The most beautifully designed homes tend to have the same thing in common: personality. No one knows it better than Chloe Redmond Warner of of Redmond Aldrich Design, whose portfolio includes directives like “Little Women on Acid,” “1970s Sofia Coppola in Palm Beach,” or “Stuart Little Goes Big.” Her clients come to her with a vision, and she transforms it into something sharper, stranger, and entirely unforgettable.
Her new book, This Must Be the Place, offers an inside look at her imaginative alchemy—allowing design lovers and readers a glimpse into the process. Chloe is formally trained in architecture, so her designs are technical and by the book—yet filled with mischief and wit. Each home has its own defined “vibe,” but most importantly serves as the backdrop to her clients’ lives. Form, function, and just the right amount of fun. She tells us more:
When did you first discover your love of interior design?
From the moment my mom let me pick out my own carpet—I went with a raspberry cut-pile wall-to-wall—and it transformed my room completely. I believe I was about eight years old.
You’re not tied down to a singular style, instead using unique directives to describe a space. What comes first: the visuals, or the emotion you hope a room to evoke?
The emotion, the atmosphere. I want it to feel cohesive. We do a lot of residential, so there’s not a huge bandwidth – most people want to live somewhere calm and happy – but it’s been fun to design commercial spaces because there we get directives like, “make people feel rich and spendy,” and I’m like, “ka-ching, I got you.”
Tell us a bit about the book’s format. What can readers expect?
The standard one-project-per-chapter format is what I went with, and I tried to tie each chapter to a thread of my thesis about what makes atmospheric design.
Were there any pleasant surprises during the writing process? Any “a-ha” moments you are most excited to share with readers?
A big one for me was when I started writing about the Montana project. I grew up in Montana and had pretty “meh” feelings about winter, and I started thinking about why I loved this big new house so much—even in winter. I realized that the architecture mitigated the weather in a way that was so powerful. Traditionally, the Mountain West was built with thick walls and small windows, and it can feel a bit claustrophobic in the darker months. But architecture is so powerful—it changed how I felt about an entire season. That was a nice thing to realize.
Why do you think home design is important or meaningful?
Feeling at home on this earth is such a profound gift, and it’s one worth pursuing. It’s worth figuring out what makes you happy, and it’s worth investing in making your life reflect that happiness.
What has been the most rewarding part of your career thus far?
Writing a book is huge. It’s building a home for all the homes I’ve built! I didn’t expect it to feel so meaningful, but it does.
The book is filled with advice and lessons learned. Is there one piece of advice you share that you wish you’d had when you were first starting out?
It’s okay to fire people who aren’t a fit. I spent years being afraid of engaging in any type of HR, and now that the firm is functional and mid-sized, I love knowing that I’m able to handle staffing issues.
What do you have planned next?
I’m decorating a house in Maine that belonged to my grandmother – it will be the project of a lifetime!
