In 2011, Lindsay Palazzolo, her husband Anthony and their daughters Anna and Charlotte bought a classic home in Nichols Hills and promptly gutted it right down to the studs. The reimagining took a year, and while it was happening, the family decamped to a nearby condominium to wait patiently for their new-old home to be reborn.
The living room initially had one small door, leading indirectly to a galley kitchen
“It took a year, because we contracted it ourselves, while we were working full time,” Lindsay says. She made her career in oil and gas, but her education is in architecture, and she’s had a passion for interior design since she was a girl. “I painted my room a different color every year when I was growing up. By the time I was 9, I was constantly rearranging my room – and it’s still my passion.”
Palazzolo retired from the oil business and has gone back to her roots: design. Her new enterprise, ZZolo Design, focuses on residential interior design and decorating.
The kitchen opens into a family room (middle) that is at once spacious and cozy. Darker neutrals are the name of the game. Leather, brocade, wood, velvet, metal, stone and basketry combine, making this space a feast for the senses. Art and accessories enhance smaller niches (left and right) with a sense of airiness.
The original homeowners’ household had three daughters, and there were enough bedrooms on the first floor for everyone, so with the exception of a utility room, the entire second story was closed off and unfinished. The Palazzolos bought the house from one of those daughters, who had recently begun framing in a master suite upstairs, following the home’s original floor plans.
What once was a dining room now serves as Lindsay’s ZZolo Designs HQ. She wanted a bright, light-filled office, and the dining room had everything she wanted. Fortunately, the large family room is spacious enough for family dining.
Around the same time that the owner’s daughter was preparing to sell the Palazzolos’ now-home, Lindsay and her brood were happily living in Edgemere Park. But fickle fate intervened when a real estate friend of Lindsay’s called one day out of the blue. “She said, ‘I’ve got a client and I’d like to show them your house,’” she says. After seeing it, and although it wasn’t for sale, the clients were smitten, and asked the Palazzolos to name their price. After some stressful negotiations, including a busted appraisal and, finally, a cash offer, the deal was done. Shortly thereafter the Nichols Hills home, which had been patiently waiting for someone to breathe it back to life, was reborn.
