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Patience is a virtue. Good things come to those who wait. These proverbs may be trite, but for architect and interior designer Mariella Tzakis, they combined into a design ethos that guided her to find and then decorate her historical Miami abode. When Mari and her partner—in both life and in their architecture and design practice, Tropica—Josh Ehrlich decided to move from New York City to Mari’s hometown during the pandemic, she had a specific sort of premonition. “I kept telling Josh, ‘I know we’re going to find a blue house with shutters and a checkered floor.’”
A year later, however, they were still searching for the perfect home. And, ideally, one with a unique soul in the area of Coconut Grove, where she grew up awed by the wooden cottages constructed by shipbuilders. Then suddenly, poof! That very house—a 1,700-square-foot two bedroom place complete with black-and-white patio flooring—appeared. “It was a bit of a meant-to-be kind of thing,” says Mari. Tree-lined Shenandoah “is one of the only neighborhoods where there are almost no modern white boxes,” she adds. “It’s fun and colorful and it feels like [everyone] is expressing their personality with their house.”
The same goes for Mari, who has deep reverence for the historical qualities of a place. “It’s written inside my being I guess,” she says. Moving from New York, “I wanted my space to look more tropical and Miami, Florida, so I looked at Facebook Marketplace and I found some Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs. They were a wreck but they were $100 for six. Everybody thought I was a little crazy because they were rusted and broken.” By restoring the steel and cane rattan chairs herself, Mari embarked on a two-year journey. “I realized I could find these things and make the house look the way I wanted it to with pieces that otherwise would be at a totally inaccessible price point.”
Mari’s favorite hobby became scouring Facebook Marketplace at night, searching buzzwords like “hand-carved,” “spindle wood” or “turned wood furniture” to see what was nearby. Turned wood furniture became something of an obsession after seeing Ernest Hemingway’s ornate headboard in his Key West home, which also inspired the purchase of two carved wood birthing stools. On her vintage furniture treasure hunt, Mari explains, “You don’t always know what you’re going to get, but sometimes it can lead to something really special. There’s a bit of improvisation and an element of chance with not shopping traditionally that is really cool to me.”
In some cases the chair aficionado—“it seems to me in history that a lot of architects have used the chair to express their larger thoughts on the world”—sought very specific items and, again, had the fortitude to stick with the search. After spying a turned wood corner chair in the background of an Instagram photo taken in a Mexico City gallery, Mari scoured Etsy, Chairish, and eBay to no avail. “Then one day it showed up on Facebook Marketplace and the woman was selling it for nothing. I was like, ‘You need to hold this for me, I’ll be there in two hours!” At times she went six months without any major finds, then she’d discover a beautifully crafted cache in Central Florida and hop in her Jeep.
It was kismet when Mari sourced a pair of 18th-century turned wood Barley chairs in Winter Haven, Florida, since she and Josh had always wanted to make a pilgrimage to see modernist architect Gene Leedy’s work there. They made a day of it, driving around to view Leedy’s precast double-T houses that later inspired some Tropica projects. “That was cool: The chairs took me to this place and then that place inspired these buildings we’re working on.”
Ultimately, Mari spent no more than $200 on any single item and just $2,700 total furnishing their eclectic, homey casita. Beyond not spending a ton, she appreciates that every piece has a history in Florida and is made of natural, organic materials. “You can see the craftsman’s hand—they’re a little bit wonky. Those are qualities I’m really drawn to in furniture.” Nonetheless, Mari is not done perusing Facebook Marketplace: She dreams of finding a Sergio Rodrigues sofa.
A favorite find is the walnut, turned-leg dining table, made by a Facebook Marketplace seller’s great-grandfather. “Josh keeps naming numbers, like, ‘Would you sell it for $50,000? For $100,000?’ And he hasn’t reached a number I would agree to,” says Mari, who likens the one-of-a-kind piece to an abstract character. Their woodworker friend made leaflets to replace those lost over time, adding another set of hands to the table’s storied history.
Gilded wall decor, Mari’s Columbia University grad school pottery, stacks of books, and an array of thrifted ceramic, pewter, and glass containers add charm throughout, too. A Pottery Barn sofa—now decorated with graphic vintage Marimekko and Block Shop throw pillows—is one of the very few items the couple brought with them from New York.
The slow, serene search will probably never end, because to Mari there’s something extra homey about the process of collecting over time. “I think that quality is really special and hard to achieve as an interior designer,” she says. “That’s something I was trying to achieve in my place—without waiting until I’m 60.”
