Stephen Sills
When I begin with a new client, I always...
With my partner, James Huniford, I ask the obvious and necessary questions as well as ones like, "What has been your experience with designers in the past?" "Will child-friendly considerations be less or more important at some future point than now?" "Beyond period and style, how do you define the atmosphere of a home?" We find the key is to learn as much as possible at the very start.
The mistake most people make when doing their own designing is...
Asking their friends for ideas and opinions. A project needs a mediator—a professional—and one cohesive thought process.
The most unusual request from a client was...
To try to make a Venetian palazzo from a modern structure.
For someone who wants a big look on a small budget today...
I suggest using simple, humble objects that have great form to them: certain rocks and stones, for instance. Found pieces. And a beautiful color scheme costs very little.
One of the best things right now to collect for an investment is...
Eighteenth-century French and English furniture, because there's a decline now in their popularity at the auction houses, even though they work well in modern settings. But fashion changes, and the prices will again rise. We caution our clients, however, that decoration is purely about pleasure and frivolity and luxury and should not be confused with investment.
In the area of home electronics, people are asking for...
Everything that they have in their offices to be duplicated in their homes: fax machines, computers, printers, multiline telephones.
In the next ten years the most important thing in design will be...
Incorporating collections that have been acquired solely for their beauty and for the way they communicate who one is. So many people these days just order up generic modern furniture with no personality and no relation to their lives.
My biggest design mistake was...
Early in my career I tried to replicate a Pompeian-pink fresco color in a modern apartment.
My favorite room to design is...
One that is beautifully proportioned, with a strong architectural backbone.
I change my own interiors...
Slowly, because it is so difficult. I always end up putting them back as they were originally. My aesthetic doesn't change I simply develop different versions of the same idea.
There are many rules designers should bear in mind. One is...
This is a service business. As the design er, you can't just let your own fantasies take over.
The order I follow when I design is...
Like that of creating a stage set: first the vocabulary, then the structure, then the look and style.
Every home must have...
Atmosphere, point of view, soul.
Design likes and dislikes...
Likes: Art of my own time, 17th-century Spanish painters, bronze, marble, stone, painted surfaces.
Dislikes: Glamour without comfort, bad reproduction furniture, lack of decision.
My personal dream house would be...
A modern white adobe on a deserted island.
Who or what has influenced my style...
Traveling to different countries and meeting different people—and bringing a bit of it all back to reinvent in our work.
Three essentials for entertaining are...
A great mix of people, funny conversation, gorgeous flowers.
If I could live anywhere (other than where I am), it would be...
Downtown New York City (I live uptown) or rural England.