November 5, 2026 | DESIGN & INTERIORS
LIVING with RUDOLPH
words YUZU Editorial
photos Venjhamin Reyes
stylist Peggy Jordao
For Nina and Michael Marco, preserving a Florida modernist house means carrying its original ideas into everyday life.
Paul Rudolph’s 1955 house for art collector Sewell C. Biggs in Delray Beach, Florida, was designed around the Atlantic breeze. Raised on steel columns, the glass pavilion used louvred windows to draw air through its rooms. Later alterations obscured that clarity.
READING THE ORIGINAL
When Nina and Michael Marco, founders of Casa de Marco Design, bought the house in 2018, they found Rudolph’s original drawings and photographs in a red velvet bag. These guided a six-year reconstruction with architect Jeffrey Silberstein; Nina led the interiors.
The challenge was to recover the house’s lightness while meeting today’s hurricane and flood standards. The original steel frame was repaired and raised; aluminium louvres and tropical hardwood cladding brought back its distinctive lines. For Nina, each decision was “an act of translation”, carrying Rudolph’s architectural language into a house equipped for Florida’s climate.
THE GLASS CONNECTION
Beneath the pavilion, sliding glass panels enclose the former carport to create a living and dining area. A two-storey glazed link containing the kitchen connects to a new wing with two en-suite bedrooms, largely concealed behind the original house. “The past should not be roped off behind glass,” the couple say.
Inside, Italian terrazzo, natural stone and warm timber recall the material palette of the 1950s. A floating Poggenpohl kitchen island echoes the elevated pavilion. Whites, soft greys and sandy neutrals take their cue from the coast. “It’s a palette meant to recede into the landscape,” says Nina. The interiors also hold family heirlooms, vintage Lalique glass and photographs of the house from the 1950s.
