Tailored Interiors

Inspired Living on the Page

Interview by Jordan Staggs | Photography by Richard Power

Few children grow up traveling the world, staying in famous hotels, visiting palaces, and seeing landmarks that most will never witness in person. For Patrick Sutton, spending much of his childhood seeing the world with his father, a renowned travel journalist, was the gateway to a world of imagination and inspiration in his own career. The Baltimore-based interior designer says, “I didn’t realize it at the time, but this had a profound impact on me as a designer in two ways: having been exposed to the world’s beauty, I learned about design, proportion, and elegance through my childhood immersion into it. Secondly, through watching my father find the story, I too learned to approach each project as a unique narrative crafted from the dreams and aspirations of my clients, coupled with an understanding of the spirit of the location they have chosen for their home.”

Now, after three decades of curating spaces that transport his clients to their own personal, tailored worlds of peace and inspiration, Sutton is thrilled to have released his second book, Tailor Interiors, and to open a new office in Palm Beach, Florida. VIE caught up with him to learn more.

VIE: Have you always been interested in design and architecture? How did you know that was what you wanted to build into a career?

Patrick Sutton: As I mentioned above, I was immersed in a world of beauty, design, and elegance through my childhood travels. It was almost inevitable that my path would lead to design. One summer when I was sixteen years old, I enrolled in a pre-collegiate program at Harvard in architecture. After that experience, I was hooked.

VIE: Your latest book, Tailored Interiors, is beautiful! Did you always know you wanted to create books showcasing your work?

PS: When I decided to write my first book, Storied Interiors, I did so because the unique storytelling approach we engage in is difficult to translate into a social media post. So, Storied Interiors was a way to communicate a more complex, intellectual approach to design, rather than relying on a branded aesthetic. In my second book, Tailored Interiors, I wanted to take a deeper dive into our narrative approach to interior design, this time from an outsider’s perspective. So we hired renowned design author Vicky Lowry to convey her perspective, as well as that of the owners and collaborators, on how we approach the work.

VIE: Was it difficult to edit down the projects you wanted to include?

PS: It wasn’t that difficult, although there were some projects that we couldn’t fit in. In the end, the selection of projects was about the diversity of ideas and locations to best illustrate the strength of using a narrative to create authentic, bespoke homes for our clients.

VIE: How do you typically connect with new clients or homeowners on a project? What are the first steps you go through with them in the design process?

PS: We get most of our clients by word-of-mouth referrals. Once we are engaged, we do a deep dive with our clients to understand their goals and dreams. This interview process is then supported with conceptual imagery and becomes the narrative that guides all the decisions moving forward.

VIE: What inspires you? Does it vary from project to project? Are there elements that you try to weave into every one?

PS: I am inspired by travel and beauty. Seeing the world and all it has to offer provides a depth of design tools that we can then bring to each project. Design, in essence, is the synthesis of what you have seen repackaged and repurposed to solve the need at hand. When you understand what your client is after and you have seen so many design solutions in your travels, you can draw on those inspirations to create a bespoke interior for them, not just in design but in how the spaces live and work.

Clients want to be heard and come to us to help them craft a life they have imagined for themselves. So we see so many unique requests, which is wonderful. We get to learn so much from the diversity of ideas they share. If I had to sit in my studio and regurgitate the same aesthetic for all of our projects, I would be horribly bored.

VIE: Does the location play a big role in your designs? How do you incorporate that element into your work from place to place?

PS: Absolutely! There is a Latin term, genius loci, which means “the guardian spirit of a place.” People are drawn to places because of it, so understanding and embracing it is an intrinsic part of the narrative we craft for every project. Whether it is the serenity of the sea, the majesty of the mountains, or the energy of a city, all of these places inform the design.

VIE: How does it feel to walk through a completed home or other project? What’s your favorite part?

PS: Immensely satisfying. Many of these projects take years to come to fruition. My favorite part is the brief time I have with the home, once it’s complete, just before we hand it off to the owner. It is a deeply personal moment of accomplishment—to take in all the years of planning and execution, exhale, and know you are about to better someone’s life.

VIE: Do you have any other projects or news coming up you’d like to share?

PS: Yes, I am excited about the opening of our new office in Palm Beach, Florida. After three decades of design, we are now beginning a fun new journey with our expansion into the South Florida market. 

VIE: Thank you, Patrick!

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Visit PatrickSutton.com and follow @patricksuttondesign on Instagram to learn more. Tailored Interiors is now available for purchase.