Known as "The Beige Lady," Sally Sirkin Lewis is the creative force behind home furnishings firm J. Robert Scott. Lewis’ much-heralded design pact with Benetti Yachts has yet to bear fruit, but even now she is independently furnishing 75 percent of a 200-foot yacht under construction in Italy.

"This particular yacht," says Lewis from her Los Angeles, California, office, "is very contemporary with a little Asian influence and many original carvings. There’s a lot of ivory and shagreen (sharkskin), as well as combinations of taupes, blacks, browns and stainless steel. Some of the textures affecting the colors are hand-loomed silk, boucles, chenille and triple moss fringes."

Left photo: The regal red and gold of Sea Hawk’s VIP stateroom and Right photo: the view into the owner’s sitting area show the diverse colors that can be paired with a rich, traditional cherry interior. (Click images to enlarge)

On the other hand, the entire palette of 147-foot (45-meter) Silver Fox is shades of black. The inspiration came not from the horizon, but from within the client’s sensibility—in this case, a handsome, silver-haired man who loves black.

"There was not a room that didn’t have black in it," Bonville says, "but when you look at the rooms, they are entirely different—some are soft, some are powerful. In the master stateroom, even though the carpet is black, the feminine influence of the owner’s wife is quite evident in the rug’s black silk swirls; it’s very, very sexy with some of that thirties movie-star glamour.

"Black happens to have been that client’s happy color, and my inspiration is always the owner. Each person has a color that makes him or her feel most comfortable, that’s particularly soothing or calming for whatever reason, and I play up on that," Bonville says. "If you ask a client to simply describe the most perfect room on the most wonderful night of his or her life, and what color it is, that color is their comfort color. When they walk into any room done in that color they feel great.

"Just changing textures changes the colors, so even if you do a room in one primary color—say black—altering the texture and the way light reflects off those textures is enough to change the tone," Bonville adds. "On Silver Fox, we did a lot of combining of leathers, embossed leathers, suedes, as well as some rich, shiny silks, nubby silks and silk velvets, all in the same charcoal gray." It’s a monochromatic scheme that looks anything but.

From pearl and blue, to sand, teak, moss, coral and the glamorous noire that evolved from 1930s film, the right color combinations extend and complete our deepest experiences at sea and on land.