Last week the design world lost a remarkable woman. Suzanne Rheinstein was a supremely talented American designer known for her elegant, curated, and timeless design style.
Over the course of her career, she owned a design shop called Hollyhock, worked with many high profile clients, was featured in numerous publications, and earned a myriad of industry awards and accolades.
She also authored several bestselling design books, the latest of which I have been devouring over the last week.
“Suzanne Rheinstein: A Welcoming Elegance” features several whole house projects and is poignant in that it is her final book.
From the overleaf:
Over the past decade, celebrated style maker Suzanne Rheinstein has achieved an unprecedented level of refinement and clarity. Her love of objects from the past remains a touchstone, but in her newest rooms, stylish modernity and an elegant simplicity hold sway.
…throughout, she shares her ideas on how to live in a relaxed way surrounded by artworks and personal collections.
About Suzanne
Suzanne was raised in New Orleans by a mother who was an antique dealer and decorator, which informed a great deal of her design sensibility.
After a career in broadcast journalism in Washington DC, she relocated with her husband to Los Angeles, where she opened her shop, Hollyhock in 1988, which launched her design career.
She was a gracious hostess steeped in Southern hospitality and by all accounts generous, elegant, engaging, and totally unpretentious.
Design Philosophy
“Living well every day is much more important than getting your house together only for special occasions”
Suzanne Rheinstein
A firm believer in living life well every day, she created the perfect spaces for her lucky clients to do just that.
A proponent of quality over quantity she advised, “Buy fewer things but better ones - if you buy one really good thing a year, in 5 years you will have 5 really good things!”.
Often working with repeat clients, she liked to transition familiar belongings to a new context, sometimes refurbishing or reupholstering them….never to “make do”, but rather to use well-loved pieces because quality lasts.
She loved to incorporate special and unique pieces in her projects that were perfectly suited to the clients and the space. She would incorporate collections her clients had amassed, displaying them with her unerring eye for composition and cohesiveness.
She would scour antique purveyors and galleries, or create custom furnishings to get just the right things to complete a space.
Known for primarily muted palettes, she would often use block printed fabrics on the wrong/back side to get a softer look and created her own fabric lines for Lee Jofa to mimic this.
About the book
A radical departure from her usual muted colors, the vibrant green lacquered library that graces the cover of her latest book is striking.
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The beautiful book, with photography by Peter Estersohn and text by Michael Boodro, features a chapter on each of 6 gracious homes she has designed, the last of which is her own retreat in Montecito.
Along the way she shares the story each project, as she believes strongly that good design should tell a personal story, along with some particulars of the ingredients in the rooms.
The last pages of the book list some of her favorite resources from showrooms to artists.
Her rooms are a master class in suitability, restraint, proportion, and comfortable timeless elegance.
Her admirable legacy can be summed up in this quote from her book
“Having beautiful things around you is wonderful, but living beautifully is more important. All of us deserve a place that adds richness and serenity to our lives that we can happily share with friends and family. Creating that kind of home for my clients has been my goal throughout my career in design.”
Suzanne Rheinstein
