One good color deserves another

The deep ocean blue of Karen Benson's shirt is a subtle complement to her crystal blue eyes, which are framed in black square glasses matching the color of her hair. This is no mistake. Great fashion sense is a commodity as well as a talent for Ms. Benson, 52. An interior designer for 30 years, her life's work is a balancing act between color and shapes, and how they fill the spaces people inhabit.

EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY Interior designer Karen Benson in her downtown Fort Myers shop. After a real estate office closed last year on West First Street in downtown Fort Myers, Ms. Benson opened a boutique store there called Inspire. It's crowded and lightly perfumed inside, with three rooms named for design facades — garden, urban eclectic and coastal living. The rooms are brimming with whatever fills homes: pricey couches (a white sofa, $2,990) and topped with pillows ($98 for a leopard print); adorable knickknacks ($2 magnets with offbeat phrases and images) fill shelves alongside silverware, lamps, plates, postcards, art and end tables ($15 to about $500).

Ms. Benson's desk at Inspire is hidden among the décor in the coastal living section. She emerged from behind it to share her theory of how space should feel, which is the opposite of outer space — light and inhabited instead of cold and dark.

"If you have a space that's not used, especially if you spend money on it, it's a waste," she said. "It's like people with living rooms they never go in to — maybe they put materials on the chairs they're afraid to use or there's nothing to do in there. I try to never have a space like that."

She has planned the rooms in private clubs in Naples, as well as floor plans for luxury apartments in Fort Myers and cottages on Sanibel Island. One spread in Open House magazine describes a 10,000-square-foot mansion on the Gulf of Mexico in Naples, for which she created a simple, luxuriant look. "The minimal use of color enhances rather than competes with the outdoor vista," a picture caption explained.

"Ultimately," Ms. Benson concluded, "I want a room to be livable — not a monument to space."

Another client lives near her home on McGregor Boulevard.

"There's a really cool house on my street," she said. "It's just about to be finished and Lowell (Benson, her husband and an architect) and I worked on it together. It's influenced by my client's ability as a gardener. It has a peaceful quality to it."

She recommends having plenty of table space in your rooms, so your things — laptop computers, decks of cards or whatever — are always at hand.

"That's why I like to have a lot of little cool tables," she says, adding, "I sell a lot of little cool tables."

At Inspire, they're made by Wes Strickland, a local designer; $1,400 for a sofa table; $220, side table; and $140 for a tripod.

Ms. Benson said silhouette motifs have become popular lately too, after a long hiatus.

"I have no idea why," she said. "I've noticed them on wallpaper and fabrics lately. I think that often whatever is old is new again."

In her case, design is always new — every time she caters to a client's personal tastes — and old. When she was 6 years old, Ms. Benson started drawing pictures of her dream homes.

"They were always square because I drew them on graph paper," she said. "I didn't like to go outside the line. I always remember being frustrated because I couldn't draw the stairs."

She lived in different homes growing up because her father moved from Texas to Ohio to Pennsylvania and finally Florida, in pursuit of a career in the agricultural/ chemical industry. Ms. Benson said he would help farmers to, in some cases, "get rid of fungus; make their watermelons bigger and better."

She graduated with a degree in design from the University of Florida and returned to Fort Myers where her first job was at an architectural firm downtown.

She and her husband have a 22-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son.

A faithful Presbyterian, born and raised, she won't miss a chance to tell you about her faith and what it means to her.

At night, after Ms. Benson has picked up her son from school and closed the store, that's when she is most "in the zone" artistically. Then she might draw sketches of how she envisions her clients' houses in a sketchbook, to create an inside space that speaks to what their lives are like and who they are.