SUZANNE MCFAYDEN’S THIRD ACT
“This is my third act,” says Jamaican-born writer, philanthropist, and prolific contemporary art collector Suzanne McFayden. With her youngest child graduating from college this past spring, the Jamaican-born empty nester was ready for change — and a home that reflected who she is now. The
Style Observer was only too happy to feature her 2019 stunning property in our September 2020 issue and was naturally eager to get in on the third act which saw McFayden reuniting with architect Paul Lamb (@paullambarchitects) and interior designer Jennifer Vaughn Miller
(@vaughnmillerstudio).
Tranquil reflection redefined her idea of home. After selling her 7,000-square-foot Brutalist concrete house in Austin, Texas — featured by Architectural Digest in 2019 — McFayden sought “something cosy and nourishing”, she says, “with wall space for art”. She found her “sleeping beauty” tucked into a verdant thicket of Red Oak and Live Oak trees in Austin’s Hill Country. To bring the project to life, she reunited with local architect Paul Lamb and New York City–based interior designer Jennifer Vaughn Miller, the team behind her previous industrial monolith. The result is a deeply personal Austin retreat where every room tells a story.
CREDITS
Feature by Punch Hutton
Photography by Douglas Friedman
Architect: Paul Lamb
Interior designer: Jennifer Vaughn Miller
Suzanne McFayden (second left) is pictured with children (from left) Zoë, Max, and Eliana for the Architectural Digest 2019 feature…Kara Marie Trombetta
Dining room: Custom ceramic dining table by Hun Chung Lee from R & Company; upholstered H Chairs from Estudio Persona; Metropole bench in shearling from Monc XIII; and Pierre Frey’s Mendes Meringue fabric drapes. Paintings include Nick at a Mirror (After Rubens’s Venus at a Mirror) by Mathenge and Sanogo Messenger (2021) by Raphaël Barontini. Sculptural works Simone Leigh’s Untitled (cowrie with rosettes) and Lynda Benglis’s QT (2023) in Everdur bronze, add rich textures to the room. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
“I’m not a big cook, but I do love to make breakfast,” McFayden says about her kitchen layout. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
The primary bathroom (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
In McFayden’s study, Ebony G Patterson’s extraordinary diptych, …sunsets and monarchs come to feast, snakes come to discover as she remains lost in plain sight… (2019), takes centre stage.(Photo: Douglas Friedman)
McFayden’s son Max’s bedroom pairs midcentury design with bold contemporary forms against walls painted in Farrow & Ball’s Ammonite. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
The closet features a vintage Turkish rug from Chairish and custom Minotti La Michetta ottomans upholstered in a mix of Schumacher and Holland & Sherry fabrics. An Apparatus pendant and Sophie Lou Jacobsen table lamps provide a soft glow. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
The moody library is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Radicchio and features a crimson, low-slung Mario Bellini sofa for B&B Italia. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
For the living room: A Sagitta Constellation ceiling fixture by Hallworth, 1957 Sergio Rodrigues Mole sofa, 1960 Hans Wegner Ox chair from Galerie Half, 1960s Charlotte Perriand stool from Gallery Roth, and a custom solid-bronze buffet. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
…and later in the Style Observer on September 20, 2020.
Foyer finished in Domingue limewash paint, features a front door — five feet wide by 10 feet tall — with a custom pineapple doorknob by local artisan Hawkeye Glenn, honouring the Jamaican symbol of hospitality; vintage Isamu Noguchi Akari light sculpture hung above a custom wool rug by Pierre Augustin Rose; a 2014 Senegalese tribal chair by Babacar Niang; a Haas Brothers Monkey bench; and a Studio Van Den Akker ottoman covered in a Moore & Giles shearling. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
The exterior of Suzanne McFayden’s Austin home with interior design by Jennifer Vaughn Miller and architecture by Paul Lamb. McFayden describes her garden, landscaped by Word + Carr, as a “living artwork”. (Photo: Douglas Friedman)
