fourtall windows in the sitting room. Designed for
eight people, four bedrooms are each separately
contained from one another, while generous
communal spaces, both indoor and out, are plentiful.
When designing the interior, Tom was keenly aware
of the tropical setting. ‘Everything I did in this house
was for the sake of maintenance,’ he says. ‘I used one
white paint inside and out, and only one brown wood
stain.’ The rooms, with their clean and bright walls
and furnishings of cane, rattan and woven hemp, have
a charming, understated feel. Much of the furniture,
including the wall cabinets of hardwearing pickled
teak, Tom had made by The Raj Company in India.
The laid-back interior lends itself perfectly to long,
lazy days. Turquoise is the dominant accent colour,
found in cushions scattered liberally on sofas and
garden furniture. ‘The house is so breezy, much of
it is like an outdoor room,’ he says, ‘and with the
windows open all the time, I had to be careful
about ensuring that all fabrics and artwork are
weatherproof. Having lived in the Bahamas for
20 years, I know that nothing lasts, as the weather
degrades it. It’s important that furniture and fabrics
are durable as it’s expensive and difficult to get things
shipped here. The outdoor tables have stone tops.
Nothing is too shiny and there is no glass. There is no
plastic and nothing is lacquered in paint.’ The couple
avoid visiting the house during the hurricane season,
from June to November, but should the house be
hit by a storm, Tom is prepared: ‘We feel secure as
the house can be battened down quickly and we’re
protected by a big reef.’
Tom and Michael have now spent five winters
at ‘Zanzibar’. Due to the halt in the development,
the neighbours they envisaged never arrived.
‘My real estate investment might not quite be what
I’d hoped, but it’s wonderful to have the place all
to ourselves,’ he says.&Wheninterior designer
Tom Scheerer first
visualised his Bahaman
holiday home, he didn’tthink its seclusion would last long. ‘It sits on a
stretch of land that a friend of mine was developing,
but since then the development has stopped, so now
my place is practically all by itself with six miles of
beach in either direction,’ he explains. Clearly
relishing the property’s remoteness, Tom named the
house ‘Zanzibar’, after the wild and windy island in
Africa it reminded him of. Having owned two
previous properties in the Bahamas, he wanted to
move from the more built-up and bustling Harbour
Island to the less populated Abaco Islands. The
allure of the rugged North islands was also in part to
avoid ever-encroaching building works. ‘In the
Bahamas, there’s always a fear that someone might
put a big hotel up in front of you or next door,’ he says.
Tom and his partner, Michael Baldridge, enjoysharing their home with friends, who come for lengthy
stays. ‘The logistics of having guests can take a fair
bit of planning as we’re so remote, but we’re lucky
that our house manager has an organic farm and can
provide us with incredible fruits and vegetables,’ says
Tom. ‘There’s also a chicken farm nearby so we are
treated to the only fresh chicken on the islands.’
He describes designing the house as ‘like puttingtogether a puzzle’. ‘I was given a footprint of 5,000
square feet for the entire house, including all the
terraces and the swimming pool,’ says Tom. ‘Because
of this, everything is designed down to the last inch.’
The house follows a local vernacular style of original
settlers that is rarely seen today in the region. ‘The
original buildings were very tight coral stone cottages
with wooden shutters and no overhangs,’ he says.
The house, comprising six interlinked pavilions, also
has some grander neoclassical elements such as the
INSPIRATION