September/October 1999 Issue

The Colorful World of Nanelle
Bold. Crazy. Daring. Whacked out.

Nanelle Wehmann, a 10-year resident of the islands, is not shy about color. She drives a light purple car and carries a bright orange cell phone. Her living room sports a huge work in red, white, and blue neon. She’s rather famous around the South Seas Resort tennis courts for her impressively abundant (and always bright) tennis wardrobe.
   It wasn’t that surprising, then, when an oversized pink home on the north end of Sanibel caught her eye. No one could deny that its immense square footage and 12- to 16-foot ceilings would provide a showcase for the fabulous collection of this avid connoisseur of modern art. What shocked Wehmann’s friends (and continues to shock visitors) are the color choices she made for her pink abode’s interior...backdrops worthy of the stage.
   Nanelle and her late husband, Fred (also beloved around the tennis courts), had lived for more than eight years in a beach home at South Seas, “longer than I’d been in any house,” she recalls. “We had wanted a little more space, and I was ready to do something different…again. I was thinking of all these new color schemes. One night, Fred looked at me and said, ‘You know, Nanelle, sometimes when people want to change all the colors in a house, they just do it in the house that they’re in.’” Nanelle laughs at the memory of his teasing her. “For me,” she says, “it has to be a new space.”
   Space she got. Wehmann’s new home is several thousand square feet, every one of them lively. Add the ceiling volume, a huge outdoor area, and screened pool, and one could almost get lost in it. “It’s too big,” she admits, “but that’s kind of fun.”
   Fun is the key word to this colorful lady’s style.
   Wehmann’s premier art collection includes no somber work. The entire collection is on colorful parade, with a confident Nanelle at the lead, marching to her decidedly different drummer. Each room has also become a work of art.
   Wehmann’s great room is light purple (not unlike her car). Her choice is appropriately bold, considering the art that resides in this room: the six-foot red, white, and blue neon piece; a sculpture of motorcycle and rider; large photorealism pieces of fire trucks and cars. A bright green Victorian sofa and its partner, a contemporary black velvet sofa, anchor the sitting area but also attest to Wehmann’s versatility, her willingness to try anything, visually. A giant papier-mâché tree frog scaling the wall beneath an elegant chandelier underscores this point.
   Asked if she accomplished the mix on her own, Wehmann explains, “I really had wanted to work with an interior designer for two reasons: access to the things they can get, and I’m not real good about furniture arrangements in large spaces.” She turned to friend and designer Nora Price. “I was thinking I wanted to work with her, but she had to understand I had offbeat tastes and offbeat ideas about color, and that I was going to use them anyway. Nora said she thought that would be fun,” Wehmann recalls, “and we had a good time doing it.”
   Some would consider “offbeat” an understatement. Wehmann’s inventive ideas would look strictly funhouse, if not for the grand scale of the home and the fabulous artwork it contains. Eight-inch crown moldings in white add elegance to rooms with walls of purple or turquoise. An office area has walls that glow peach, while the kitchen is navy, with 12-foot-high white cabinetry and an oversized island in white. The master suite earned the cheery lime-green walls; it is, perhaps, the only room one could associate with Florida decor, although a deep purple wingback chair forces further consideration.
   Paintings, sculpture, and fun objets d’art are everywhere. A closer look reveals a serious collection amidst all the zaniness.
   “The main part of the art collecting I did,” explains Wehmann, “I did in the ’70s. I was serious about it on a small scale, because I didn’t have that much money to put into it, but I made some good choices.” Good, indeed. Wehmann had an eye for winners, such as Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Larry Rivers, and Klaus Oldenburg, yet none is hung with pomp and circumstance. Many notable works are, in fact, tucked away on bookcases or guestroom walls, little surprises for the observant or interested. Wehmann herself is blissfully uncompelled to trumpet about famous names—she insists only on the “livability factor” in everything she buys.
   Wehmann also insists on using the most underused color in Florida: black. Large framed prints with black backgrounds dominate the bright red office walls, making the room all that more outrageous. The interior of a small elevator in the guest wing is splashed with accents in shiny black. And then there’s Wehmann’s favorite guestroom.
   Floating in a sea of large black and white tiles, the room has shiny black walls, a dramatic background for more eye-catching art. “I’ve left a trail of black and white checkered floors across the country,” laughs Wehmann, “and all in different materials: some tile, some vinyl, some marble.”
   Fabrics throughout the home are as diverse as the paint. Antique breakfast-room chairs have been covered in punchy checks, Victorian settees are blindingly bright, wingback chairs sport modern tapestry. The effect of Wehmann’s choices is direct and to the point: There is nothing in her home that is not user-friendly. Every space says, “Come in, get comfortable, have a laugh.”
   To dispel all notions of formality, Wehmann’s giant sheepdog, Arf, runs at full speed through the house, sliding wildly on the hardwood floors, canine-ly oblivious to the museum-quality art around her.
   Wehmann entertains often—her home lends itself beautifully to large groups. Guests always wind their way from room to room, enjoying the scenery, making new discoveries with each visit. The spacious interior flows into the outdoor pool area, also cozy with 15-foot wet bar, barstools, and weatherproof artwork.
   Looking over each fun-filled party are Viola Frey’s six-foot tall ceramic woman holding court in the great room, a colorful, dancing doll by island artist Katie Gardenia, and several works by the late Victoria Martinez, the respected Ft. Myers artist whose work tempted Wehmann long after she thought her collecting days were over.
   It’s a work by local photographer and artist Lynn Russell, however, that might best sum up life in the big pink house: a hand-painted, purple-tinted photo of Nanelle, smiling at it all. Arf skids by underneath, on his way to investigate the next visitor at the front door.

Libby Boren McMillan lives her own colorful life on Sanibel, where she is a freelance writer.