Home Tour: Pamela Pierce's Houston House

When Pamela Pierce's French-style house first graced these pages in 2006, it featured an armada of European antiques, many with flouncy skirted slipcovers and all set in a sea of surpassingly calm neutrals. The look — stately yet sassy — signaled an emerging design-world view toward lightening up, both in attitude and palette. And it still holds sway. Pierce, however, has moved on, continuing to edit, to update, and to reinvigorate her 1926 stucco manse, set in Houston's Museum District. Eames lounge chair and ottoman.

Why mess with such a lovely perch? "I had the feeling it really wasn't me. It was too proper," she begins, in her soft, native West Texas drawl. "You can't take the West Texas out of a girl. Some of that just had to come into play." Cue the tree-branch tables, the deer-antler sconce, and the rugless — albeit 18th-century cathedral stone and 19th-century chestnut — floors. "I wanted things that were a bit edgier," she says. Make way for the outsized French ceramic lamp on a wooden sculptor's stand, steps from a Flos Arco lamp and white Eames chair. From a professional perspective, she says, "I got tired of gathered skirts and gray paint. I wanted to show my clients that you can mix good contemporary pieces with antiques. I certainly still love my antiques, and for me an entire house with contemporary is too cold. I love the mix." Enter the cardboard Frank Gehry Wiggle Chair next to the curvaceous 19th-century English sofa next to the salvaged-wood coffee table. Casamidy chairs in Perennials canvas.

Such an emphatically edited assemblage could veer perilously close to artifice, but it's probably fair to say that West Texas girls don't do artifice. As interesting as the house is visually, it is equally accommodating. Rooms are thoughtfully arranged for conversing or relaxing, with a place to put a book or a drink within reach of every seat. There are reading lights where you need them and chairs where you want them. The old, the new, and the unexpected all have a place in the living room. Rolled-arm antique English sofa, W. Gardner, Ltd., and custom sofa, both slipcovered in Christian Liaigre linen. Frank Gehry Wiggle Chair, Vitra. Tri-leg 19th-c. elm table, Area. Floor lamp from 18th-c. iron candlestand, W. Gardner Ltd.

The designer's apparently fearless use of white everywhere, however, does give pause. It shouldn't, Pierce says, even though her pale furniture keeps company with two dogs and visiting grandchildren. "If it's linen, you just wash it." She has her fabrics pre-washed and dried so that they are pre-shrunk. "My slipcovers in the family room get washed about once a week. We put them back on slightly damp and they work great," she says convincingly. "I just like white. I've been known to paint a bedroom a color and then the next day call my painter to repaint it. After working with color and pattern all day, I need serenity at home." A wall of steel doors opens the kitchen to the garden. Custom stainless steel island. Bull from a 19th-c. French butcher shop.

Pierce's palette confers a softness, a sense of quiet romance. This is especially true in the bedrooms, where haven trumps hip and luxury is defined by comfort. Though her iron tester bed has shorn its former life's ruffled curtains, a plump snowy duvet awaits. In a guest room, lace-trimmed linens beckon on tufted twin beds with coverlets cleverly rolled at the feet. Glass pendant lights in the shape of fruit, a Paris find, cascade above the pillows. "This is my granddaughter's room when she visits," Pierce points out, "although now she prefers hot pink and turquoise." Pre-teen predilections aside, Pierce, it seems, has hit upon the next big thing: curated but not overly controlled rooms that are by equal measures welcoming and inspiring. Pierce repurposed a painted Gustavian console table for the guest bathroom sink. All plumbing fixtures from Fixtures & Fittings. Bathtub, Balmoral from Cheviot. Villeroy & Boch basin. Custom ceiling-mounted mirror.