Inside Ed and Tammy Reilly’s Riverfront Retreat with Reilly Construction
Every extraordinary home begins with a feeling. For Ed and Tammy Reilly, that feeling was simple: a house that belonged to Florida as much as it belonged to them. A place lifted by water and light, not weighed down by trend or excess.
They started with the site. The lot was unusual, a bit eccentric, and that became the first creative problem to solve. The river was the nonnegotiable element. The home had to sit in conversation with it, not turn its back. A wood roof, deep porches, and a gentle profile allowed the structure to settle into its surroundings rather than dominate them. From the beginning, the goal was to maximize the view, disguise what needed to disappear, and make the water the true main room.
A home that does not look like everyone else’s
As a couple, they were clear on one thing: they did not want another version of the same South Florida house. No familiar palette, no predictable façades. The project began, surprisingly, with a single piece of fabric that Tammy describes as the canvas for everything that followed. From there, the language of the interiors began to take shape.
They wanted warmth. They wanted Pecky cypress. They wanted a space that felt inviting and modern coastal without the clichés. Lighting became a central character. While Ed focused on ceiling details, Tammy focused on how each fixture would shape the room’s mood. The result is a home where contemporary lighting sits inside a framework of Florida tradition. It is not Victorian. It is not ultra-minimal. It is a measured blend of clean lines and familiar textures.
What could have become a clash of visions instead turned into a conversation. Ed’s instinct leaned toward a mix of contemporary and traditional, informed by years working with architects and builders. Tammy pushed for bolder color, pattern, and risk. Together, they arrived at something that feels like both of them: controlled but playful, coastal yet globally informed.
Travels, memory, and a sense of humor
The house carries its history. They were married in Nicaragua. Ed surfs there. The tiny mosaic tiles in the pool recall those trips. When the sun hits the water, the surface turns iridescent and instantly brings them back. At night, the effect is even more cinematic, turning the pool into a memory you can swim in.
Their travels also show up in less expected ways. In the office, a piece from Roberto Scherl in Miami features what Tammy laughingly describes as a series of carved bikini forms in raw steel that always gets a reaction. Guests walk in, pause, then laugh. The intention is clear: the house should make you smile as you move through it, not just admire it in silence.
Surfboards hang inside. Ed lobbied for more and even floated the idea of a motorcycle in the living room. Tammy drew the line at gasoline as décor, but the point remains. The house is meant to feel lived-in, not staged.
Building the canvas
When it came to choosing an architect, the decision was surprisingly pragmatic. Budget was a defining factor. They chose a firm known for consistent curb appeal, then treated those base plans as a shell. Ed sketched every interior wall, every porch, and every transition. From exposed rafter tails and always-lit gas lanterns to custom millwork, the architecture became his canvas.
Tammy layered her vision on top of that structure. She pulled references from High Point, Miami, Palm Beach, and New York, not to copy, but to understand the feeling she wanted to recreate. Where Ed thinks in elevations and sections, she thinks in fabric, wallpaper, and color. Together, they turned reference images and tear sheets into something personal.
They also stepped away from conventional coastal living language. Instead, the house leans into a South American–inflected coastal sensibility: tiki paintings, live-edge wood dining tables and shelves, and stone sinks carved from their own drawings. One vessel sink began as a sketch and a cardboard mock-up to help the stone fabricator understand the angles. The final piece hides its drain in a linear slot, a quiet detail most guests will never notice, but one Ed is deeply proud of.
Wallpaper, citron, and the pink room
If there was a point of tension, it lived in color and pattern. Tammy began the design process with fabric. Ed, used to starting from structure, struggled at first to see where it was going. A wall partially wrapped in raffia and a wave-patterned paper looked to him like an unfinished job. To her, it was art.
The same was true of the citron lanterns in the laundry room. Their painter thought she was out of her mind. Now, they are one of the most joyful moments in the house. Wallpaper became another battleground. Ed’s reference point was an old Florida country club: heavy florals in small, enclosed rooms. Tammy instead brought wallpaper to ceilings and larger spaces, never on every wall, and always with a sense of scale. The effect is immersive without feeling crowded.
Perhaps the most beloved expression of her vision is the pink room. It is not a little-girl pink, but a sophisticated, softened tone, layered with raffia on the ceiling, beams, patterned fabric, and white iron-flower sconces. The room sits away from the water, yet it has become the most contested guest space. Their grown children literally argue over who gets to sleep there. That says everything.
The dock is a piece of furniture
Ask Ed which detail feels most personal, and he will talk about sinks, then quickly pivot to the dock. The first iteration used a fiberglass grate: practical but brutally industrial. He ripped it out. In its place, he laid ipê, the same hardwood that edges the pool, installed with the spacing required by environmental regulations.
But it was the fasteners that bothered him. Exposed screws interrupted the surface. Over weeks of evenings and weekends, he removed every screw, countersunk each hole, and plugged them with ipê, sanding until the deck read as a continuous plane. The finished dock feels more like a piece of handcrafted furniture than infrastructure. It is a quiet obsession few will ever notice consciously, yet it sets the tone the moment you step outside.
That dock, paired with an ipê pool deck inspired by resorts in Nicaragua and California, is where the house truly meets the water. From there, the river feels like an extension of the living room.
Where they actually live
For serenity, Tammy points to the back of the property. Sunsets on the river are her reset. Ed agrees. The dock, with its fire pit and pair of comfortable chairs, is where they watch porpoises surface and the sky shift color. The house has a fireplace as well, but on winter evenings in Florida, it is the combination of water, fire, and air that makes the place feel complete.
Inside, a backlit Cristallo marble bar anchors the view. The stone glows in shifting colors of blue, pink, and yellow, visible through French doors from both the street and the river. They chose doors over large sliders, a decision that keeps the architecture human-scaled and allows the light from the bar to read like a luminous artwork when you approach by boat.
Learning to design together
Designing and building a home as a couple is its own kind of test. As the owner of Reilly Construction, Ed is usually the one who protects the budget and executes someone else’s vision. In this project, both the budget and the vision were personal. There were moments of frustration, especially when Tammy’s fabric-first approach collided with his builder’s mindset. Yet the process taught them that their two ways of seeing were less opposed than they first appeared.
She begins with textiles, color, and pattern. He begins with structure, proportions, and joinery. Once they learned to trust each other’s instincts, the house started to click into place. What emerged is a project neither could have created alone: a home that feels layered but not overdesigned, expressive but not loud.
It also proved something else. They can work together. They found a shared rhythm and a balance of “trust-me-on-this” moments on both sides. Now, the idea of another project, whether a new build or a renovation, feels less daunting and more like an opportunity.
From project to home
There was no single cinematic moment when the house suddenly became a home. It happened gradually. Late in the build, they started coming by to clean at night, vacuuming away dust and watching details come into sharper focus. Each visit brought them closer to the finish line. The real shift, they admit, came when the dogs arrived. That was when the house stopped being a job site and became the place where their life actually happens.
Today, the idea of building it just to move on feels distant. Fridays often begin with a boat ride for a drink at dusk and end with a quiet return trip across the river. Other evenings are reserved for sunset cruises with the dogs. The dock is 100 feet long. Thirty steps separate the porch from the boat. In a neighborhood they describe as special, the house sits as both a haven and a launch point.
In the end, what they created with Reilly Construction is more than a coastal home. It is a study in balance: between structure and softness, Florida and South America, craft and color, builder and stylist, project and life. A house that could only have been built by two people willing to listen closely enough to find the space where their visions overlap.
