“The Older I Get, The Simpler I Want My Rooms To Be”
How could you leave a house like this behind? When I lunch with Bernadette Salt at her Palm Beach eyrie, all Palm Beach views and enviable interiors, she is preparing to leave this precious perch post-divorce. Having poured a lot of love into the home, she is looking forward to doing it all again somewhere just as special, when the time is right.
“A house is just walls and a floor. Having our last house destroyed in a storm, leaving this house for a new phase, it’s really about who you share it with,” says Bernadette. “People are the real energy to good decoration and will override any design every time.”
Memory-making objects are sign of a life well lived but Bernadette is quick to add, “Stuff for the sake of it is just filler. The older I get, the simpler I want my rooms to be”.
What’s it like to own the dream stove? “I had wanted a Lacanche forever, but now I am cooking on a Falcon (owned by AGA). It’s the one splurge I made and it’s paid me back tenfold with the joy it gives me to cook for my friends and family.”
“Being able to catch my own fish in the mornings to eat for dinner that night has made isolating truly such a blessing,” says Bernadette. Knowing that she will shortly be leaving this home has encouraged her to see as many sunsets as possible, catch as much fish as she can cook and enjoy every single living thing in her garden, right down to the strawberries she planted in old colanders on her outdoor table. Edible centrepieces are the new marker of the good life. (As I type, I Google “how to grow strawberries stat” in tandem with a Facebook Marketplace preset search for colanders!)
“Solo dinners or large groups, my table can be of such comfort and I make sure to set it as best as I can no matter what the occasion.” Having her things set in a casual way makes it effortless for Bernadette. Combined with her gracious cooking, it’s a hypnotic experience as a guest. Cutlery stored in old candle jars, stacks of napkins to take as you need. There is no “good cupboard”; it’s all good and it’s all out to be used. “Cookbooks are my weakness, but also my greatest resource.” Is it a won’t stop/can’t stop situation? “Yes, unapologetically so!”
“Peaceful and unfussed, I put next to zero effort into my room,” Bernadette says. “Next house, though, it will be my number one priority and where I will start my decorating from.”
“This time of my life is all about support from my female friends. I have got into the habit of taking shots on my step of those who have joined me for lunch. What a beautiful burst of memories I get every time I look and remember what we ate and what we shared. Do you have a sister step? Make one next time your favourite females come over. Go on!”
Interview + Photos_ Megan Morton