It didn't surprise designer Pat Crane's clients that she loves the Southwest, particularly Santa Fe, N.M., as much as they do. Their relationship has very serendipitous.

Mindy Posoff, who works in the financial-services industry, has loved pottery her whole life, particularly the work of Southwest potters. Her partner, Marlene "Mo" Olshan, chief executive officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania, the mentoring organization, loved the landscape of Santa Fe. Together, they have been there 10 times to shop for art and experience the land. Crane and her husband have vacationed there for years and have a home in the Art Museum area that is a nod as well to the art of the area.

Crane met Olshan and Posoff after the couple won a silent-auction bid at a Clay Studio fund-raiser for a two-hour design consultation. (Crane has been a member for years and Olshan is on the board there.) They found that not only did they all love the art and lifestyle of the Southwest, but they also lived on the same block on Long Beach Island. This sealed the deal for them and began a friendship and a several-year design project that continues today and that has helped to transform the couple's Center City townhouse into a space that is an homage to travel and art.

After the design consultation, Crane, ASID, of Patricia Crane Associates in Narberth, started on a third-floor bathroom of the townhouse.

"It was a tired old bathroom, and they didn't want color, so we decided on terra cotta for the counter and floor," says Crane, who now travels to San Miguel, N.M., to vacation and buy local art. "The room was really inspired by seeing what they already had in the house and liked."

After the bathroom was complete, the trio moved on to the kitchen. Crane replaced the dated and dull white kitchen with a design that features maple cabinet frames with obscure glass "to hide the cornflakes." The island has a corduroy-patterned steel front so shoe kicks won't damage the wood underneath. Crane shopped around for a cabinet to fit in an alcove to house their glassware, but came up empty. She commissioned wood craftsman Alan Levine to do a pale wood case with a curvy glass insert, which looks like another piece of art in the home.

"It is my favorite piece in the house," Olshan said.

The nearby powder room, which formerly sported '70s-style daisy wallpaper, was where Crane first tested her clients' sense of adventure when it comes to color.

"Mo likes color, but Mindy only liked white or beige," Crane said. "The room was so small I chose a magenta color, and they both loved it." The color highlights a painting by Santa Fe artist Phyllis Kapp.

"I love this room and have come to embrace color now," Posoff said.

The dining room has a rustic farm table that Crane paired with more formal armless leather chairs. Cobalt-blue pottery bowls are displayed on top of the table. "It is a very eclectic house, but nothing is formal," Crane said. "They really live in this house."

Just beyond is the home's centerpiece room, the living room, where Crane had to pull the colorful contents together to make the room cohesive and warm. The couple had two brightly painted rustic cabinets, one that housed the pottery and ceramics they had been collecting from Santa Fe, and pale green leather sofas. Crane decided the sofas should stay. "I am not a furniture salesman. I think putting it all together and injecting the owners' personality is what I am good at."

She tied things together with color and careful placement and editing of art. The biggest statement in the room was the giant 12-canvas contemporary painting done by the couple's friend Brett Bender, which took up an entire wall.

"We actually commissioned him to do the painting for that wall, asking him to fill the wall, and he did it," Olshan said. "The most interesting thing about this piece is that each section can stand alone by itself. He told us that he did it that way in case we ever broke up, we wouldn't have to fight about who got the piece! That was 19 years ago!"

Crane labored over a wall color that would bring all the room's elements together. It was a white box when Crane happened upon it. When Posoff and Olshan bought the house, it had mirrors on many walls. They quickly removed most of them and painted the whole house white and just lived with it.

"With white walls, it looked like they hadn't finished it yet," Crane said. The color she chose, Benjamin Moore's Yin Yang, is a hazy form of purple, and it does bring balance to the room.

"The color gave the room depth. The bright pieces they had in the room against the white, it almost reduced these beautiful pieces in value. The white would have worked in a beach house, but not in a town home," she said.

Also in the room are wood "peoplescapes," by Philadelphia artist Shelley Spector, made from scraps of wood she finds and molds. The mantle is lined with more ceramic finds from their travels. Upstairs, Crane has done two bedrooms and two home offices for the pair. The master bedroom colors are subdued, like cocoa. Olshan's office is more colorful - another shade of purple. "In Mo's office, I found a wonderful chair and called her," Crane said. " 'You will either love this or hate it.' She loved it." The chair features orange, fuchsia, and poppy-colored flowers.

The next project is for Crane to stucco the space above the fireplace and do a tile surround. A sketch is already done.

"Pat is the boss when it comes to decisions regarding our home renovations," Olshan said. "We often say to ourselves, 'How did we ever do anything without her?' "