Designer showhouses offer an insightful peek at the next big trends, as well as the decorating ideas that are enchanting professionals right now. Within their walls, participants devise interiors that stretch imaginations and push creative boundaries. As blank slates and with little, if any, direction, these untouched spaces foretell what’s to come in design in the immediate future and beyond.
As 2023’s showhouse register comes to a close, it's time to look back on the inspired interiors. Some rooms foregrounded form and function, while others slathered on the whimsy and charm. Below, find the 12 designer showhouse moments we'll be referencing well beyond this year.
(Shown above) When reimagining the River Mansion’s kitchen, AD PRO Directory designer Wesley Moon paid homage to the historical home’s past while embracing its future. As a nod to the space’s Edwardian origins, for example, he worked with Hyde Park Mouldings to create an of-the-period custom molding. He then integrated more contemporary fixtures, such as the hand-painted cabinetry by LaPolla Designs and Top Notch Millwork, as well as a textural Ann Sacks backsplash. The existing fireplace is refinished with a modern frame to blend more seamlessly with the surroundings.
Chicago-based designer Alexandra Kaehler’s dining room at the Lake Forest Showhouse & Gardens makes great use of the ceiling—or the fifth wall, as designers often dub it. Whether it was through a coat of contrasting paint, a boldly patterned wallpaper, or an added architectural detail, many showhouse interiors this season drew eyes upward. Kaehler uses a plaster ceiling medallion as one part practical solution, one part sculpture. “Imagine blowing a dandelion puff. I wanted the ceiling medallion to read [as though] the petals are flying everywhere,” says Kaehler. When the light fixture is illuminated, the installation shines against the ceiling, painted in Tranquility by Benjamin Moore.
These days, creating moments of privacy throughout the home is proving to be relevant as ever—and we’ve loved seeing the creative ways in which designers are concocting spaces for solace around the house. A recent favorite? New York–based designer Eneia White’s shutter-wrapped cabana bed in this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach. “Pulling from childhood memories, it feels somewhat fortlike [but] in a mature and modern way,” she says of the escape, which is coated in a quiet Prescott Green by Benjamin Moore.
Glistening geodes, tumbled rock spheres, and slender obelisks have long been chosen as sculptural styling accents—and the surge of wellness in the home has made these fixtures even more in demand. Marie Cloud, founder of Indigo Pruitt Design Studio, proves crystals are more than just accessories in her home theater design at the Southeastern Designer Showhouse & Gardens, where she employed light-filled natural stone pedestals as bases for busts. “This generation of homebuyers is particularly intentional about wellness, well-being, and spirituality,” Cloud tells AD PRO. “Because of that, designers will gravitate towards geodes and natural stone [beyond countertops and flooring] to give clients their desired look.” Fellow participants at the Southeastern Designer Showhouse & Gardens agree: Wyeth Ray incorporated a stunning light fixture featuring hundreds of pieces of quartz in her dining room design, and along the stairwells, designer Evan Millard chose a rose quartz installation.
Every interior has its starting point. Perhaps it’s a beloved wallpaper pattern or an heirloom artwork that serves as the foundation for the rest of the color and material selection. In the staircase at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House New York, designer Kesha Franklin of Halden Interiors took her inspiration, a striking photograph by South African photographer Pieter Hugo, one step further: The portrait’s floral field background travels beyond the artwork and onto the stairwell walls thanks to a mural hand-painted by artist Judith Sipos of Nona Art, as though extending the artwork beyond a two-dimensional experience.
Knowing how to determine just the right balance between contrasting elements can be the difference between a good designer and a great one. In his study at the San Francisco Decorator Showhouse, Geoffrey Coy juxtaposes curves and line harmoniously, namely with the arched doorways, curved wood desk, and linear millwork ceiling. The latter is a “custom oscillating ceiling detail inspired by millwork of the 1800s,” he shares. Matte limewash paint in Color Atelier’s Seine is a tranquil choice for the room, resulting in an organic yet sophisticated space.
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In the game room, designers are going all in. For her playroom in the San Francisco Decorator Showcase, Shelley Cahan, principal designer at Shelley & Company Interior Design, created a plush playground off the full-scale mural of Christian Lacroix’s “It’s Paradise” wall covering. Pillow trees appear to grow from the scene, as do handmade kites by Tulu Textiles. Over at the Southeastern Designer Showhouse, Elizabeth McKay of Venture Games had the same color-packed MO in her game room, where a custom magenta pool table coordinated with a rainbow of artworks and sculptural toys throughout the space.
Blending the indoors and outdoors at the Hamptons Designer Showhouse was Rockville Centre, New York–based designer Danielle Chiprut’s Jeweled Veranda, what she describes as “a transformative response to a tech-paradise era we’re currently experiencing.” This covered terrace, with its trio of hammered brass Arteriors pendants and playful CB2 hanging chairs, was centered on custom Calacatta Capraia marble tables from MD Tile and Granite that were rife with emerald, indigo, and berry veining. Farrow & Ball’s Brinjal paint, an alluring warm purple, sheathes the ceiling that extends to the side porch, another relaxed lair for entertaining amid Four Hands furniture.
Welcoming visitors into the 6,000-square-foot Georgian-style Ivy House in Baton Rouge was Ware M Porter & Co.’s striking entrance, for which the New Orleans designer embraced pieces like a hand-knotted Patterson Flynn rug and duo of striped Christopher Spitzmiller lamps. Most notably, the designer aptly wrapped the walls with Check, the geometric pattern from fashion designer Christopher John Rogers—a native of the Louisiana capital—for Farrow & Ball. Part of the Carte Blanche collection, the staircase-spanning wallpaper was a “sophisticated and whimsical backdrop for fine art and period antiques,” as Porter puts it. “The space told an honest story, melding fashion and interiors.”
For her elegant primary bathroom and complementary walk-in closet at Ivy House, Baton Rouge designer Arianne Bellizaire pulled from English gardens, weaving in products from the likes of Currey & Company, Lee Industries, Marmi, and Waterworks. A freestanding bathtub juxtaposed with dreamy artwork from decorative painter Connie Harris elicited a dramatic air that carried over to the Farrow & Ball swathed dressing room, with its 1970s-reminiscent mirrored vanity, icy blue and white carpet from The Rug Company, and colorful blooms arranged by locally based Hummingbird Floral Studio.
Dubbed the Kano Garden, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas living room by local designer Laura Lee Clark Falconer took its name from a lush, hand-painted Gracie mural wall covering that set the tone for a dazzling mix of contemporary and vintage pieces. A soft pink Jan Showers sofa and Julian Chichester Indian rosewood bar cart, for example, matched seamlessly with a Philip and Kelvin LaVerne coffee table and trove of Japanese cobalt porcelain. To maximize the eight-foot-high ceilings, Clark Falconer opted for a glossy finish offset by The Shade Store’s sage-hued pleated silk draperies.
The library in late gardener Bunny Mellon’s Virginia abode was the starting point for Dallas designer Cathy Kincaid’s versatile Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas bedroom, complete with desk, daybed, and window seat. Imagining a space full of books dedicated to art and horticulture, Kincaid enveloped the room with Lisa Fine’s botanical Persian Garden wallpaper developed in collaboration with Italy’s San Patrignano and paired it with Hector Finch lighting, Casci Ornamental Plaster bookcases, and a floor hand-painted by Charleston, South Carolina’s Mirth Studio. “What I love most about the room is that I could lose myself within it for hours on end, surrounded by subjects I love and inspiration from a woman of great style,” Kincaid says.
