The recent trend toward simplicity in decor can be summed up in a single color: white. The versatile hue has the power to highlight certain features of your home without competing with others. Plus, it lends a pristine yet calming effect to every room, from the kitchen to the bath —and not just indoors. White paint is a classic choice for exteriors, providing a crisp and clean first impression. While some exterior paint colors are better suited to specific locations or architectural styles, a white or off-white shade works on everything from Shingle-style beach retreats to modernist townhouses.
White also creates an exceptional backdrop for contrasting architectural details. Rich blue shutters and red mullions accent the white exterior of architect Peter Pennoyer and interior designer Katie Ridder’s Millbrook, New York, home. architect Nikos Moustroufis and designer Isabel López-Quesada used a pale blue paint on the window frames and shutters of a Greek island compound, echoing the hue of the sky and sea. Interior designer Michael S. Smith distinguished a half-timbered house in Beverly Hills, California, by painting the timbers a warm tan hue to contrast with the white stucco and brickwork. For a contemporary home, nothing looks quite as sleek as an all-white exterior. Expanses of glass break up the enameled aluminum panels that make up the exterior of a home in Luxembourg designed by Richard Meier & Partners Architects.
The benefits of white paint go beyond its fresh look. A coat of Ivory or Cloud can make small houses look bigger, and unlike darker colors, neutral shades don’t have the risk of fading from years of sun exposure. Ready to give your house a bright makeover? These homes from the AD archives stand out in polished white, with styles from clapboard to modern stucco, contrasting brightly against brick, ivy, or glass elements.
A bluestone walkway leads through the flower garden to the Greek Revival dwelling , in Millbrook, New York, which was designed by architect Peter Pennoyer and decorated by Katie Ridder.
Architect Arthur R. Kelly designed the 1930 half-timbered Beverly Hills, California, dwelling , christened Nine Gables; its brickwork and stucco are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Hardwick White.
The exterior of a late-Georgian London residence by Thomas Croft is white stucco.
The architecture, interiors, and landscape design of Helen and Jeremy Parfit’s Southampton, New York, residence are all by Manhattan firm Sawyer|Berson. The shingled façade is painted in a Benjamin Moore white, and the windows throughout the home are by Kolbe Windows & Doors.
Actor Rob Lowe and his wife, Sheryl, looked to East Coast precedents in designing their California home . “It was inspired by the Virginia-area style,” says architect Don Nulty. Mark Rios of Rios Clementi Hale did the landscaping.
Dating from the 18th century, Rose Hill in Virginia’s Rappahannock Valley was restored by Tidewater Preservation and decorated by Amelia T. Handegan, with garden design by Rieley & Assoc. Landscape Architects. The exterior is painted in a Sherwin-Williams white.
Hilary Geary Ross and her husband, Wilbur Ross, share a home in Southampton, New York , which was decorated by Mario Buatta. The Colonial Revival house was built in the early 1900s.
A home designed by Richard Meier & Partners Architects for a family in Luxembourg is clad in expanses of glass and aluminum panels enameled in Meier’s hallmark white.
For the making of his Shaker-inspired, 13,000-square-foot multibuilding residence in the Michigan countryside, a Detroit doctor called on architect Bruce Calhoun, landscape architect Gary Karlene, and interior designers Barbara Balow and Mark Manardo.
Designed by Jacobsen Architecture, this clapboard residence in California's Napa Valley is painted in a Sherwin-Williams white; the sculpture on the front lawn is by David Tanych.
A California home by Appleton & Assoc. incorporates elements of New England vernacular architecture.
Designer Barbara Barry renovated this 1922 French-style mansion in Piedmont, California. A parterre of roses, planted by landscape designer Deborah Nevins, surrounds a fountain at the entrance.
In collaboration with Alveary Architecture, Joe Nahem of design firm Fox-Nahem Assoc. updated the art-filled Greenwich, Connecticut, residence of Allison Kanders and her husband, Warren.
“We like to think we’ve kept its history intact,” textile designer and weaver Sam Kasten says of the 1833 clapboard Colonial in Stockbridge, Massachusetts , where he lives with his family. Built as a stagecoach inn, it was later used as a retreat for underprivileged children.
A Benjamin Moore white brightens the Greek Revival farmhouse at Clove Brook Farm, lamp impresario Christopher Spitzmiller and decorator Sam Allen’s getaway in New York’s Hudson Valley. Architectural designer Jonathan Parisen advised on the renovation, Harry Heissmann collaborated on the interiors, and P. Allen Smith assisted with the landscape design.
In Bridgehampton, New York, creative duo and gun-safety advocates Rebecca and Jon Bond renovated a 19th-century gem as a serene family sanctuary. The house was built around 1840; deLashmet & Assoc. designed the grounds.
The Hollywood Regency façade of designer Lauren King’s Los Angeles house.
Interior designer Thomas Britt and architect Brian Smith collaborated on a family’s house in Missouri.
Bennett and Judie Weinstock have a long-established design practice—based in Philadelphia, with clients in New York and elsewhere—so when their daughter, Nancy Yecies, and her husband, Michael, who have two children, bought a rambling 1940s clapboard, fieldstone, and stucco house in a Philadelphia suburb, there was no question about who would decorate it.
Inspired in part by Mies van der Rohe, architect Allan Greenberg designed an addition for a late-19th-century house in Greenwich, Connecticut.
An 1817 brick Federal-style house in upstate New York—with interiors by Shostak & Co.—is painted in a Benjamin Moore white.
The addition of porticoes and French doors “improved and unified its frontage,” Christopher Plummer says of the Connecticut house that he shares with his wife, Elaine.
Designer Jeff Lincoln fashioned an inviting, classic interior for Mark Bitter, copresident of Scalamandré, and his wife, Wiggie. The front entrance of the Federal-style house in Glen Cove, New York, is pictured here.
Engaged Corinthian columns distinguish the main façade of this renovated 1750s Georgian residence in Washington, D.C.
A Long Island residence designed by Manhattan firm Sawyer|Berson.
With a new limestone portico and a fresh coat of cream-color paint, designer Suzanne Kasler's Atlanta house now possesses the mien of an English Regency mansion.
Retractable glass walls distinguish the tranquil living room of a Los Angeles house by Lehrer Architects LA, with decor by JoAnne Brosnahan of Unique Custom Interiors. A Kravet occasional table is encircled by custom-made chairs in a Jerry Pair leather; the cocktail table is by J. Robert Scott, and the painting is by Ernö Tolvaly.
Architect Kevin Clark drew inspiration from local historic homes and Edwin Lutyens's English houses when planning the painted-brick-and-cedar-clapboard Hamptons dwelling , which features windows by Kolbe Windows & Doors.
A courtyard, paved with pebbles in traditional Spetsian style, marks the main entrance of a Greek-island compound by architect Nikos Moustroufis and designer Isabel López-Quesada.
This historic Los Angeles manse of interior designer Brigette Romanek is crowned with a bell tower.
Abstracting farmhouse styles, architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen linked together seven identical clapboard-clad structures to create an uncommon residence on a sloping site in Nashville .
Katherine Newman designed a new home with a formal feel in Toronto for a young couple. Newman collaborated with her partner, architect Peter Cebulak, to intertwine various architectural styles, from Georgian to Italian.
Architect Daniel Romualdez's Beverly Hills getaway features a minimalist white façade. The pale color scheme continues inside the modern home.
Reed and Delphine Krakoff painted the original redbrick exterior of Le Beau Château, their storied Connecticut estate, in a soft white.
Stone walls contrast with the organic white forms of a retreat on the Greek island of Mykonos, designed by architect Javier Barba.
Architecture firm Ike Kligerman Barkley paid homage to Southern architectural traditions when creating the Virginia home of interior designer Renée O'Leary. Related: AD ’s Guide to Decorating with Color