When Art meets Ancestry – Interior designer Alexa Hampton

Legendary designer Mark Hampton: How it all began

Stately mansions, luxurious apartments, private jets and superyachts – the portfolio even includes the White House in Washington. Interior design studio Mark Hampton, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this coming year, is a specialist for top-notch custom interiors. In 1998, Alexa Hampton took over her father’s business, continuing the company in his name. Hampton’s classic, elegant designs always feature individual styles and never shy away from using color.

How would you describe your father in just a few words?
As his daughter, I am his biggest fan. He was an incredibly accomplished person, and very interested in houses ever since he was a child. He started his own company in 1976 and was involved in projects around the world, in England, the Bahamas, Saudi Arabia. He did the Oval Office and the White House under George Bush senior, among other interiors. The two of them were close friends. He worked for other American presidents too, and for celebrities like Estée Lauder and Brooke Astor. I started working for him for a month every summer when I was 13 and joined the firm full time after graduating from college.

Design is their common language

How did your father influence you?
When we went on vacation, my parents liked to visit houses and museums. For me as a kid, it was horribly boring, but eventually it turned into a wonderful thing. It was like learning another language. My father spoke about design so often and in such depth that I had no choice but to learn. He taught me everything I needed to know for my career. I always think about him today when I furnish a room. His arrangements were absolutely logical, and a deciding factor in the final result.

Is your work at all similar to your father’s?
I think our approach to design is quite similar. Our shared love of historical archetypes, of class ­design, and our appreciation for beauty and an ­astute use of color. With regard to the composition of a living space, my own style is additionally influenced by my love of logic and magic, two elements that are equally important. Good design should always combine form and function. I’m convinced that it’s possible to create harmony, which is something I strive for.

From family history to your own handwriting

You’ve been running the company since 1998. What do you do differently from your father?
When my father died, we didn’t have a plan in place for the transition. I was 27 at the time and had been working for him full time, but I still had a lot of things to learn, and was dancing as fast as I could. Due to the nature of our relationship as father and daughter, there were many things that my father never shared with me about the ­mechanisms of the business. I was terrified, but I tried hard to continue what he and I had been doing. Many things naturally changed over the years, my father never owned a cell phone, for instance, and the culture is far less formal than it was back then. People now live in their kitchens, watch TV all over the house and employ far less staff. It was very interesting to watch this transition, this shift in how people were living, also what it meant in aesthetic terms. People wanted their houses to look more casual, more modern, cleaner, and it all ended up feeling more casual as a result.

What is it about interior design that fascinates you in particular?
A lot of design is intriguing because it’s a puzzle. It’s about trying to find out how to live better, how to navigate space, how to amplify space and how to make a room psychologically work on its inhabitants so they understand how to use it. I like the challenge that comes with optimizing space. There are forces that work on the people in a room or house so that they can exist there better. As a neo-classicist I believe that symmetry and balance create harmony, and that harmony can work on you as a human being to make you feel delighted. But this doesn’t mean that I only work in symmetrical spaces. I use asymmetry judiciously, to put more emphasis on the other side of a space or to add movement.

Between continents, cultures and customer requirements

Do you consider your style to be American?
That’s an interesting question. I’m American, of course, but I’m absolutely a Europhile, which has to do with how I grew up. France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, I love all of them equally. For me, all the great historical styles are eternal and I respect them and their place in the pantheon of design. I am committed to the flavor of European design but as an American, I can show a little less reverence and mix French with English upholstery, Asian artifacts and Indian woodwork. An important thing about my style that I would like to add is that it ­really only exists in my house and my office. In my projects I use the homeowner as my muse. I find it soulless when a designer goes in and metaphorically writes their name all over everything.

Design is not style – it is understanding

Say a client approaches you. What’s the ­procedure when you begin a new project?
It depends on the scope of the job, but I always need the answers to a few questions first: Who is going to be living in the house? How do they want to live? What are the most important parameters? If the house is being planned from the beginning, the architect, the lighting designer and the landscaper also have to be present. A friend of mine who is an architect once told the following story: A client asked him where a good place would be to put a pool. He told them almost straightaway where he thought would be best. The client said: “If it takes you two minutes to answer that question, why am I paying you so much money?” The architect replied: “Because I’ve spent the last 50 years figuring out how to answer that question in two minutes.” In other words, you do get to a point where you can walk into a house and know pretty much how it should be decorated. It’s the experience that comes with decades in the business. Our company is turning 50 next year. My father ran it for 22 years and I’ve been running it for 28. I will have spent more of my life working in this firm than doing any other thing in my life.

Do you have a decorating tip that you would like to share with us?
Sometimes couples will disagree about whether or not to have curtains or rugs in their house. I always tell people to consider the acoustic experience of a dining room, for instance: Chairs scrape against the floor, silver knocks against china, glasses clink and all the while, people are engaging in conversation. All of this naturally creates echoes in the room. Design is not just about the visual. It’s about all of your senses, and you don’t want to be assaulted by a cacophony of noise when you’re eating. In addition to imbuing a room with softness and a sense of protection and coziness, curtains serve to deaden sound. Carpets also absorb sound. All of us who work in the service of beautiful houses bring our ­experiences to bear, we’ve all been in rooms without curtains or carpets.

A home in transition – just like life itself

Do you redecorate your own home very often?
My husband and I started out in a two-bedroom apartment, but when our twin boys were born, things became a little tight. When a one-bedroom apartment became available next door, we were able to press through and add another room. After our daughter was born, we pressed through to a two-bedroom apartment because we needed more space. That was about 10 years ago. It was a big shift, but it coincided wonderfully with the stage of life I was in – being an adult parent and so far along in my career. The apartment looks great now and everything works, but two of my children will be leaving for college soon. I would love to do my next project for myself, create a second home, design an entire house. So as you can see, it was never boredom but life events that caused me to redecorate.

Do you hope your children will follow in your footsteps one day?
They all have artistic ability, but so far, none of them has shown much interest in doing what I do. It would be incredible to have three generations of talented designers in a row, but I’m not going to push the issue. The opportunity is there if they want it.