Suddenly, millions of individuals are working from home for the foreseeable future. And while home offices have traditionally been a luxury, reserved only for those with enough square footage to reappropriate unused bedrooms, their siren calls have arguably never sounded quite so clarion. Over the years, AD has featured countless such spaces within the pages of its magazine. While many such rooms luxuriate in their own expanse, others consist of simply a well-placed kitchen nook or stylish bedroom desk.
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Throughout the past month, as AD staff members have gotten settled into various #WFH routines of their own, the topic of home offices has been on our minds as never before. After beginning to look through the magazine’s extensive archive, which is available through AD PRO, countless beguiling photographs of home offices emerged. From there, the batch of images was whittled down further, to the 18 beautiful examples you’ll find below.
There’s plenty to unpack. For starters, there are interiors by AD100 designers such as Dimore Studio, Annabelle Selldorf, Kelly Wearstler, and Rose Tarlow. There are also a handful of spaces in which fashion-world insiders—from Derek Blasberg to Stefano Pilati—have been taking care of business for years. And finally, famous names of a different sort are lurking just beyond a couple more page scrolls: Michael Douglas’s 1980s Santa Barbara office is included, as is that of the first lady, circa the Ronald Reagan years. In the end, from city apartments to country houses to even one decorator showcase, the examples included can’t help but delight. So take a break from your actual work, and kick off an interiors daydreaming session.
A Modern Jewel Box of an Office
In September 2019, Evan Yurman of the jewelry brand David Yurman welcomed AD into his Upstate New York home. While the house featured an outdoor pool, angular bathtub, and impressive wooden facade, its office was a clear bright spot within the vacation compound. At first mention, the terms vacation retreat and office might seem to suggest a paradox, but as Yurman said at the time, “It’s so quiet. You can really focus when you’re here. Then you drive back to the city the next morning for work.” Inside the room, a Jean Prouvé desk, Milo Baughman coffee table, and Philip Arctander chairs can all be seen, undoubtedly beautiful baubles to anoint Yurman’s well-decorated jewel box.
Derek Blasberg’s Primary “Cloffice”
Step inside Derek Blasberg’s “cloffice.” The closet-slash-home office is utterly delightful, thanks to its primary color palette and eclectic bookcase. The walls are Farrow & Ball’s Cook’s Blue while the pendant light fixture is a vintage Stilnovo. On top of an antique desk perches a small horse statue by Urs Fischer. At one point in the March 2019 article on Blasberg’s Upper East Side apartment, the owner and author wrote: “The heavy lifts included combining two small maids’ quarters to create the Gossip Room and shifting a hallway to better organize the layout of the master bedroom, guest bedroom, and aforementioned cloffice. My request for a secret passage behind a mirror in the foyer to my desk required some clever engineering, and I love that it turned out resembling a glamorous submarine hatch.”
Dimore Studio and Dsquared2’s Collaboration
When AD100 firm Dimore Studio was asked to create a London home for Dean and Dan Caten—of Canadian fashion label Dsquared2—an office with an appealing clerestory ceiling was part of the package. Inside the space, which is located next to the home’s garden, a vintage desk and a pair of Osvaldo Borsani chairs can be seen. Britt Moran, one part of Dimore Studio, said of the project as a whole in the January 2019 issue: “Our inspirations tend to be from the ’20s to the ’70s. Obviously we didn’t live during most of those periods, but we have a perception of how they looked and felt. It’s magic for us to reinvent those periods—or maybe how we want them to be.”
A Hippie-Infused Wonder-Nook
The Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a classic bohemian anthem. So it’s no huge wonder that this wallpaper looks right at home inside a San Francisco abode. But the photo seen here, which shows a delightful home desk, was published in March 2018—not 1968. No matter, the bedroom in which it is set, designed by AD100’s Charles de Lisle, still makes excellent use of freshly cut daisies. Of the California-based decorator, AD editor in chief Amy Astley wrote at the time in her editor’s letter that his “singular, hard-to-pin-down vision (haute hippie craft meets international high design—with a playful twist!) will surely catapult him to new heights in the field.”
One Beauty Executive’s More Is More Work Space
Beauty executive John Demsey’s six-story Upper East Side townhouse doesn’t exactly call to mind ladies and luncheons. Instead, this maximalist riot of color packs in the punches. The office, with its Brillo Box sculpture and Lucien Clergue photograph of Pablo Picasso, is certainly no exception. Geometric patterns carry the day, from matching optical illusions seen on the carpet and window shade to a predominantly magenta chair. Elsewhere, a map-patterned wallpaper by Schumacher can be seen in the March 2018 image. “His life is his work and his work is his life,” Demsey’s friend Aerin Lauder commented at the time. “You see that in his home, his love of pattern and package and texture; it translates into everything he does. He’s definitely more is more.”
A Marvelous yet Traditional Medley
An 18th-century bust, a 19th-century Russian armchair, and a Ralph Lauren Home desk: This is the mix of pieces and periods seen inside one Tribeca home office. The penthouse space and former private club features Gilded Age architectural details throughout, which pair nicely with the classic decor elements seen here. “I said, ‘I don’t want to touch it,’” the owner noted to Architectural Digest in the December 2015 issue, in reference to the home’s original moldings. “But I needed to rock-and-roll it…up a bit. We’re young, and we want to enjoy the space in a different way.”
Carlos Mota’s Pigment-Heavy Dominican Republic Escape
Interiors stylist Carlos Mota has been the hidden hand behind many an Architectural Digest shoot. When it came time to decorate his own Dominican Republic retreat, Mota made sure to bring in his signature sense of color. Seen here is his home office, which features a desk designed by Mota himself. Private, a cult-classic tome by Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino’s longtime partner in work and in life, can be glimpsed, as can a sculpture reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s famed Bull’s Head, made simply out of a bicycle seat and handlebars. The elegant chair is Indian, while the pigment-saturated mural was inspired by Picasso. Speaking to Derek Blasberg, who wrote the May 2015 piece, Mota mused: “I am a strong believer that color makes you happy.”
Annabelle Selldorf’s Artistic Vision, Realized
AD100 architect Annabelle Selldorf is a trusted opinion for art-world insiders. Not only is she the designer behind David Zwirner’s galleries, but she’s also regularly tapped to create such individuals’ homes. Case in point is the New York townhouse of art dealer Christophe Van de Weghe and his wife, Anne-Gaëlle, which was featured in the January 2014 issue of AD. While most of the house, created by D'Apostrophe Design, conveys an airy sense of light, the parlor-level vestibule-turned-home-office is a somewhat darkly colored cozy den. Inside, pieces by art and design greats abound: a Jean Prouvé desk—purchased before the popularity of his works reached its height—is paired with a Finn Juhl chair, while artworks by Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet can also be seen. The window seat cushions are upholstered in Great Plains fabric while the light fixture is by Sarfatti.
Stefano Pilati’s Fashionable Hideaway
In Stefano Pilati’s Parisian home office, the focal point isn’t the Olivetti desk, but rather a Martino Gamper chest of drawers. Bright yellow, angular, and purchased through Nilufar Gallery, the piece contrasts nicely with the diamond motif seen on a Beni Ourain carpet acquired while visiting Marrakech. The light fixture seen, which blends into the duplex’s white ceiling, is vintage, while the room itself is paneled with painter’s canvas. “Everything is coordinated around my way of living,” Pilati, then creative director of Italian menswear brand Ermenegildo Zegna, commented to AD in the March 2013 issue. “Stefano’s taste is both sophisticated and very eclectic,” Nina Yashar of Nilufar added. “He’s not obsessed by any one period.”
Kelly Wearstler’s Perfectly Pink Idea of a Home Office
When AD100 designer Kelly Wearstler took on this glamorous Bel Air family home, she made sure to bring a particularly graphic punch to its home office. The space, which features curving leather chairs and a small sculpture by Wearstler, also includes a carpet by The Rug Company reminiscent of Bridget Riley’s Op Art. Just inches away, framed black and white photos make for a striking gallery wall. But the work area is really just the tip of the home’s decor-focused iceberg. “We knew from Kelly’s house and her books that we’d end up with something totally unique,” its resident reflected to Architectural Digest writer Peter Haldeman in November 2013.
An 18th-Century Loire Valley Farmhouse, Reimagined
Hervé Van der Straeten’s side table and a Moroccan rug help make this home-office-slash-library such a cozy interior, while the roaring fire completes the wallpaper-appointed space. Nonetheless, the 18th-century Loire Valley farmhouse in question is much more interesting than its comfortable image might seem to suggest: The result of a special brother-sister project, it was co-purchased by AD100 French designer Jean-Louis Deniot and his sister Virginie. “I didn’t want ‘fun’ but something austere—more monastery than farm, more raw,” Virginie commented in the May 2013 article. As for Jean-Louis, he described the home as being “not too sophisticated, yet more sophisticated than you’d normally have in the country.” The triumvirate of owners is completed by Virginie’s husband, Julien Desouches.
A Pennsylvania Farmhouse’s Kitchen-Set Desk
In this Pennsylvania kitchen sits an office nook, which features a pine and tiger maple wood desk. The 19th-century painting which hangs above is in its original frame. The interiors of the historic farmhouse, which are located in the state’s countryside, were designed by Bell-Guilmet Associates. However, the Colonial Revival house itself was first constructed in 1935 by the architect Richardson Brognard Okie. The renovation project, covered in the June 2009 issue of Architectural Digest, was a study in careful, albeit realistic, preservation. “We wanted the rooms to feel accurate, of course,” interior designer David Guilmet said at the time. “But we also wanted it to be clear that we are living in the 21st century, not the 18th—not even the 1930s, for that matter.”
A Rose Tarlow–Approved Workspace in the Sky
AD100 decorator Rose Tarlow may be regarded as an authority on classic California style, but that didn’t stop her from expertly executing this Manhattan commission. The project, featured in the March 2009 issue of Architectural Digest, is located in The Sherry-Netherland, a famed Fifth Avenue residential building which dates back to 1927. While the apartment—an upgraded pied-à-terre for a Los Angeles–based couple—is understated in its design, it still needed a functional and lovely home office. The result, seen here, uses an anegre wall veneer, which pairs nicely with a Pollaro desk and lamp, as well as a Mansour carpet. “You know how musicians have perfect pitch?” one half of the commissioning couple rhetorically asked Architectural Digest writer Joseph Giovannini at the time. “Rose has the equivalent in design. A perfect eye. The apartment is everything I hoped it would be. I walk in and I love it. It has a lightness of spirit that suits us.”
One Photogenic Green Room
Even a fashion novice would likely recognize some of the famous photographs in this home office, taken by the likes of Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Edward Steichen, and Horst P. Horst. Chief among them is arguably Avedon’s Dovima With Elephants, which the photographer famously considered to be a flawed work—thanks to the position of the model’s white Dior by Yves Saint Laurent sash. No matter, one half of the design team of this hillside-set Los Angeles home clearly felt differently. “I love collections,” decorator Trip Haenisch commented to Architectural Digest in the November 2005 issue. A photographic one, seen here, is displayed in the wife’s office, which features a circa 1830 Austrian Biedermeier desk, Cartier box, and suede upholstery by Donghia. Haenisch designed the home in partnership with AD100’s Martyn Lawrence Bullard. At the time, the duo had their own firm, known as Martynus-Tripp.
A Lady’s Home Office Set Aglow
For the 2005 Kips Bay Decorator Show House, AD100 designer Roderick N. Shade chose to create a lady’s home office. Featured in the October issue of Architectural Digest later that same year, the cozy space was lit up thanks to its golden palette and glittering light fixtures. On one wall, a mural made for show-stopping design, while an opposing gallery wall of horizontal photographs made for a picture-perfect setup. Interspersed everywhere were potted orchids, while antique floral vases could also be spotted. Show houses aside, Shade is known for his various New York commissions, as well as his book, Harlem Style: Designing for the New Urban Aesthetic.
An Office with a View
In May 2005, Architectural Digest explored shingle style on Long Island Sound. The home of focus, designed by Mariette Himes Gomez, included an office space with curving, window-appointed walls. A watery view could be seen just beyond, but the antique mahogany desk from Christie’s and Gracious Home desk lamp were arguably of more interest.
Michael Douglas’s Baroque Library-Slash-Office
It’s technically a home library, but actor Michael Douglas used this space as his home office. Featured in the April 1988 issue of Architectural Digest, the article ran the year after Wall Street hit theaters. Inside the Santa Barbara–set highly baroque room, Egyptian masks, regence chairs, and a Venetian needlepointed stool can all be seen.
The First Lady’s Minty Green Office, Circa 1981
For the December 1981 issue, Architectural Digest sent famed interiors photographer Derry Moore to the White House. His assignment was in part to photograph the first lady’s office—then occupied only recently by Nancy Reagan. The mint green space was designed by decorator Ted Graber. A strié-painting technique was used for the walls, along with white trim. A built-in bookcase can be seen behind the first lady’s desk, while the adjacent window looks out over Lafayette Square.
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