A small portfolio,
deliberately.

A 1975 home in Scottsdale we kept the bones of and rebuilt the soul of.

The brief was to honor what was already there — the proportions, the era, the way the house had aged — and let the renovation feel like the home had simply grown into itself. Every inch was touched. Nothing was rushed.

Living and dining flow into a kitchen reworked for how the family actually cooks. Five bedrooms, each given its own posture. Four bathrooms layered with their own material stories. An outdoor gym and pool that extend the language of the interior into the desert light.

The palette is intentional: layered neutrals, soft contrast, natural materials chosen to feel right in twenty years — not next season. The result is the rarest thing a renovation can be — quietly inevitable.

A new build that feels older than the ocean it sits beside.

The brief was to honor traditional Mexican hacienda architecture without performing it — to build something deeply rooted that could only exist in this specific stretch of beach. The bones came first: a sculptural curved staircase, arched French doors, deep balconies that ask the ocean to come into the rooms with you.

Then the materials. Handcrafted Spanish tile in colors we'd seen nowhere else. Terracotta plaster that took weeks to get right. Bronze iron pulled and forged by hand. Rustic timber beams sourced for their age, not their newness. The kind of palette you can't buy from a catalog because no catalog can hold this much story.

The Great Room anchors it all — a floor-to-ceiling textured stone fireplace, oversized matte black pendants, creamy linens with one emerald accent quoting the desert greenery outside. The master suite leans darker and more romantic — a four-poster spindle bed in ebony, dark wood paneling, a private stone fireplace. Heron prints, glass-fronted closet, and three balconies so the first thing you see every morning is the Sea of Cortez.

A modern house quietly insisting on warmth.

New builds risk feeling like spec product. The brief here was to take a blank shell and prove that minimalism can hold tenderness — that calm and personality don't have to negotiate. Every space was designed to feel intentional rather than empty.

The master bath leans full spa — soft veining, warm undertones, a tub that asks for an hour and a candle. The powder room is the surprise: roman clay paint and zellige tile in a footprint barely big enough to turn around in. The kids' bath stays simple and durable without giving up the design language. The home office holds focus without holding austerity.

What ties it all together is restraint — the discipline to leave the room when the room is already saying enough.

A new construction shell we are slowly turning into a piece of the desert.

The architecture arrived modern and clean. Our brief was to layer in age, story, and craftsmanship until the house felt like it had stood where it stands for fifty years. Every distinctive element in this home was hunted, not ordered.

The kitchen carries rich wood cabinetry under exposed timber headers and gathers around a central island that asks for company. The living room is built on reclaimed ceiling beams and textured plaster walls, with windows scaled to the desert horizon. The primary bath holds an antique stone basin sink we found at Round Top — the kind of piece that decides a room.

The most distinctly Sentenac House moment: a custom mirror handcrafted in Tucson from saguaro cactus ribs. A piece of the land, made by the land, inside the house. Multiple pieces from Round Top. A historic antique Spanish front door integrated into the entry. Nothing in this home could be reordered.

Sometimes the most important design move is moving the fireplace.

The living room had been quietly dictating its own dysfunction — a corner fireplace that limited every furniture arrangement, dated drywall built-ins that wasted the walls. The renovation began with the bones: relocating the fireplace to become a true focal point, removing the built-ins, and rebuilding with arched white oak cabinetry that adds architecture instead of hiding it.

What replaced it is a room that can finally hold a family. Multiple seating areas. Real flow. A grounded center of gravity. Soft linens and leather over textured stone. A neutral, earthy palette that will still feel right when this living room is hosting grandchildren.

A side room reborn as the room you'd send anyone to first.

The space arrived blank — no storage, no presence, no reason to walk into it. The renovation built it into a piece of architecture. Custom arched niches in warm white oak frame the bar wall. Brass gallery rails edge the open shelving. Quartzite anchors the surfaces. An integrated wine fridge disappears into the cabinetry. LED tucked beneath the shelves does the rest.

It's not a decorating job. It's a small custom build — the kind of detail clients photograph first when guests arrive, and the kind of work we'd rather do twelve of than forty kitchen refreshes.

A historic bungalow given a renovation that respects its age.

The wrong way to renovate a historic home is to flatten it. The right way is to listen — preserve what's worth preserving, and add only what earns its place. We built a sculptural arched shower entry framed in 4×4 zellige, laid a period-correct mosaic floor, layered botanical wallpaper above tongue-and-groove paneling, and chose warm brass plumbing because it was always going to age better than chrome.

The living room reset to softness — warm woods, heavy canvas, soft linens, gentle feminine pattern. Low-contrast color so the room feels held rather than performed. The two spaces speak the same language without ever using the same words.

A bourbon room that knows exactly what it is.

Color drenching is a discipline, not a trend — every plane in the room had to wear the same Jasper Green for the architecture to read as one continuous gesture. The bourbon bar anchors with custom symmetrical shelving, textured tile, brass detailing, and the kind of integrated lighting that makes the bottles do the work.

The seating area lives like a private members' room — cognac leather, plaid, ambient light tuned the color of bourbon. And then, against all that structure, a slightly unruly gallery wall — eclectic frames, varied scale, vintage-deco styling — to keep the room from feeling like a museum.

A small new build that punches like a Parisian flat.

The brief had two competing requirements: an office and a guest room, in a footprint that wanted neither. We answered with a vaulted ceiling, full-height casement windows out to the garden, and a tight discipline on what got to be in the room — a daybed that doubles, an armoire that earns its width, technical drawings that hold the wall without crowding it.

Then the bathroom — which is the moment. A 2" marble octagon mosaic floor trimmed in marble border. Semi-gloss black box trim wrapping the walls two-thirds up. A clawfoot tub. Chrome everything. An antique Italian marble table for an audience. Gilded artwork found, not commissioned — though we'll commission next time.

The smallest room in the house. The boldest moment in the project.

The original space was builder-spec — uninspired, unfinished, easy to ignore. The renovation took it the other direction. Moody green walls drag the eye in. A wall-mounted brass faucet pours into a veined Calacatta Viola marble basin. Tailored LED candlestick sconces frame the oblong mirror. Custom artwork in. Every detail considered — even the toilet lever, even the electrical faceplate.

Powder rooms are where guests pause. They should be the room that surprises them the most.