When an east O‘ahu family bought the neighboring lot they’d had their eyes on for 40 years, designer Jamie Jackson came in to help give them a house that would reflect the property’s spectacular views and their lifestyles.

“We knew that in this new house we would use a palette created with the colors of sand, sky, water and warmth. So with that in mind, we took our inspiration from the daytime colors from all around the property.” says Jackson, who is design director and owner of Jamie Jackson Design. Her work includes the award-winning design of a New York City restaurant, a resort hotel in the Caribbean and homes from New York to Hawai‘i.

“The idea was to have the home nestled into the oceanfront land with a one-story footprint surrounded by an extraordinary view.”

The white bronze color of the home’s door and window frames reflect the fiery tones, which light up the house during sunset. The home itself is stucco, an earth color. The limestone floors echo the sand below, and Jackson used colors in the kitchen “that would never compete with the sunset, only enhancing it with high gloss cabinets. You can see the reflection of the ocean on all the kitchen materials. You don’t have to turn around to see the sunset. Everything in the kitchen reflects it.”

Jackson created a kitchen accent wall with handmade crackle-glazed tiles resembling tumbled beach glass in the pale moss green tones you see on the rocks below the house. The French produced lava stone kitchen counter was fired in an oven five times to produce the same crackled glaze of the handmade kitchen tiles. “It has the quality of high-gloss Chinese enamel but gives that underlying sense that we are on a volcanic island. Over it, is a wonderful light feature that looks like a paper lantern chandelier but is actually handmade porcelain. The room’s table, made by local sculptor Chris Reiner, is a sea foam green resin which replicates what you see when you look out the window. We tried not to impose ourselves on the surroundings but sink into them.”

Reiner is a Hawai‘i sculptor whose art, which is comprised entirely of found, reused or repurposed objects, is featured in the 2019 Honolulu Biennial. For this project, Reiner produced new pieces throughout the house to reflect Jackson’s aesthetic. “I wanted the pieces to provide subtle comfort,” says Reiner. “That house is very tasteful and not austere. It is humbly stylish.”

Reiner custom-built several key pieces for the home’s office, which is a particular focal point as the owner gets up very early to work from home and wanted to watch the sunrise as he did. Jackson designed an entire white board wall for the client to diagram his algorithms on. Reiner built the wall’s shelving as well as the laminate desk Jackson designed to maximize the view plane of the room.

But while the office is important, Jackson declares the lanai to be the best room in the house. “There is a giant overhang protecting it, and it’s where all the entertaining happens.” The lanai is furnished as the home’s living room, complete with a plush sectional by Dedon, an outdoor area rug and a teak dining table of teak with legs in Dekton stone which Reiner cites as his favorite piece in the house. The lanai steps down to a pool deck, which overlooks ocean and is furnished with additional Dedon pieces.

“This is all really the heart of the home. We spent money on the furniture there,” Jackson says, explaining that when she first came to work in Hawai‘i people were hesitant to buy good design for their outdoor areas, but she’s now seeing people invest in their lanai living.

While much of the house is Hawai‘i produced, elements of its design were inspired by the owners’ annual travels to the Australian Open. “Their choice of roof style, standing seamed metal for low maintenance by the sea, is often found down under,” notes Jackson.

Nor does the house have traditional baseboards. Instead, in a detail Jackson also credits to being used often in Aussie design, the sheet rock is separated from the floor not by a ledge but rather a recessed “reveal so it gives a crisp black line all around the whole room.”

“We were always trying to tie the house to the ground. We did an incredible entryway with a whole wall of hand cut basalt stone cut in Indonesia that looks like tulip petals. “The entry delivers you to a teak pivot door I designed with three windows giving guests an ocean view upon arrival. Behind the home lies the central figure of the home, the owners’ dog, Busie.

“Or you might say the owner of the home. We call it Busie’s house. She usually reigns supreme from the most expensive piece of furniture in the entire house, a Ligne Roset Italian pumpkin chair.” From there, limestone floors run seamlessly through the house out to the pool deck and down to the shoreline where monk seals live on the rocks below. It really is quite a magical place.”