SUZANNE MCFAYDEN’S THIRD ACT

“This is my third act,” says Jamaican-born writer, philanthropist, and prolific contemporary art collector Suzanne McFayden. With her youngest child graduating from college this past spring, the Jamaican-born empty nester was ready for change — and a home that reflected who she is now. The Style Observer was only too happy to feature her 2019 stunning property in our September 2020 issue and was naturally eager to get in on the third act which saw McFayden reuniting with architect Paul Lamb (@paullambarchitects) and interior designer Jennifer Vaughn Miller (@vaughnmillerstudio).

Tranquil reflection redefined her idea of home. After selling her 7,000-square-foot Brutalist concrete house in Austin, Texas — featured by Architectural Digest in 2019 — McFayden sought “something cosy and nourishing”, she says, “with wall space for art”. She found her “sleeping beauty” tucked into a verdant thicket of Red Oak and Live Oak trees in Austin’s Hill Country.

To bring the project to life, she reunited with local architect Paul Lamb and New York City–based interior designer Jennifer Vaughn Miller, the team behind her previous industrial monolith. The result is a deeply personal Austin retreat where every room tells a story. CREDITS Feature by Punch Hutton Photography by Douglas Friedman Architect: Paul Lamb Interior designer: Jennifer Vaughn Miller Suzanne McFayden (second left) is pictured with children (from left) Zoë, Max, and Eliana for the Architectural Digest 2019 feature...Kara Marie Trombetta Dining room: Custom ceramic dining table by Hun Chung Lee from R & Company; upholstered H Chairs from Estudio Persona; Metropole bench in shearling from Monc XIII; and Pierre Frey’s Mendes Meringue fabric drapes.

Paintings include Nick at a Mirror (After Rubens’s Venus at a Mirror) by Mathenge and Sanogo Messenger (2021) by Raphaël Barontini. Sculptural works Simone Leigh’s Untitled (cowrie with rosettes) and Lynda Benglis’s QT (2023) in Everdur bronze, add rich textures to the room. (Photo: Douglas Friedman) “I’m not a big cook, but I do love to make breakfast,” McFayden says about her kitchen layout.

(Photo: Douglas Friedman) The primary bathroom (Photo: Douglas Friedman) In McFayden’s study, Ebony G Patterson’s extraordinary diptych, ...sunsets and monarchs come to feast, snakes come to discover as she remains lost in plain sight... (2019), takes centre stage.(Photo: Doug…