The Challenge

After 20 years in Dubai and decades of moving before that, the Todd family brought a lifetime of collected art and Arabesque design influence into their new home at Alys Beach. Alys Beach needed a film that could capture a house unlike anything else in the community, soaring ceilings, a Moroccan-star motif, a facade intentionally at odds with the interior, without losing the family's personal story.

The Approach

Ninety Nine Natives built the film around a contrast the Todds and their architects kept returning to: a home that looks Georgian from the street and opens into "a different world" inside. Interviews with the Todds and architects Erik Vogt and Marieanne Khoury-Vogt let both the design reasoning and the family's history come through in their own words.

The Execution

The film moves through intentional details, ceilings built to keep interiors cool the way they would in the Middle East, a winding staircase eased with landings, a hand-tweaked shoreline blue, while grounding them in the family's story: pieces carried through 15 homes over 25 years, a childhood cabinet from Cairo built into a bookcase.

The Result

The film became the centerpiece of Alys Beach's Alys Gazette feature on the home, giving the Todds' story a depth a photo spread alone couldn't carry.