Some designers refine a style; Lucy Harris refines a lineage. With creative roots reaching back more than a century, her family tree reads like a map of artistic professions - artists, furniture makers, artisans, architects, and garden designers - many of them pioneering women whose craft shaped Lucy’s worldview long before she began her career. Today, she leads her New York–based studio with a design language deeply informed by modernism, global influences, and the quiet power of heritage.
Raised in a modernist home in New England, Lucy grew up surrounded by creativity. Her mother worked in ceramics and textiles, her father in photography and editing, while the broader family carried forward traditions of making, designing, and inventing. Their homes - an art-filled Federal townhouse in Beacon Hill, an Arts and Crafts retreat in Ipswich, and a Mid-Century house in Usonia designed by Kaneji Domoto - were places where history, art, and craft converged. These stories, steeped in materiality and meaning, shaped her eye long before her professional training began.
After studying and working in the design world, Lucy spent two years in Rome and Milan teaching English. The time in Italy deepened her connection to craft, architecture, and cultural heritage, and she met her husband, Francesco, along the way. For two decades, the couple have travelled between Italy and New York, now with their young daughter, Stella, in tow. Following her years at Meyer Davis as a senior designer and project manager, she launched her own practice in 2012 - an evolution that felt as natural as it was inevitable.
Today, her work blends modernist clarity with eclectic, global layering, producing interiors that feel warm, lived-in, and richly personal. She gravitates toward Bauhaus principles and Scandinavian simplicity, but never as dogma. Instead, she treats modernism as a guiding flow of energy - one that adapts, evolves, and aligns with each client’s identity. Her projects embrace a nuanced mix of materials, textures, and pieces spanning eras and continents. The effect is akin to what she calls an “impossible bouquet” - a combination of elements that may not traditionally belong together yet create a harmonious, emotionally resonant whole.
Her portfolio demonstrates this sensibility across a wide range of settings, each shaped with a different perspective anchored by story, place, and personality.
The Scarsdale House: Romantic Minimalism for Modern Family Life
In Scarsdale, Lucy reimagined a traditionally styled home for a family of five seeking contemporary ease without sacrificing elegance. Her design philosophy - romantic minimalism - reveals itself through crisp silhouettes, sculptural forms, and a palette that balances softness with energy. The house’s formal architectural bones provided a backdrop for global furnishings, curated lighting, and custom rugs that infuse vibrancy and warmth.
The living spaces feel calm yet spirited, shaped by subtle contrasts and a mix of tactile materials. In areas meant for entertaining, she created flow and function, ensuring the home feels inviting whether hosting guests or enjoying quiet family evenings. Every space is elevated but never precious - a hallmark of Lucy’s modernist sensibility.
The Scarsdale Pool House: Year-Round Leisure with a Textural Soul
Just beyond the main home, Lucy transformed a pool house into a year-round retreat for relaxation and gatherings. Its interiors pair soft blues and natural woods with a laid-back sophistication. A cocktail bar anchors the space, while banquette seating and an easy indoor–outdoor connection make it ideal for poolside afternoons, winter weekends, and everything in between.
Vintage and modern pieces blend into a cohesive, textural palette that reflects the surrounding landscape. It’s a polished haven where leisure, family life, and design meet effortlessly.
Chelsea High Line Apartment: A Sensory Escape Above the City
High above the bustle of the High Line, Lucy designed a pied-à-terre that serves as both escape and inspiration. The apartment’s open plan is softened by curved forms and embracing textures - Teddy mohair, layered textiles, and sculptural seating that encourage reclining, relaxing, and lingering. Warm tones such as ochre and terracotta provide grounding warmth within the urban environment.
She created distinct zones within the expansive layout: a flowing living room for conversation, a dining area with quiet presence, and a study with a custom desk and daybed for creative work or rest. Botanical wallcoverings in the bedrooms bring a sense of intimacy and quiet drama. The overall effect is dreamy yet practical - a New York sanctuary with global character.
Brooklyn Townhouse: Organic Warmth and Autumnal Depth
For a young family who love to cook and entertain, Lucy crafted a Brooklyn townhouse filled with organic shapes and rich, autumnal tones. The home’s personality comes alive through a moss-hued banquette, sculptural objects, and layered rugs - all arranged to recall her “impossible bouquet” philosophy.
Natural materials - leather, cork, wool, rattan, varied woods, and ceramics - tie the home to the outdoors, reflecting the family’s love of hiking and nature. Abundant daylight, invited in through a rooftop skylight and sliding glass doors, infuses every room with calm. The result is a vibrant yet serene city refuge that feels timeless, personal, and deeply connected to its inhabitants.
A Legacy of Women Who Made, Designed and Fought for Change
Behind Lucy’s quiet modernism lies a remarkable lineage of creative women. Her mother, Lisa Ingelfinger Harris, immersed her in textiles, ceramics, and handmade craft from an early age, encouraging experimentation and self-expression. Her grandmother, Sarah Parsons Shurcliff Ingelfinger - a designer, furniture maker, and lifelong artist—introduced her to woodworking, painting, and imaginative play. And her great-grandmother, Margaret Homer Nichols Shurcliff, provides an even earlier thread of inspiration: a furniture maker trained at MIT in 1899, a teacher of woodworking to underserved women, and a fierce activist who championed women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and civil liberties.
This multi-generational creative force shapes Lucy’s work as profoundly as any formal schooling. Through her interiors, she continues a legacy of craft, curiosity, and purposeful design.
Looking Ahead: A 1791 Barn Reborn as a Creative Family Retreat
Lucy’s next major project may be her most personal - a restoration of a 1791 barn in Cornish, New Hampshire. Set on 65 acres of woods and meadows, the property has been in her family for 135 years and served as an arts retreat for generations. Her vision is to regenerate the barn as a gathering place for family, creativity, rest, and continuation of the lineage that shaped her. It is, in many ways, the culmination of everything her work represents: history and modernity, craft and clarity, heritage and imagination.
Lucy Harris’s design philosophy is not a style but a story - one shaped by the past, lived in the present, and designed for the future. In each project, she creates spaces that feel meaningful, layered, and deeply human. Her rooms are not simply assembled; they are composed - like the most beautiful and impossible bouquet.
Credits
Interior design by Lucy Harris Studio, Instagram: @lucyharrisnyc
Portraits of Lucy Harris by Weston Wells
Scarsdale House: Photo credit Read McKendree / JBSA, Stylist: Olga Naiman
Scarsdale Pool House: Photo credit Hulya Kolabas, Stylist: Mieke ten Have
Chelsea High Line Apartment: Photo credit Read McKendree / JBSA, Stylist: Katja Greeff
Brooklyn Townhouse: Photo credit Brian W. Ferry, Stylist: Katja Greeff
Production: Karine Monié, Instagram: @karinemonie
