Tequesta Kitchen Designer Brings an Artist’s Touch to the Table
Article by John Pacenti
Photography by Carri Lager
Designer Beth Hales says, ‘I have things hidden everywhere, just depending on what a client wants.’
The first kitchen design Beth Hales remembers was at her grandparents’ home in Harbor Springs, Michigan: red Formica with white countertops.
Hales – who owns Custom Cabinet Designs in Tequesta – says Formica ruled the day back in the 1970s. Today it’s textured melamine.
“What is old is new again,” Hales said. “Everything will come back around eventually, like lighting under floating cabinets. That’s a big, huge thing right now.”
Hales, 54, prides herself on being hands-on and responsive to her clients’ desires. Her enthusiasm boils over.
“What are you thinking for door style and finish? Do you like contemporary? Do you like high gloss? Do you want an inset?” Hales said. “And so they kind of tell me a little bit, and then I just start pulling out door samples.”
She flashes different types of cabinet styles like a magician showing playing cards, displaying a brushed-wire cabinet finish on two of them. But her showroom at 161 U.S. 1 is full of surprises.
“I have things hidden everywhere, just depending on what a client wants,” Hales said.
Want to see a metal drawer box? She just slides one out of a cabinet – it’s sleek and cool and contemporary. How about a no knob look? Well, there’s one right behind her with drawers that sit above the floor.
Why would you want to waste all that space? “It’s just for the look and people who are ultra-contem-porary want that,” Hales said.
Even her quartzite work table with a lightning bolt accent is a display item, three inches thick with waterfall edges where the mitered stone flows over to the floor.
Hales’ profession may indeed have the finger on the zeitgeist. Superstar singer Chappell Roan penned her song “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” after watching an Architectural Digest video.
Talking to Hales, one thing becomes clear, she is an artist. Her canvas is your kitchen and her pallet is more than paint, it includes fabulous new materials.
At the front of her showroom is a stunning cabinet resembling a breakfast nook, painted watery blue topped with Cristallo quartzite and lighted from below. It glows – futuristic but still retro.
Hales has been in her space at Tequesta Shops for about 2½ years. Her competition is everywhere – across the street, down the block. She juggles about eight jobs at once.
Her canvas is your kitchen and her pallet is more than paint, it includes fabulous new materials.
So how does one get to become a kitchen designer for spec homes in Admirals Cove? You pay your dues and love what you do.
A high school counselor encouraged Hales to go to art school. She left her tiny town in northern Michigan for the big city of Grand Rapids where Hales attended the Kendall College of Art and Design.
“I actually got my first degree in architectural drafting. I fell in love with drafting,” Hales said. “Put me in front of a drafting board with some vellum paper, and tell me to come up with a floor plan – I’m in heaven.”
After working at an architectural firm at age 21, Hales decided she needed more education in her field, wanting to get more into interior design. She took her grandmother’s map of the United States and closed her eyes and pointed.
“My finger landed on Atlanta. Within three months, I was enrolled in the American College of Applied Arts,” she said.
She took a kitchen design class as an elective. “I was like, bingo, this is what I want to do. I can help people pick out colors and countertops, I can help people pick out materials,” Hales said. “This was combination of architectural and interior design on a level that I liked.”
When she reimagined an Atlanta showroom of a local custom kitchen designer as part of an assignment, she landed a job.
Intent on leaving Atlanta before the 1996 Olympics, Hales ended up in Boca Raton with Ultimate Kitchen and Bath. She worked as a designer for a West Palm Beach cabinet maker then she opened up a showroom with one of her clients, developer M.J. Gildemeyer, before striking out on her own.
Hales still adores the work after all these years in the business.
“It’s something different every day. It’s not a 9-to-5 desk job. I get to deal with different people. Every kitchen is different. Everybody’s tastes are different,” she said.
