Photos by Maria Deforrest
Interior designer Kelley Gable reimagined her family’s home in Rehoboth Beach, giving it a clean, polished and relaxed look.
A few years back, someone told Kelley Gable she had missed her calling in interior design. The former fashion merchandiser has no patience for that view. She had been helping with design projects for friends and family, and in 2020, made the leap when she was good and ready: “You pursue your passions when the time is right,” she says, noting that the support of her husband Mike Gable—with whom she has two young children—was instrumental.
Today Kelley is the owner and principal designer of Gable Interiors, a boutique bicoastal firm based in the San Francisco Bay area and Rehoboth Beach. One of her recent projects: her family’s home, located on a rare double lot about a mile from the sand in Rehoboth. “It’s always been home base,” she says. They bought the three-bedroom cottage with a pool around a decade ago, but it had a choppy layout—a lot of little rooms without logical flow. (“You kind of got turned around,” the designer says.)
It was time to expand and update it to make it more functional, Gable says. A gut renovation, which involved expanding the house’s width and adding a second floor, ensued. (The general contractor was CRX Construction, also based in Rehoboth.) The handsome white board and batten home (five bedrooms, six baths) features a huge screened-in porch that contains a living space with a wood-burning fireplace, a kitchen and full bath.
Inside, Gable adhered to a rigorous coastal palette of wood, white and blue. “It’s clean, classic and polished yet relaxed,” she says. Metallic lighting accents—brass, polished nickel—pop against the beach-inspired hues. Unlacquered brass pendants, from Circa Lighting, are particularly impactful in the kitchen, where they hang over the pale-blue, quartz-topped island, which is 10 feet long.
With walls clad in shiplap, the great room is anchored by a fireplace with a reclaimed wood mantel. “And then we did custom built-ins on either side of the fireplace that house exposed wooden shelving and window seating,” Gable says. “We wanted to maximize seating in this great room, because we like to host and have family and friends over. Gorgeous windows look out to the pool, and the finishing touch there is the lighting. I always tell clients that the jewelry to any home is the lighting.”
The glittering brass wall fixtures, also sourced from Circa Lighting, offset the homey Pottery Barn sofas, which are covered in cotton, and the linen-based armchair, also from Pottery Barn. The rug is from Serena & Lily. And in a stroke of value engineering, the coffee table came from HomeGoods. “I love to mix and match, whether it’s price points, or old and new, or high and low,” Gable says. “It just adds some approachability to a stylish room.” (Reinforcing her point, the primary bedroom’s headboard was sourced from Target.)
The great room also contains the dining space, which is dominated by her beloved custom-designed table from Sandtown Furniture Company in Baltimore. “We designed the living and dining space specifically around that table,” she says. “We’ve had it for 10 years, and it’s built from reclaimed wood.” The table predates the home’s overhaul, which took place from 2020 to 2021. “We have adored the table,” she says, “because it’s hosted so many family gatherings, and continues to do so.”
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