Flipping through the mail, something catches Betsy Shiverick’s eye. There are familiar white walls and tiled roofs, plus a distinct Caribbean appeal. Shutters hang askew, speaking to a century of Florida sun and sea breezes, while hidden courtyards provide homeowners space to entertain and escape within this compact complex. Doorways, balconies, and flower boxes imbue individual identity and an outpouring of charm that’s hard to ignore.
“I’m going through this catalog, and it all looks so familiar,” Shiverick says, noting that there was no denying where the photos were taken. “The models are posing and showing clothes, and I think to myself, ‘That’s right outside the kitchen door.’”
Shiverick and her husband, Paul, own one of the six residences that comprise Major Alley, a complex of attached, Bermuda-inspired homes on Peruvian Avenue in Palm Beach that was designed and built by architect Howard Major in 1925 on a lot that measures 100 feet wide by 120 feet deep. Other architects of that time were building sprawling single-family homes on parcels that size, but Major had no affection for that approach.
“He did not understand why Palm Beach was going down this Spanish architecture road,” says Shiverick, an interior designer and chairman of the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach’s board of trustees. “He just felt that [the popular Spanish Revival] style wasn’t part of the American style. Why would you look to Europe on this tropical island when you could have more breezy things?”
Instead, Major looked to the Caribbean, taking cues and elements from the British Colonial style, such as balconies designed to catch trade winds, large windows to give brightness to airy interiors, and doors that open to combine interior and exterior spaces.
His approach didn’t fit with the conventional wisdom at the time—when opulence and ornamentation reigned supreme. As a result, he never reached the ranks of his contemporary “society” architects, including Addison Mizner, John Volk, Marion Sims Wyeth, and Maurice Fatio. In fact, Major felt shut out. Shiverick says he tried to earn a place on the town’s Architectural Jury—the assembly of experts who directed the aesthetic of building designs, similar to today’s Architectural Committee. He eventually was admitted, “but I think he threatened to sue,” Shiverick notes.
Shiverick says she always admired the compound and when news that one of the Major Alley’s homes was being prepared for sale, she knew she and her husband had to act. “They don’t come on the market very often,” she says, noting that it felt like “it was fate that gave us this great little cottage.”
Once it was theirs, Shiverick set about making the 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home her own, but realized that “it really didn’t need much because we really loved the way it looked,” she says. “We loved the old bathroom fixtures. We loved the floors. We loved the painted cypress. The place really packs a punch with the courtyard and nice, big entertaining space in the living room with very high ceilings.”
Shiverick launched her interior design practice, Betsy Shiverick Interiors, in 2003 after she stepped away from a 21-year career as a currency trader on Wall Street. As a designer, she embraces the old, noting that 90 percent of the furnishings she places are antiques or vintage items.
“I’ll even search for older sofas because I think they were better built,” she says, explaining that heavier pieces with features like down cushions speak to a quality that’s harder to come by today. “Like the houses, I think the furniture was better built and has more substance.”
In the Major Alley home, which has been rented since its six-month renovation was completed in Spring 2023 (the Shivericks themselves live elsewhere on the island), modernization happened within the unseen parts of the home. Shiverick partnered with architect Richard Sammons of Fairfax & Sammons. Tim Givens of Tim Givens Building and Remodeling executed the plans.
The most significant changes were in the kitchen. The layout was altered “to make it a little more user-friendly,” Shiverick says. Classic checkerboard floors were added, as was a cypress-topped peninsula and a sort of ante room that acts as a butler’s pantry with storage and a place for the washer and dryer. The kitchen also boasts a Dutch door that opens to the alley and a new “mouse hole” door that leads to the living room and improves the flow throughout both spaces.
Shiverick says these changes make the house more suitable for modern living, but she’s reticent to design with a heavy hand. “A lot of people would want to come into an old place like this and rip the old out,” she says. “I’m drawn to projects that have old material. When I find something that’s in good shape and it’s old, I jump up and down for joy because we can just clean it up and make sure it’s functional. I think [the old] looks better, and it’s time proven.”
Case in point: the home’s original American Standard bathroom fixtures. Though she made additions and upgrades—such as marble tile, Sister Parish wallpaper, and a new shower in the primary bedroom’s bath—the original toilets and sinks were preserved.
Also original is most of the flooring in the home. The living room’s original terra-cotta tiles are overlaid with natural fiber and zebra-skin rugs. The room’s walls are painted Chic Lime by Benjamin Moore because “Howard Major wanted things to look tropical and Caribbean,” says Shiverick.
When she discovered a large painting of patterned vessels, she was inspired to find upholstery for the sofas to complement it. The black used on the art’s frame, the lampshades, and the Asian-inspired chair upholstery was a purposeful choice. “I like to use red and black in a room no matter what the color scheme because it brings energy to the space,” Shiverick says. She believes that the juxtaposition of patterns and textures “is a really interesting tradition of reflecting your travels—where you’ve been and what you liked from other places,” she adds. “Finding things that seem exotic and bringing them back to fit into your home helps you remember where you were.”
The home’s three bedrooms were carefully placed to give each occupant the feeling of privacy. Each is in proximity to the walled courtyard, tucked into different quadrants of the home and styled in unique but related ways, with art, natural-textured rugs, and antiques. The primary bedroom occupies the home’s entire second floor. Shiverick restored the glass-paneled pocket doors so that the room can benefit from the cross ventilation offered by the louvered windows that line an adjacent sitting space and a narrow balcony.
“It’s a miniaturized balcony that’s so charming—like something right out of the Caribbean,” Shiverick says. “To me, it’s an example of what Howard Major was trying to do with Major Alley. He was trying to bring real tropical architecture to Palm Beach.”
Each of the six residences in the development is distinctive. Shiverick’s is the largest, and seeing her neighbors’ homes has revealed some of the secrets her property holds. For example, though her living room ceiling is high, she knows it was closed in at some point as a neighbor’s ceiling is even higher. Shiverick didn’t feel the additional space was necessary and decided to leave the ceiling untouched.
Similarly, other homes have courtyard doorways that open to the parking area, but hers only had a window. That was something she pursued during the renovations, seeking approval from the Landmarks Commission. “It was a little strange not to have [access],” she says. “We mimicked the front door with its fantail arch. It’s really pretty.”
One thing all six properties share is privacy. “Major Alley is a great example of how you can use density,” Shiverick says. “You don’t have to pile things up to the sky; you can design something that spreads out and gives each unit a sense of privacy. It’s a great example of multifamily living.”
Over the last century, Major Alley has also become an icon in the Town of Palm Beach; there’s a reason fashion catalogs, tourists, and social media influencers snap photos here. “It’s a very inviting compound,” Shiverick says. “I think [Howard Major’s] greatest achievement was Major Alley. It’s really a testament to the architecture of Bermuda and to Tropicália. It just invites you in.”
And Shiverick’s work—beyond restoring, decorating, and maintaining this property—is to help her friends and neighbors on the island see the value in hanging on to treasures from the past.
“That’s what the Preservation Foundation is all about,” she says. “In order to do that, people need to take on these projects, put money into them, and respect what was there and have them function. That’s music to our ears at the Preservation Foundation.”
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