Projects in Palm Beach and design professionals with ties to the island were honored Saturday at The Colony during the eighth annual Addison Mizner Awards, a juried competition sponsored by the Florida chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.
Ken Tate, principal of Ken Tate Architect of Palm Beach, took home the Mizner Medal for single-family residential design of more than10,000 square feet. The award honored the firm’s design of an “urban villa,” a Mediterranean-style house in New Orleans.
Fairfax, Sammons & Partners of Palm Beach and New York City earned its Mizner Medal for best renovation/addition for its work at a landmarked house at 9 Golfview Road overlooking the Everglades Golf Course. Husband-and-wife architects Richard Sammons and Anne Fairfax worked on the house with their two business partners in the investment project: Paul Shiverick and his wife, Palm Beach interior designer and Palm Beach Architectural Commission Alternate Member Betsy Shiverick, who designed the house’s interiors.
Fairfax and Sammons’ firm also won for best residential interior design for their work at the Shivericks’ personal home in Southport, Connecticut, a project that involved a major historical renovation of the couple’s 1854 sea captain’s house. In accepting the award, former Architectural Commission Chairman Richard Sammons credited Betsy Shiverick for her contributions to the design.
Kirchhoff & Associates Architects, headed by Jupiter architect Thomas Kirchhoff, took the prize for excellence in historic preservation for the restoration and renovation of the Gioconda and Joseph King Library at the Society of the Four Arts’ campus in Palm Beach.
“I was very honored to be the architect for this really iconic building in Palm Beach,” Kirchhoff said in accepting his medal. “I had admired it for a long time, and I’m really honored to receive this award tonight.”
The Mizner Medal is the latest of several honors the library project has earned. In November, it took an award of honor in the commercial and institutional category in a competition sponsored by the Palm Beach County chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
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During Saturday’s awards ceremony in the Coral Ballroom, representatives of two Palm Beach landscape architecture firms on the island took home Mizner Medals.
SMI Landscape Architecture earned the landscape architecture award for its design of Southlawn, an 8-acre estate in Scarsdale, New York. SMI partner John C. Lubischer spoke about the project when he accepted the award with his SMI partner Jorge Sanchez.
“We had an amazing time with this project,” Lubischer said after describing the property owners as “the greatest patrons.”
Nievera Williams Design was recognized in the commercial-project category for the landscapes it designed as part of the recent facelift at the landmarked Royal Poinciana Plaza shopping center on Cocoanut Row. Principals Mario Nievera and Keith Williams worked on the project and were on hand for the ceremony.
New York-based interior designer Sarah Magness, who served on the awards jury and acted as emcee for the evening, praised Nievera and Williams for their work at the plaza, which created a space “that makes you want to walk around and shop.”
In his speech, Williams thanked the plaza’s management team, including Samantha David and Alexandra Patterson, for giving his firm “an amazing opportunity at a plaza that had kind of shriveled away over the years and (allowing us to help) bring it back to life.” He also thanked “the people of Palm Beach,” the Landmarks Preservation Commission, other preservationists and town officials for their help in re-imagining the plaza.
Interior designer Ellen Kavanaugh of Ellen Kavanaugh Interiors of Palm Beach took home her medal in a category titled “One Room Interior Design” for her design of a Palm Beach living room in a renovated Mediterranean-style house built in1926. She thanked Michael Perry of MP Design & Architecture, who designed the renovation; the design team at Nievera Williams Design; and her husband, Chip Valle, who served as contractor.
Palm Beacher Sarah McCann’s interior design firm, McCann Design Group, accepted her award for best commercial interior design, which recognized the renovation of her firm’s freestanding building at 1600 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.
Other awards, in categories ranging from institutional projects to multi-family residential architecture to fine-art restoration went to Florida design firms in Coral Gables; Miami; Tampa, West Palm Beach and Hollywood. Other winners were based in New York City and South Bend, Indiana.
In addition to Magness, the jury consisted of Coral Gables-based architect Rafael Portuondo, who has designed a number of houses in Palm Beach; and London-based architect Jonathan Taylor, a partner at Timothy Smith & Jonathan Taylor. Entries were judged “blind,” meaning that no professionals’ names were attached to the projects during the review process, officials said.
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