Our monthly series asks: How do you bring color into luxury design? The purple-lilac spectrum is having a moment, writes Jill Krasny

Charlottesville, Virginia | Frank Hardy Sotheby’s International Realty

Some homes make a lasting impression while others quickly fade from the mind. Almost always, the design and color scheme has something to do with it. Green enhances old-world interiors, while yellow, used in the right way, is joyfully uplifting. Shades of purple and lilac—which our series on color in luxury design turns to next—have a tricky reputation, but are very much back in vogue, working best in homes with a period feel. 

That’s partly because of the color’s “almost noble past,” says Stephanie Schabot, the design director of Pembrooke & Ives, a New York-based interior design firm. “Purple in any form was once so rare and costly to produce that it was reserved for royalty and the church.” Years later, in the Victorian era, it became a mainstay of wallpapers, upholstery and ceramics, which also picked up on purple’s floral reference points.

Rancho Santa Fe, California | Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty

Interestingly, Victorian widows were encouraged to move on to wearing lilac after an initial mourning period of dressing in black, a detail that points to the shade’s more uplifting qualities. These were also drawn on a century later. The Hyatt House Hotel, a midcentury-modern building in Lincolnwood, Illinois, designed by Hungarian architect John Macsai, featured a purple glazed-brick exterior, earning it the nickname of the “Purple Hotel.”

Nowadays, Schabot sees clients favoring the not-quite-purple shade of lilac for their hallways, bedrooms and occasionally bathrooms—“places where light moves slowly and people want to feel something,” she says. “There’s a real appetite right now for color that carries emotion,” she continues, and lilac, with its echoes of wisteria and jacaranda blooms in late spring, evokes feelings of calm, innocence and nostalgia.

Charlottesville, Virginia | Frank Hardy Sotheby’s International Realty

The aptly named Sunday Lilac, a French provincial-style estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, features a stately dining-room suite drenched in a muted lilac with adjacent moody-blue cabinetry and a bold chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The bright turquoise light fixture exudes energy, says Schabot, while brass sconces and a sunburst mirror draw out the warmth of the wall color.

A thoughtfully restored mansion in Ermoupolis, the capital of Syros island in the Greek Cyclades, has a lilac-accented bedroom that evokes the sorbet colors of sunset. “The Aegean sky in late afternoon is lilac,” says Schabot, “and this bedroom seems to draw direct inspiration from the light and landscape, which is a beautiful reference point.”

Syros, Greece | Greece Sotheby’s International Realty

A blush-colored bathroom in a luxury coastal home in Lielupe, Latvia, similarly echoes the silvery light of the Baltic Sea. The simple metallic fixtures pair well with lilac, says Schabot, creating a “quiet magic,” enhanced by the monochrome pattern on the floor. 

Meanwhile, the grayish-lilac exterior of a mansion in Scarsdale, the affluent commuter neighborhood about a half-hour from New York City, also makes a bold statement in a subtle way. “An exterior must hold through every season,” says Schabot, “and the fact it breathes rather than shouts says everything about the power of a well-chosen tone.”

Scarsdale, New York | Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty

Lilac, in particular, pairs well with warm colors, especially when they have a blush or honey base, says Schabot, who frequently finds herself turning to Farrow & Ball’s Elephant’s Breath, a paint color that reads gray, but carries a subtle hint of magenta. “Those shared warm undertones mean the two pair well with each other,” she says, not unlike the blooms on the jacaranda trees lining the road to a home in Rancho Santa Fe.

Explore our Color Chart design series, from zingy orange, bold red and joyful pink to classic green, calming white, crowd-pleasing blue and uplifting yellow