"The key to the success of the furnishings for this house lies in the scale," says Biggs. "The home appears spacious and airy, when actually it is little. But we selected furniture in proper proportion to the room sizes and the nine-foot ceiling. And we didn't use very much of anything. Editing and scale made it work. And, of course, all that color didn't hurt a bit."

Biggs adds that he was glad to see that the Edstroms didn't take the interior decor too seriously. "They wanted their sense of fun to be reflected in the furnishings-just the right attitude to take with this modern vacation beach house," he says. "There's no clutter and not much to clean or maintain." For window treatments Biggs used disappearing pleated shades. The generous roof overhangs that the Zimmermans provided mean that the interiors enjoy just the right amount of direct sunlight all during the year.

"This was the most fun Lee and I have ever had doing a house," says Kathryn Edstrom, who confides she found a design "soul mate" in Biggs. "We started with a piece of local history that we loved from the beginning but knew practically nothing about. Now we're learning all we can about the Sarasota School of Architecture and having a great time with the research. We thought we would use the house only occasionally because our lives are so busy in Rhode Island, but we keep finding excuses to fly down here more and more often. We enjoy the cultural energy of Sarasota and we really treasure our little beach house."

And here's a nice surprise for the homeowners. Their Lido Shores neighbor, Martie Lieberman, president of the Fine Arts Society and organizer of the Sarasota School of Architecture Tour and Symposium (Nov. 1-5) says that the Edstrom home is pre-qualified for historic registry status. Somewhere in those chic little rooms, the Zimmermans are whispering "Bravo!"