Romancing the Home

When interior designer Stewart Manger opened his own design office in 2016, he coincidentally had four projects going on in Europe: one each in Paris, London, Scotland and Majorca.

As he was completing those projects, publisher Rizzoli approached him about doing a book on his body of work since establishing his firm. He said during an interview last week that it was intriguing to Rizzoli to have an American, New York-based designer working in Europe.

But soon after they signed a contract for a book, COVID happened.

“It was actually a great project to work on during COVID because we could all Zoom to meet to discuss the artistic layout with the editors, and I could have conversations once a month for each chapter,” Manger said.

Each chapter includes a sidebar discussion that focuses on a particularly interesting part of each project, he noted, to offer people new to the design profession some tips on how to approach different projects.

It also helped that whenever he finishes a project he immediately returns with a photographer to document it. So he had all the images for the book in hand before the pandemic.

“They gave me 264 pages and there was too much for the book,” Manger said. “So we ended up editing a couple of projects and certain images that in the end, I think just made it a better book.”

He chose the name “Romancing the Home: Stylish Interiors for a Modern Lifestyle,” a play on the film title “Romancing the Stone.”

“There is something about the atmosphere in a house, which, if it’s successful, it does have to do a little bit with romance,” Manger said. “Whatever style it is, it can be contemporary or traditional, or Art Deco. But you do need to have a little bit of romance in the interiors to give it atmosphere. Whatever style I’m working in, that is something I am trying to achieve.”

The book debuted this time last year, after the pandemic had eased up, which meant he could go on a book tour — which continues with more lectures and book signings planned.

In addition to his European projects, the book features a number of Hamptons homes he designed, including Top O’Dunes, a home in Southampton that has been in his family since 1960 and that he shares with his siblings.

“It’s a generational house,” Manger said. “We’ve been in that house for over 60 years, and there are some things that have always been in the house that have never left. And then there’s a lot of things that we weave in to update things or things get worn out and they need to be replaced. But it’s very much a generational house. It doesn’t necessarily have a particular style.”

Though he is the designer in the family, that doesn’t mean all of the design choices are left up to him.

“Oh, no, everybody has their opinion,” he said with a laugh. “And they still do.”

He has two brothers, Charles, of Compass real estate, and Bill, the mayor of Southampton Village, and a sister, Lilian, who now has the house next door, which Manger also designed.

Manger’s path to becoming an interior designer began with formal study in the decorative arts, though interior design was not his original ambition.

He started his education at Trinity College in Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor’s in political science. “After I graduated I went to London and did a postgraduate course in fine and decorative arts,” he said. He also gained experience working at Sotheby’s on London’s Bond Street.

Manger moved back to New York, where he worked for Christie’s, and went back to graduate school, studying at the Bard Graduate Center in New York.

“I actually always wanted to do set design, so I went out to LA, tried to get a job working in set design,” he said. “I was going to do period sets.”

But he found out he needed a union card to get the jobs he wanted. His plans shifted when Marian McEvoy, the editor-in-chief of Elle Decor at the time, called and asked him if he was available to do projects for the magazine.

“After doing the postgraduate degrees in fine and decorative arts, I realized I didn’t really want to work in the museum world,” Manger said, adding that the magazine industry seemed like a good fit and a practical application for his experience in design and furniture.

He stayed with McEvoy for a couple of years. Then she introduced him to architect and interior designer David Easton, who was known for creating English-style manors for wealthy Americans.

Manger credits Easton with being one of his three primary mentors, the other two being Bunny Williams and David Kleinberg, whom he also worked for.

“David Easton taught me how to build a room, how to start, how to do a design scheme,” Manger said. “But I think David saw something intuitively in me. He was willing to take a risk on somebody who at least had auction house experience. So when we would go to clients, I could talk in a fairly informed way about antiques and rugs from my auction house experience and a little bit from my studies in fine and decorative arts as far as style and connoisseurship.”

Each of his mentors left a distinct impression on him but also shared similar lessons.

“I was fortunate enough to work with three of probably the best in the country, and they really drove into me that things should speak to each other,” Manger said. “And that’s not something that the lay person really does have an eye for, but a trained designer does.”

Though he has formal training and advanced degrees, Manger credits the practical experience gained from working in design offices with giving him the best design insight. “Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t take the time to work in an office and they never get that,” he said.

He said one thing he misses since venturing out to open his own office is the collaborative process he had with his mentors when they could brainstorm and he could bounce ideas off them.

“They were all very influential in different ways, and I think in the end, my own voice or my own style just comes through that,” he said.

When he gives talks about his book, the title of his lecture is “What’s Your Style?” He explained that’s because it’s the first question people ask when they learn someone is an interior designer.

“If you’re really professional and well trained, you actually can work in any style,” Manger said.

He said his book shows extreme differences in his designs, from the English country house that he designed in Scotland and the 1930s French Art Deco interior he designed for a Paris apartment to a completely contemporary minimalistic New York penthouse with bluechip art.

“If you’re well trained, you’re versatile enough that you can work with a client on each of those,” he said.

Some clients hire a designer because they want to have that designer’s look, he pointed out. But he works with clients who own several homes and don’t want each home to look the same, he said.

One problem in design today, he noted, is many people stay in five-star hotels and get used to “hospitality decor.”

“I’ve even had clients with projects with multiple bedrooms, say, ‘Well, why don’t we just do all the bedrooms the same?’ Because they’re so used to renting a three- or four-bedroom suite apartment in a residential hotel, and that’s what they are used to,” he said. “And that’s not the way people should live. And so you kind of want to educate them. So I think there is importance to having romance in your interiors.”

He also educates clients on the problems that can arise when ordering products online from questionable sources.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the furniture that’s made today is sort of disposable,” he said. “They don’t really last, the finishes don’t last. So I always stress whatever price point you’re looking at, just work with quality. And that can be found in antique shops, it can be found online, it can be found in auction houses, but you have to use all the resources that are available to you.”

Just like he educates his clients, he intended for “Romancing the Home” to be educational.

“One of the nicest compliments I’ve had, not only from clients and friends, but also people I don’t even know who really dive into the book: They’ve actually learned something from it, whether it’s about custom stencil finishes or the way certain pieces of furniture work well together,” Manger said. “And that’s great when I hear that because I wanted people to come away with something. I didn’t want it to just be a picture book.”