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For Lucy Harris, design is not a discipline acquired but a language inherited. Raised in a modernist house in New England by a ceramist mother and a photographer father, the interior designer grew up immersed in art and making. Her family lineage - spanning furniture makers, artists, architects, and social activists - extends back to the early 1900s, with women often leading both creative and intellectual pursuits.
Harris has always been surrounded by beautiful, timeless design, cultivating from an early age an appreciation for thoughtful art and design.
Founded in New York in 2012 after a formative career at Meyer Davis, Lucy Harris’s studio is built on a clear yet nuanced philosophy: design begins with people. “I’m interested in stories,” she explains, “and in translating people’s life stories into homes.” Each project starts with a deep exploration of how clients live, move, work, and gather. “Our clients are our inspiration,” Harris notes. “They are the starting point for every project.”
Grounded in her family’s cultural legacy, the studio’s work draws from multiple art and design movements while remaining firmly anchored in modernism. Bauhaus principles and Scandinavian clarity inform a language of restraint and precision, but Harris deliberately resists stylistic standards. “Modernism isn’t a trend,” she says. “It’s a flow of energy that needs to align with each client.” Modernism, in her practice, becomes a flexible framework rather than a fixed aesthetic, one that allows interiors to feel warm, tactile, and emotionally resonant.
Eclecticism sits at the core of the studio’s identity. Harris often describes her approach as an “impossible bouquet,” recalling the Dutch Master painters who placed together elements that would not naturally coexist. Contemporary pieces sit alongside historic and collectable objects, sourced globally and assembled with intention.
Having lived in Rome and Milan and travelling frequently throughout Europe, Harris brings a cross-cultural sensibility to her work, sourcing furniture, rugs, lighting, and materials from around the world and collaborating with skilled craftspeople from Brooklyn to Los Angeles to realise custom designs. The result is an architecture of interiors that feels layered and personal rather than prescribed. Spaces are shaped by memory, materiality, and use, where modernism serves not as an end in itself, but as a means to support life as it is lived.
This philosophy is evident in the Scarsdale House, conceived as an exercise in “romantic minimalism.” Balancing formal architecture with the vibrant life of a family of five, Harris created interiors that feel elegant, modern and live-in. Contemporary furnishings sourced globally soften the home’s formal and traditional architecture, infusing personality and fresh touches. Nearby, the Scarsdale Pool House reimagines leisure architecture as a year-round retreat, blending soft blues, natural woods, and seamless indoor-outdoor connections.
At the Chelsea High Line Apartment, warmth counterbalances the urban setting. “We tried to give our client an escape from the city,” Harris recalls, creating a sensory refuge through curved forms, ochre and terracotta tones, and tactile materials. The Brooklyn Townhouse, designed for a young family, embodies her “impossible bouquet” most vividly: organic shapes, autumnal colours, layered rugs, and sculptural objects animate spaces flooded with light from skylights and garden openings.
Harris’s next chapter brings her full circle: the renovation of a 1791 barn in New Hampshire. The 65 acres of wood and meadow have belonged to her family for 135 years and have been used by three generations as a retreat and artist’s studio, to be a family and creative retreat.
