“Brian and Tracy’s last house was a Tudor without a lot of sunlight, so the question was ‘How do you bring a bright, contemporary spirit to a house with traditional bones?’ Here, the challenge was flipped—we wanted to bring a sense of warmth and coziness to a pristine contemporary house,” Brent explains. Berkus, predictably, has his own take: “They didn’t want to go full Neutra,” he quips. “They didn’t want a room with three pieces of perfect modern furniture.” Instead, the designers orchestrated an unpretentious, decades-spanning symphony of chic, eminently comfortable furnishings, many reused from the homeowners’ previous residence.

Berkus and Brent’s biggest moves involved the transformation of the kitchen with new bronze cabinetry and floating shelves, and the replacement of a reflecting pool on the subterranean level with a verdant Japanese garden. More subtle gestures throughout the home were calculated to lend intimacy and texture to specific rooms without overshadowing the integrity of the architecture. The designers cloaked the four walls of the dining room in suede curtains, for instance, and sheathed a powder room in a coat of paint resembling mottled Venetian plaster. They also converted the lower-level lounge into a seriously alluring grown-up playroom awash in black plaster, nero marquina marble, and bronze details. “That space is the yin to the yang of the rest of the house. It’s the perfect place for after-dinner hangout time,” says James, who is launching a namesake collection of breezy silk dresses and vacationwear next spring.