It was time for a change in his life. Charles D. Peed, a cofounder with his mother, Cris Briger, and his brother, Pablo Briger, of Casa Gusto, the West Palm Beach antiques and furnishings business, had been living with his family members in a spacious Palm Beach apartment. And while they all enjoyed each other’s company and continue to travel frequently to their other family home in Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende, “I needed to have my first grown-up place, all on my own,” says Peed.

Given his talent for design, Peed was not intimidated by “the empty white shell” of an apartment he secured for himself on the fourth floor of a new building in West Palm Beach. “I like having a lot of light where I live and I also wanted more of a city life,” he says. “West Palm Beach has changed a lot over the last several years, and where I am now, I have that taste of the city I’ve desired. Plus, I have floor-to-ceiling windows and 14-foot ceilings.”

The first change Peed made was to transform one of the two bedrooms into a formal dining room, where he could not only entertain friends and family, but also have a study/library, a space seemingly watched over by a favorite antique of his, a 19th-century Italian bronze bust of Dionysus set on a column. But this is no common room for eating and reading. The walls, floor to ceiling, are filled with 26-inch by 19-inch panels made of papier-mâché, each featuring a relief of a botanical (pomegranates, oak leaves, vines). Although papier-mâché, has existed for centuries as a decorative treatment and sculptural form, it was Casa Gusto that elevated the craft so as to function as wall treatments.

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INTERIOR DESIGN BY STUDIO GUSTO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLES D. PEED

WRITTEN BY DAVID MASELLO

This story appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of MILIEU.