Pär Bengtsson
Clearly, these AD PRO Directory Houston interior designers are redefining southern style. From interiors rich in color and patterns through furniture upholstery, curtain fabrics, wallpaper, and millwork to more neutral high-end spaces with a modern industrial twist, these six studios all put their unique stamp on residences in the Houston area and beyond. Whether you’re making over a kitchen in Katy or an entire home in River Oaks, if you’re in search of design services, consider this list a good place to start.
Benjamin Johnston Design
Benjamin Johnston Design, whose work has appeared in AD and The Houston Chronicle, is an award-winning firm known for creating classic, curated, and cool spaces that are refined reflections of its clients’ lifestyles, personal histories, and aspirations. Mixing the classical arts with today’s technology, the firm specializes in shaping environments that are as functional as they are timelessly stylish. This comprehensive approach empowers the firm to share its take on total home design with the nation’s most discerning luxury residential, commercial, and hospitality clientele.
Creative director Benjamin Johnston and his team have completed design projects well beyond their home base in Houston—in nine countries, 12 states, and 27 cities around the world. Those projects are as varied as a Manhattan skyscraper with Central Park views, a chic boutique in Beverly Hills, and numerous premier properties from Montreal to Tel Aviv. This know-how enables the firm to service their clients with multiple homes or businesses, bringing a fresh and global perspective to every project in which it is involved.
Creative Tonic Design
Creative Tonic is a full-service boutique interior design firm in Houston serving client needs nationwide. Founder Courtnay Tartt Elias and her experienced team pour their hearts and souls into every home they touch, bringing to life their belief that everyday moments should be celebrated, more is splendidly more, and unexpected details are the best details.
With a passion for saturated hues, richly appointed textiles, and a foundational view that your home should tell your story, Creative Tonic is known for artfully and boldly composing layered environments that are at once functional, beautiful, and uniquely thought-provoking. The team’s fearless use of color and pattern and a decidedly inventive flair—combined with an appreciation for intricate millwork, passem*nterie, and the smallest of details—has garnered accolades in the press and even some awards. Most importantly, Creative Tonic’s ability to envision spaces that are at once beautiful and personalized for their clients means that form doesn’t come behind function.
J Squared Home Designs
J Squared Home Designs is an award-winning design studio specializing in custom residential design and vacation rental design for investment properties. Led by Juliana Ewer, the team of Houston interior designers offers a turnkey design experience for clients, including custom furnishings, drapery and window treatments, remodeling services, and white-glove installation.
For a new build, the team can work directly with a client’s home builder and architect to offer a seamless design process from blueprints to installation. J Squared Design believes that a residence is a personal space that should reflect the homeowner. When applicable, the team enjoys integrating family heirlooms and artwork into their design planning, as they believe mixing antiques with new furnishings gives a home depth and character.
M.Naeve
With an approach that explores the unexpected through texture, form, and muted color, Margaret Naeve Parker’s projects reference timeless sophistication with a modern edge. She creates spaces that convey an ethereal atmosphere, combining elements of contemporary design and rare antiquities found during her travels. Years of buying trips in Europe curating for her namesake store, M.Naeve, have trained her eye to recognize craft, quality, and iconography when it comes to her interiors. Each project tells a story through exquisitely edited rarities using quiet restraint.
Much like her renowned boutique—which recently relocated to Houston’s historic Dorrance Building—Parker’s projects are known for balancing contemporary finds with pieces from eras gone by, creating a feeling of profound harmony. Each project employs principles defined by her learned design philosophy, and important decisions are made based on how materials, colors, textures, light, and specific artworks interact with one another in space.
Nina Magon Studio
Nina Magon Studio is a global luxury design studio with headquarters in Houston and an office in San Francisco, where architecture, interior design, and construction blend seamlessly to deliver the world’s most exclusive residences, as well as culinary, hotel and spa, and special commission experiences. The forward-thinking ethos of the brand is coupled with exceptional service and custom ideations for each of its clients. The team believes that luxury is not just elemental, but also in the minutiae of who we are as a brand.
Nina Magon Studio has collaborated with Bergdorf Goodman, Cosentino, Studio M Lighting, Wall & Deco, and a variety of lifestyle brands, namely The Pavus Collection, under the Nina Magon LLC umbrella. The studio’s Dreamcloud experience was displayed at Miami Art Week 2022.
Paloma Contreras Design
Paloma Contreras is an award-winning interior designer and tastemaker based in Houston. Contreras’s design sensibility is a modern take on traditional style—gravitating towards classic silhouettes and timeless pieces paired with a touch of glamour and an infusion of color. She has honed her distinct eye for style over more than a decade in the design industry, and a lifetime of appreciating beauty in all of its various forms.
Contreras has developed a reputation for designing beautiful interiors in a broad range of styles, which are executed in a manner that is polished, refined, and effortless. Contreras’s interiors are at once timeless yet fresh—balancing attention to detail and the intersection of form and function to enhance a well-lived life. Contreras and her team are currently working on projects in Houston and beyond, with clients in Palm Beach, Key Largo, Atlanta, and New Jersey.
Lucinda Loya Interiors
Designer Lucinda Loya isn’t afraid to make bold moves and add drama to a space, whether it's through impactful ceiling treatments, eye-catching patterns, or sparkling light fixtures. Her eponymous full-service firm is known for its "electric high-end style," which it applies to residential and commercial projects in Houston and around the world. Loya and her team imbue their bespoke spaces with polish and personality, incorporating antiques and a curated selection of art.
Lucinda Loya Interiors tailors its daring aesthetic to each client, bringing unique, luxurious elements to a variety of spaces, including homes, boutique hotels, and even private jets. The firm tackles projects of all sizes, from single rooms to entire homes and new construction and brings an exacting attention to detail to each phase of the design process.
Meg Lonergan Interiors
Designer Meg LaSueur Lonergan founded her eponymous firm in 2009, and since then, she’s become a go-to for clients in Houston, Austin, and nationwide. Lonergan brings a global perspective to her designs thanks to her experiences living abroad in Singapore, New Zealand, and France. The designer is known as a master of the mix, combining different styles, time periods, and sources to create lively, layered interiors.
Meg Lonergan Interiors offers residential and commercial design services, bringing its signature playful and detail-oriented approach to each project. The firm focuses on crafting comfortable and creative spaces that allow its clients to showcase their personal style and unique histories in their homes.
Rainey Richardson Interiors
Collaboration is at the heart of the design process for Rainey Richardson Interiors. The firm, which is led by mother-daughter team Rainey and Ragan Richardson, sees the client-designer relationship as a partnership and works with homeowners to create interiors that are as functional as they are beautiful.
With 23 years of experience and deep roots in the Houston design community, Rainey Richardson Interiors works on all types of projects, from custom new homes to remodels, and boasts its own construction team, allowing it to handle every aspect of the process. The designers and their trusted team get in on the ground floor to ensure the project goes smoothly from the planning stage to the finishing touches.
Mary Patton Design
Designer Mary Patton brings a joyful approach to her residential and commercial design projects, developing warm and welcoming spaces that put people at ease. Her interiors range in style from bold and colorful to neutral and elegant, and she combines her clients’ heirlooms with vintage pieces, modern elements, and exceptional art.
In addition to interior design and renovation services, Mary Patton Design offers styling and design consultations. It can also make the outside of the home look as good as the inside with landscape and exterior design services. Delightful and unexpected details are a hallmark of the firm’s projects, whether it’s a colorful fireplace, animal-print wallpaper, or a subtle yet eye-catching stone backsplash.
The Owen Group Interior Design Firm
As the leaders of The Owen Group Interior Design Firm, mother-daughter team Tami Owen and Brelan Owen Pearson beautifully blend tradition and modernity in their highly sought-after residential and commercial designs. Neutral palettes, classic architectural details, and modern art are hallmarks of the firm’s sophisticated style, and the Owen Group designs many of the elegant furnishings that appear in their client’s spaces.
With offices in Bellaire, Texas, and WaterColor, Florida, the Owen Group Interior Design Firm takes on projects nationwide, from urban apartments to beach retreats. No matter where the project is located, creating spaces that are comfortable and timeless is always the firm’s focus.
Are you looking for an interior decorator or designer to hire for your next project? Wherever you are in the US, visit the AD PRO Directory to browse our list of AD-approved designers and find your match for a design consultation
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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