When Kristen and Greg Griffin walk guests through their 5,416-square-foot home in Port Royal, they watch for puzzled looks. “They come through the front door and they’re just like, ‘What’s going on? Where’s the TV? Why is the kitchen over here? What is this room?’” Greg says.
For decades, Greg, founder of Griffin Builders, has been building the kind of sprawling houses that define Naples’ luxury market. When the time came for him and his wife, Kristen, to build their own home in 2022, they looked past the usual design motifs to the French territory of Saint-Barthélemy (St. Barts), where they had been vacationing for a decade.
“We started going there when it wasn’t cool,” Greg says. The island’s architecture—vaulted ceilings, natural materials, seamless indoor-outdoor flow—drew them in. So did island designer Karine Bruneel, of French Indies Design, whose work can be found from the villas of Russian billionaires to stylish island restaurants. After one successful collaboration, the Griffins hired Karine and her frequent collaborator, architect Johannes Zingerle from French firm Design Affairs, to create their Naples home.
Photography by Dan Cutrona
port royal builders st barths inspo home living room
In lieu of a traditional layout, with the entryway opening up to a great room, Naples builder Greg Griffin and his wife, Kristen, oriented the space so the eye goes straight to the infinity pool.
With its pavilion-style layout, the Griffins’ four-bedroom (plus den), four-and-a-half-bathroom home feels more like a tropical villa than a standard family residence. The house is organized around continuity and creating a sense of discovery. Floor and ceiling lines run uninterrupted, furniture floats, walls are left intentionally spare and rooms open without clear thresholds. Walk through the front door, and the main living area opens to the pool deck through a 40-foot-wide sliding glass door. “This is my favorite spot,” Kristen says, pointing to a corner of the sectional, overlooking the poolscape.
There’s no great room with a television as a focal point—that’s hidden in a media room on the other side of the living area, concealed by four freestanding doors. Each door weighs over 100 pounds and rotates 180 degrees on European hinges, allowing the family of four to reconfigure the living spaces on demand. “We didn’t want the TV to be the center of the house,” Greg says. They wanted the focus to go straight to the glittering pool and its waterfall wall, which sets a serene tone.
St. Barts influences run throughout the property. Real cedar shingles and trellises soften the white stucco exterior. Shell stone decking flows from the pool into the lofty interior spaces. Dark-stain French oak floors anchor the primary suite and media room, while lighter oak stretches through the upstairs spaces. The couple shipped in Italian pavers for the driveway, Belgian light fixtures and stone from the island for the front entry surround. “The St. Barts style is about simplicity and small details,” Greg says, noting how it’s difficult to access materials on an island. “Whatever they do, they do it small and with high quality.”
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
port royal builders st barths inspo home kitchen
Exposed post-and-beam construction in the kitchen evokes a St. Barts villa, while best-in-class walnut cabinetry from Czechoslovakia and pendant lights from Italy give the space a sense of global refinement.
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port royal builders st barths inspo home dining room
“The St. Barts style is about simplicity and small details,” Greg says. Vaulted ceilings, natural materials and seamless indoor-outdoor flow translate that aesthetic. In the joint entry and dining rooms, hardwood, rattan and botanicals add a subtly coastal feel.
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port royal builders st barths inspo home sitting area
After years of perfecting other people’s homes, Greg Griffin distilled his own to the essentials. Concealed Milcasa Magic2 doors and lighting integrated into the stair rail underscore his preference for precision over display.
The main kitchen, which features walnut cabinetry from Czechoslovakia and clay pendants from Italy, is positioned so the couple can watch their two young kids play in the infinity edge pool while they cook. A secondary kitchen handles coffee, wine and prep work. Upstairs, a second washer-dryer by the children’s rooms encourages self-sufficiency. “We wanted them to get used to doing their own laundry early on,” Kristen says.
Everything unnecessary is engineered out—cabinetry sits flush and hardware recedes. SOSS hinges disappear into door frames, Stealthpivot hinges create a revolving media room entry and closets use Milcasa Magic2 sliding doors that conceal their tracks behind panels. “In our business, we do outrageous things to get other people’s attention,” Greg says. “This house—I love it because it’s subtle. It’s simple. It’s actually harder to do things that way.”
To keep the architecture from feeling austere, Greg and Kristen introduced contrast: hard elements against soft ones (stucco paired with cedar), light and dark (white surfaces against dark woods). Negative space and light function as design tools, too. Trellises and sheer panels over windows filter the sun, letting shadow and brightness move across the house throughout the day. Pale oak, linen upholstery and shell stone soften the crisp architecture, keeping the spaces relaxed rather than precious.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
port royal builders st barths inspo home window
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port royal builders st barths inspo home stairwell
In the kitchen and primary bedroom, nearly 12-foot-tall ceilings feature exposed post-and-beam construction that mimics Caribbean details. “When we’re in bed looking up, we can almost pretend we’re in a Saint-Barthélemy villa,” he adds. The bedroom’s dark-stained, interior louvered shutters add to the vacation feel.
Despite its breezy composition, the home came with plenty of construction challenges. Greg decided to build with solid concrete, prioritizing durability and sound insulation over ease of installation. With no hollow walls for ductwork, where traditional ACs push cool air throughout a home, the Griffins had to get five separate systems to reach every room. Outside, freestanding trellises cantilever above the pool deck, and in the front of the home, above the entry and garage. The exposed timber softens the building’s geometry—and requires extra support to extend far from the building without visible columns. Engineers built a steel frame to bear the load, wrapping it in cedar to hide the structural skeleton behind what appear to be simple beams.
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port royal builders st barths inspo home pool area
Shell stone decking creates continuity from the interior, through wide doors and out to the infinity pool, so the family can move easily between inside and out, whether the kids are in the water or guests are gathered along the edge.
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port royal builders st barths inspo home outdoor patio
A dynamic interplay of light and shadow adds dimension to the home’s minimalist palette, where expansive, freestanding trellises made of exposed cedar defy gravity with the help of a hidden steel frame.
The landscaping, by Christian Andrea of Architectural Land Design, reinforces the islandy aesthetic. “You want things not to be symmetrical,” Greg says. “You want it to be a little wild.” Clusia hedges and screw pines nod to coastal informality, while pristine turf and crisp planting bed edges keep the property polished.
The rooftop deck, covered in turf and outfitted with lounge seating and a shaded table, offers views of the sunrise and sunset from the bay to the Gulf. Up here, above the palms and tile roofs of Port Royal, Kristen found space to write her first children’s book, Happy Clouds, which teaches positivity and early reading skills to toddlers and preschoolers.
Greg’s pursuits also find their way into the home. The builder, who founded Cars on 5th (now The Naples Automotive Experience) with his stepfather, competes in endurance races, such as the HSR Classic 24 Hour at Daytona and the HSR Sebring Classic 12 Hour. His ground-floor study houses a racing simulator where he can practice his skills.
“Our friends come over and, you know, they’re critical people,” Greg says. “But they’ll sit here for an hour having a drink, and they’ll look at us and go, ‘I get it. I get it now. I get why you did it.’” By then, everyone’s slipping into island time. That, more than any detail, is the St. Barts import.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
port royal builders st barths inspo home bathroom
A French oak-wrapped floating vanity with waterfall faucets connects the primary bath’s shell stone walk-in shower and ceramic soaking tub. Secto light fixtures and louvered shutters soften the glow and allow for privacy.
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port royal builders st barths inspo home bedroom
The couple chose warmer hues for their bedroom. Dark-stained floors, louvered shutters and exposed beams channel an intimate, tropical resort suite.
Architect: Design Affairs
Builder: Griffin Builders
Interior Design: French Indies Design
Landscape: Architectural Land Design
Photography: Dan Cutrona