I believe the most interesting design elements in a home are the things that shouldn’t belong, but somehow do. They are the features that give a home its character, its patina, and make it grounded, even when it’s new.
As a young girl, I remember house shopping with my parents and falling in love with one particular home. It had exposed brick walls, warm wood floors, evidence of a hidden history. My parents were smitten with the homes in a new subdivision, so their vote won out. But I never forgot that initial instinct for a house with character, a house with the patina of life.
I was born in Washington, D.C., and my family moved to California when I was a child. The design sensibility of my formative years, including college in Santa Barbara, was shaped by a focus on casual everyday living, modern architecture, and the beach. My fondness for organic materials, clean lines, and geometric shapes began here. After college, I returned to D.C., and then lived for ten years in Connecticut. Immersed in New England tradition, I grew to love things like monograms and sterling, dinner parties and pinstripes. Formal elements became as much a part of my design sensibility as the familiar.
My design aesthetic continues to be a conversation between the two coasts and my current home in Idaho. I love to mix the unexpected, to juxtapose, in artful compositions. I combine timeworn and contemporary, fine and found, organic and handmade, into a style that is textured, layered, and warm.
The result is interior design that is rich in character, that never goes out of style. Design that transforms your home into a vibrant, visual essay—a story all its own.
@essaidesignco