Because we like a good challenge, today we bring you 10 living room designs that the designers themselves created for their own homes.
A designer is often their own toughest client. Free from any homeowner preferences or restrictions, a designer’s personal space is the ultimate laboratory for their creativity and can be a calling card for their talent. The results range from over-the-top grandeur to sleek minimalism and showcase each designer’s signature aesthetic.
At the Manhattan home of designers Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent, the living room’s 1960s American club chairs are upholstered in an Edelman suede, the mirror and woven chair are midcentury French, the marble mantel and pair of lamps are 19th century, and the kilim is from ABC Carpet & Home.
B&B Italia sofas are grouped with Cappellini tables in the living room of Abigail Turin’s California dream home.
White-oak paneling lines the New York City living room of architect Steven Harris and designer Lucien Rees-Roberts.
A painting by Andro Wekua hangs between the windows in the living/dining room at Sara Story’s family compound in Texas.
The slipper chairs in the living room of Celerie Kemble’s Dominican Republic retreat are from the designer’s line for Henredon.
At the Long Island home of designers Vicente Wolf and Matthew Yee, framed photographs from Wolf’s collection—including images by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Edward Steichen, and André Kertész—line the shelves above the living room’s sectional sofa, which is upholstered in a Janus et Cie fabric.
In the family room of Alexa Hampton’s New York City apartment, a wall painted a Farrow & Ball blue displays images of architectural elements.
The heart of designer Allegra Hicks’s apartment in Naples, Italy, is a long, high-ceilinged room divided into living and dining areas. The designer also created the Roman-shade fabric, the cut velvet on the wood-framed Jindrich Halabala armchairs, and the butterfly-specimen table at right; an 18th-century Venetian mirror surmounts the mantel.
What appears to be a gilt-framed mirror in Timothy Corrigan’s Paris apartment is actually a window aligned with two mirrors, one in the living room and one in the dining room beyond. Corrigan highlighted the ingenious hall-of-mirrors illusion by installing matching Napoléon III chandeliers in the two rooms. The armchairs and the curtain and sofa fabrics are all from Schumacher’s Timothy Corrigan Collection; the stools are vintage Jansen, and the carpet is a Corrigan design for Patterson Flynn Martin.
