couple collaborated on a previous home, understood this approach and the importance of incorporating the couple’s paintings and prints into the project. “I come from a family of artists, so Chris and Kim’s directive to center the design on art and color spoke to me,” she says.
Kim found Villamil online and was drawn to her contemporary style, which is sophisticated with a playful edge. When the couple first saw the listing for their current residence—a condo just off the strip with prominent views of the Sphere, the Observation Wheel, and the desert mountains beyond—it was fully done up in the Old Vegas style they hoped to avoid. “The building has a lot of traditional details,” Villamil says. “The condo was very outdated. There were a lot of soffits, heavy ornate moldings, porcelain floors, and one of the bathrooms was red and black with a lot of crystals.”
The space needed work—Villamil took the interiors down to the studs—but the configuration stayed the same. “We couldn’t move any plumbing because it would have required us to go through the neighbors’ units,” she says. With the prescribed layout and selected art, the designer created a modern, color-forward home that balances furniture and decor with a particular eye toward scale. “They wanted to reuse as much furniture as possible, but with the decrease in square footage [from their past home], we couldn’t take a lot.”
Stepping into the condo, guests are greeted with a custom mural painted on top of the foyer’s formerly gilded ceiling dome. Painted by Los Angeles artist Abel Macias (a favorite of Kelly Wearstler), the illustration combines bright flora and fauna with a pastel pink background. “It was a great opportunity to put art in a place where we hadn’t before,” Chris explains.
Installing a mural, rather than the more traditional choice of a chandelier, keeps sight lines open through the living room, which has a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that let in light and provide panoramic views. Furniture in this room is kept to a minimum, with a custom sectional, ottomans, and oak tables. The large custom rug ties everything together, but its size presented a transport challenge for the building’s small elevators. Framed pieces from Niki Hare and Kelly Puissegur hang on either side of the foyer, layering in unexpected moments of humor and expressionism.
Adjacent to the living room is the kitchen and dining nook, both painted the same Benjamin Moore Forest Green as the front door. White oak floors and a large window behind the dining table help balance the jewel tone and keep the room from feeling too dark. Green tones continue in the primary suite, where Villamil limewashed the walls. As it was one of the few walls in the home without art, the designer wanted to create visual interest through texture. The custom-designed bed, a piece from Kim and Chris’s previous home, presented the project’s biggest challenge: The only way to get the bed into the building without craning it in was to cut it in half, transport it using the elevators, then have a team reassemble it in the room. A neutral-toned primary bathroom is a calming contrast and a beloved end-of-the-day retreat.
Color abounds elsewhere: Chris’s office features a moody palette of blue-gray that extends into the adjoining bathroom; the powder room is a study in mixing patterns (bold yellow Maison C wallpaper plays nice with checkered Moroccan floor tile and a Calacatta Viola marble counter). Even the laundry room received a colorful reboot, with Farrow & Ball’s deep Merlot-toned Brinjal coating the cabinetry. Antiques and art round out the home, and, with a story behind every piece, it’s an unfolding blueprint of Chris and Kim’s life adventures.
“Daniella’s ability to bring together contrasting colors and textures is her greatest strength,” Chris says. “It’s one thing to take a bunch of things that feel different and jam them all together, but to create a room where everything comes together to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts—that’s a bit of magic.”
Art: Lou Majors1/13Villamil commissioned Los Angeles artist Abel Macias to paint the formerly gilded ceiling dome in the foyer. A pendant light from The Urban Electric Co. is a finishing touch. The vintage Royere wall sconces pick up the red tones of the painting at the end of the hallway.
Art: Niki Hare. Kelly Puissegur.2/13Work by artists Niki Hare and Kelly Puissegur flank the foyer and set the tone for the living room. The walls are painted with Farrow & Ball’s Borrowed Light, and the ceiling is New White from the same brand.
Art: Kelly Puissegur3/13With striking views of the Las Vegas strip, the living room gets generous amounts of natural light. The custom sectional, designed by Daniella Villamil through Desert Upholstery, is covered in a dusty pink Kravet fabric. The ottomans are custom, and the side chairs are Samuel Lamas, upholstered in Dedar. A textural chandelier from Circa Lighting adds depth without detracting from the view.
4/13After seeing a picture of Villamil’s kitchen, Kim wanted something similar, so the designer painted the cabinetry and millwork with Benjamin Moore’s Forest Green. The paint extends to the back wall paneling in the breakfast nook, where a custom banquette and a series of vintage chairs provide seating at the table. The light fixtures are custom-made through The Urban Electric Co.
5/13The powder room is a riot of color and pattern. Playful Maison C wallpaper backs a striking Calacatta Viola counter. The floor was custom-made in Morocco and features a chessboard pattern that mimics the illustrations on the wallpaper. “Daniella knocked it out of the park with this room,” Chris says. “Sometimes we leave the door open to catch glimpses as we walk by throughout the day.”
6/13Kim’s office, which offers some of the best views in the home, is full of collected vintage pieces, including a 1960s chandelier and an antique card catalog from England (not shown). The walls and ceiling are a soft, sagy green. The rattan-backed Esfera chair is by Kelly Wearstler; Villamil upholstered it with fabric from Kravet.
7/13In Kim’s bathroom, Sherwin-Williams’s Alabaster white paint sets a serene backdrop for the marble sink. Another round of floor tiles is laid in a geometric pattern, and the custom shower curtain, made from a Penny Morrison fabric, echoes the yellow tones from the primary bathroom. The over-mirror sconce is from The Urban Electric Co.
8/13Chris’s office has a similar color scheme as his bathroom, with the blues and greens acting as a contrasting backdrop for a large-scale work from artist Deanna Thompson. A round Nelson Bubble lamp hangs above the CB2 desk, at which sits a vintage chair.
9/13Chris’s bathroom is masculine and moody, with a monochromatic color scheme made interesting with texture. Villamil custom-matched the paint color to the tile.
Art: Oak Oak/Vertical Gallery10/13Due to the building’s small elevators, Kim and Chris’s bed, designed by Villamil for their previous home, had to be cut in half and reassembled in the primary suite. The walls are coated with dark green lime wash, and art is kept to a minimum to keep the focus on the textured look. The bench at the end of the bed is Kelly Wearstler, upholstered in a patterned Gaston y Daniela fabric.
11/13Despite Kim and Chris’s love of color, a neutral palette in the primary bathroom is a purposeful contrast with the bedroom. The countertops are Statuarietto marble, and the wall sconces are from The Future Perfect. Sourced through Nevada Stone, the floor tiles are laid out in a pattern referencing the geometric rugs seen in other rooms.
12/13The primary bathroom walls were finished with floor-ceiling handmade tiles—local craftsmen individually installed more than 1,000 pieces. Yellow-gold hardware complements the floor tile.
13/13An often-overlooked space, the laundry room feels elegant thanks to Farrow & Ball’s Brinjal paint paired with black subway tiles.
