STEPHEN SILLS

“If you’re buying antiques or contemporary art, figure out what your style is and don’t waver from it. Don’t be swayed by fashion—stick to your own vision.”

1951 - now

Early Influences: Billy Baldwin, Cecil Beaton

Notable Clients: Tina Turner, Vera Wang, Anna Wintour, the Rockefeller family

Oklahoma born Stephen Sills is one of the most successful and internationally celebrated interior designers of our time. One of AD100 members, Sills was also listed in AD’s “30 Deans of American Design” list and Elle Décor’s top 25 designers. As if these are not enough to prove his success, he also received Pratt Institute’s Creative Spirit Award in 2012.

After receiving his interior design degree, he moved to Paris for a few years before starting his career in Dallas and then eventually moved to New York where his career took off. He is a classicist with a touch of Americanism and modernism. He is a true master at creating a delicate balance between classical and modern. His design work involves high quality luxurious fabrics, period furnitures from various centuries and unusual finishes, resulting in effortless but polished, muted but subtly rich interiors. His soft colour palettes offer a perfect background for furnishings and modern art, helping to keep that delicate balance between classic and modern. In his own words, “Now I think my vision, the base of it, was always classic and minimal”.

Stephen Sills - Bedford House living room.jpg

According to Sills every home must have “atmosphere, point of view and soul”, which I couldn’t agree more! His goal is to create spaces that carry emotion and reflect the owner’s personality and taste rather than following contemporary trends and therefore, he is known for designing interiors that suits the personalities of his clients. “I create a story and an atmosphere that is specific to each of my clients,” he states.

According to Architectural Digest, his work is “… a lucid synthesis of opulence, rigour, and surprise.” He designs homes that are timeless, subtle in grandeur and characterful. His use of interesting surfaces, sculptural furnishings, modern art and assortment of antiques is second to none. He established this unique “classical-yet-modern” style that Sills describes as “kind of underdecorated but with fabulous objects”.

Stephen Sills had many famous clients and decorated some fabulous homes over the years, however the project he is most well known and remembered for is his own Manhattan apartment, which was published numerous times in different publications since the 1980s. The house had a tranquil and striking atmosphere with cobblestone flooring and custom fluted plaster moulding and boosted Sills’s career. His countryside home in Bedford was another successful project and was famously described as “the chicest house in America” by Karl Lagerfeld. “It’s hard to describe because my home can’t necessarily be identified with just one particular style” says Sills in an interview with Elle Decor, “I wanted to create a reflective juxtaposition of colours and textures with classical furnishings which, for me, are much more original than the proliferating “shock tactics” that are stripping spaces of their souls.”

At the age of 69, Stephen Sills is still going strong with his own company Stephen Sills Associates and takes care of all aspects of a project from exterior and interior architecture to exterior and interior lighting and landscape design.

Fun fact: He once painted the Italian silk velvet of the Jacobean chairs in his Bedford home’s entry way with a felt tip pen to change the colour of the stripes into what he wanted.

Books: Stephen Sills: Decoration & Dwellings