This Throwback David Bromstad Makeover Is Inspired by the 'Twilight' Saga
Follow us back to 2011, when vampires sparkled, the Cullen house was the height of woodsy eco-chic and David’s clients wanted it all for their Miami home. Organic or sleek? Vivid or monochromatic? Team Edward or Team Jacob?! Fear not; all cliffhangers will be resolved.
As Stephenie Meyer wrote (and a post-makeover homeowner might say), "I was just thinking — today is the first and last day of forever. It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around it. Even with all this extra room for wrapping.”
Remember when author Stephenie Meyer’s supernatural juggernaut Twilight saga (which debuted in 2005, has been translated into 49 languages and has sold more than 160 million books) ruled Y2K pop culture? By 2011, when film-adaptation co-stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had “officially” been dating for a year and Breaking Dawn – Part 1 was about to hit movie theaters, all things Twilight were household names.
Maks Ershov / Shutterstock
While you can’t book a stay in this beauty, you can build its Lego equivalent with an official Cullen House kit for $220.
That includes the Cullen family headquarters itself, the stunning Portland, Oregon-area home whose exterior telegraphed the vampires' flawless taste. (It’s the Hoke House by Skylab Architecture, a 4,800-square-foot, seemingly gravity-defying contemporary treehouse that’s perfectly suited to an ageless clan that unwinds with vampire baseball.)
Miami homeowners and Twilight superfans Whitney Kirsling and Robert Perez sure remember those days, as that was when they enlisted David Bromstad to bring his Color Splash magic to their new home with a Twilight-themed makeover. Given that HBO Max is now streaming the movies, we feel it’s high time to revisit that project and David’s inimitable spin on all things Cullen. Ready for the flashbacks? Hold on tight, spider monkey.
Establishing the Vibe (and Loyalties)
Whitney and Robert’s home had the high-contrast glam elements they loved, but it sorely lacked cohesion — and that’s where David’s immortally inspired revamp (heh) would come in.
Two months into living in their new home, Whitney and Robert still felt out of sorts. “It feels like the house of a million undone projects,” Whitney explained to David. When they brought over belongings from their previous place, “a lot of the furniture didn’t fit right, but we had to make it fit because we didn’t really have much of a choice,” Robert added. “We really need help!”
“We love the Cullen house [from the movies] that we are always talking about, because their interior is very clean and modern, that’s what we like,” Robert continued. (A roaring fireplace and evergreen forest were tall orders for Florida, but surely those could be implied.)
That’s their aesthetic sorted, but what about their team affiliations? “Team Edward!” Whitney exclaimed. “All the way, all the way.”
“Jacob,” Robert countered, which earned him a high-five from David.
“I read the first three books, and I was a Team Edward fan until I saw the movies,” David told them. “And I saw Jacob; sorry. Steals the show!”
David Brings Forks to Florida
The moss-wall look David mocked up here with his green-on-green, flocked-and-framed mirror anticipated a massive textural-greenery moment in the early 2010s, and trend forecasters are now calling moss walls "the new black" all over again.
Robert loved the Cullen home’s spectacular openness to the outdoors (in Forks, a picturesque coastal town in Washington State), and David was keen to cultivate that point as he developed his palette. “This is Color Splash,” he reminded his neutrals-loving clients. “If there was one color that we could just sprinkle into the space, what would it be?”
“Maybe some greens? I mean, there’s a lot of forest in there, so there’s a lot you can do with mossy greens,” Whitney offered.
David ran with that note and flocked a massive mirror that he planned to lean against the wall in the dining room. When its initial hue seemed a bit too verdant for the space, he toned it down by adding textural faux moss in a more subdued hue.
Iconic Art for Whitney and Robert (and Stephenie?)
We're not saying the Twilight folks should hit David up with some royalties for his inspirational green apple, but we're not not saying it.
That wasn’t the only pop of color in the works; David also planned to evoke the books’ iconic cover designs by creating a graphic apple painting of his own. “This painting is going to go in the formal living room above the fireplace mantel,” he explained. (A mantel without an actual fireplace, mind you, because Florida.) “The picture on the first book is a person holding a red apple, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah!’” He focused on the apple itself rather than the hands cradling it: “Simple, clean, contemporary.”
Red is the books’ signature accent, but we suspect David made some waves with his riff on their looks. Proof? The gender-swapped version of the tale Stephenie published four years after this makeover. Consider its cover.
For fans of the worldwide phenomenon Twilight comes a bold reimagining of Stephenie Meyer's novel, telling the classic love story but in a world where the characters' genders are reversed.
There Was Brilliancy, There Was Beauty
Wrapping around the living and dining room walls, this installation features more than 500 log slices. A vampire could have fabricated and attached these wall panels in a fraction of the time it took David's carpenters to do the job, but the undead are notoriously unreliable subcontractors.
And after David and his team shot across Whitney and Robert’s sky like a meteor? The transformation was total. Here’s that once-haphazard living room rocking an inimitable blend of natural style — artist Steve Burzynski sliced and polished hundreds of live-edge log pieces down to create both the wall treatment and the coffee table — and immortal glam, thanks to Versailles-worthy balloon chairs and a Chesterfield sofa outfitted with high-contrast black lacquer and white vinyl. Might we also note the on-trend-then-and-now mirrored mushroom decor?
Bela Lugosi’s Den
"I don't know if [the animal heads] are romantic," David admitted, "but I think they're fun."
The family room’s “major forest moment” takes the form of 35 paper mache animal heads, lacquered and installed to create even more contrast against the wide horizontal stripes David’s team painted around the room. (“The [Cullen] house is in the woods [and has] a lot of horizontal lines in its design,” he explained.) The white and pearl gray tones he chose soften behind wraparound sheers, recalling the atmospheric mist that envelops the characters in the movies. The cruelty-free critters, in turn, are a nod to the bloodthirsty Cullens’ hunting style: No human victims, thanks (and “I assure you that no animals were killed in the making of this makeover,” David said).
Timeline as Table
Would this combination of ornate and of-the-moment tables count as materialistic vampire scrapbooking? David designed the piece to accommodate a leaf, so there's always room for another chapter.
The dining room now showcases a high-concept showpiece fit for a supernatural banquet. The bespoke table is, literally, traditional and modern pieces fused together (not unlike a brooding, century-old vampire and the ingenue next door). “It’s kind of like this combination of styles combined into one table,” David explained to his carpenters. “Make it look like they’re meant to be together. There’s so many organic moments and [Whitney and Robert] love clean lines, but we wanted to bring in a little bit of the vampires — you know, very Italian, the baroque, the ornate moments.” The cascading chandelier presiding over it provides a bit of indoor precipitation; very Forks.
Do I Dazzle You?
David and homeowners Robert and Whitney with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn actor Nikki Reed (who is married to Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder and is basically supernatural royalty).
David sweetened the new spaces’ debut by inviting actor Nikki Reed (who played Rosalie Hale, a Cullen clan member who knows her way around the family digs) to help welcome Whitney and Robert home — and present them with the ultimate housewarming gift, a Breaking Dawn – Part 1 poster autographed by the cast. “I just can’t believe this is home!” Whitney exclaimed. Spoiler alert: She went on to become an interior designer in her own right. How’s that for a Color Splash moment of inspiration?
Jamie Gill
This Saint Helens, Oregon, home has been a hot commodity since its owners opened it up to Airbnb visitors in 2019; no wonder, since it's Bella and her father's home in Forks throughout the film series.
Whitney and Robert’s place is a private Twilight-saga temple, but Kristen’s first home in the series welcomes fans as overnight guests; it’s been an Airbnb full of memorabilia from the series for the last several years. Can’t snag a reservation? You can always ask David over to cultivate some movie magic at your place.
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