Introducing The Pathway to The Secret Garden: A Southwest Ranches Home Reveal

Our design team at DKOR Interiors has completed The Pathway to the Secret Garden, a full interior renovation of an 11,000-square-foot Mediterranean home in Southwest Ranches, Florida.

The concept grew out of the home’s original arches. They guide you through the house to a bright mediterranean living room and, beyond it, to the garden the family loves. 

How do you modernize a mediterranean-style home without losing its character? 

To answer this, you must keep the core architecture that gives the home its unique identity. At the same time, you need to rethink the natural light, the materials, and the way rooms connect. Many South Florida homes built in the nineties share this classic Mediterranean style. Consequently, owners often believe the only solution is to tear everything down and start over.

Fortunately, our DKORistas specialize in this exact type of challenge. In this residence, they preserved the essential structure of the original architecture. Starting with the arches, they redesigned every detail to fit modern family life.

The Concept: The pathway to the secret garden 

Those graceful arches became the heart of the design concept. For our design team, they represent strength and support. Additionally, they bring openness and lightness into a solid structure.

We intentionally used them as a series of visual thresholds. Therefore, each arch frames the next room and draws you a little farther in until the garden finally comes into view. Scale, shape, harmony, and rhythm guided every decision along the way.

A Mediterranean living room under wood beams and skylights 

That path ultimately leads to the living room, where the design concept shines brightest. Our team added rich wood beams along the ceiling and enlarged the skylights. Working closely with Constructores Bomar on the application, daylight now falls directly down the center of the room.

Arched openings on both sides keep the area connected to the rest of the house, offering a clear view through to the dining room. Rooms this grand can easily feel overly formal. To prevent this, we kept the furniture low and inviting, adding deep white sofas alongside warm touches of wood and leather. Consequently, the space feels exceptionally comfortable whenever the whole family gathers together.

Bringing the garden inside 

Maximizing natural light mattered immensely, since the original house felt very dark. We removed a central wall to turn the main areas into one open space. Moreover, we enlarged windows and openings so daylight could reach deeper into the interiors and the landscape could become part of the view from the main rooms.

As a result, Architectural Alliance Landscape transformed the outdoor spaces and Constructores Bomar handled construction, so the inside and the outside of the home now feel like one unified place.

A Palette Drawn From the Landscape 

With the garden now part of the view, we took the palette from the landscape: soft creams, earthy browns, muted greens and natural stone tones, with touches of burnt orange. Stone, aged wood, marble and brushed metals give the house a sense of permanence, and brass details and leather add warmth. That mix is what makes an old-world style feel contemporary. It’s luxury interior design that respects the home’s history and works for everyday life. 

In 2022, we shared the inspiración para el diseño y el rooms we were planning for this home. Now the arches, the light and the garden work together the way the concept imagined. Thinking about updating a Mediterranean-style home of your own? Start a conversation with our design team.