It didn’t take long for Shutterstock founder Jon Oringer and his wife Talia to realise that the houses they were looking at in Miami Beach were not a fit for their family. “They didn’t match our vision or our lifestyle,” Talia shares. The Miami Vice vibe that has dominated South Florida’s visuals since the cop drama’s mid-1980s debut, with its emphasis on aggressive geometrics and glossy surfaces, was the antithesis of the welcoming oasis the couple envisioned.

Their search finally uncovered a property overlooking Biscayne Bay. “We knew it needed a lot of work,” says Talia. “But the location and the incredible view made it worthwhile.” The couple tapped esteemed interior designer Kelly Behun, whom they’d worked with on their Bridgehampton home, to animate their dream. “We knew Kelly would conjure up something unmistakably ours: curated, artistic, unique, comfortable and livable,” says Jon. Behun, who is based in New York City and whose clients include Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, has a knack for creating interiors that manage to balance Alice In Wonderland outlandishness with exquisite sophistication, resulting in spaces that are at once wildly imaginative and utterly zen.

BMA Architects’ Blaze Makoid initiated the home’s metamorphosis, downplaying the exterior’s angularity with thoughtful bronze and wood details, and installing a sculptural staircase that energises the interior. “We established a visual language that softens the home’s hard-edged modernity and underlines the home’s fluidity,” Makoid notes. “That was the warmth we were craving,” confirms Behun, who also worked with To Better Days Building.