The designer and her business partner and mother looked to the 17th- and 18th-century travel custom as a model for their shop at the Royal Poinciana Plaza
Utter the words “Palm Beach” and a certain kind of decor comes to mind: vintage wicker furniture, fabrics in preppy prints, etc. But at the city’s newest home decor source, there’s nary a Lilly Pulitzer pillow or chintz chaise in sight. And that’s on purpose. “In Florida, there are a lot of stores that skew traditional and coastal, but recently in Palm Beach, there have been young families moving here who want something different,” says designer Caroline Rafferty as she walks me around The Grand Tour, the shop she’s opened with her mother, Julie Fisher Cummings, in the Royal Poinciana Plaza, a week before opening.
Rafferty should know: She relocated to Florida in 2013 and was immediately disappointed in her options there. “I realized I couldn’t find the textiles and the inspiration I find in New York,” says the designer as she weaves through the open boxes on the graphic linoleum floor of the shop. “We were doing so much online, but as a designer you want to go and see things and touch them.”
