Even as a child, Ashley Whittaker remembers poring through the pages of her mother, Barbara’s, magazines, delighted by the beautiful images she saw in Architectural Digest and Homes & Gardens.
Photos By Thomas Loof
“I thought about the day when I would buy my own house and imagined how I wanted it to look,” Whittaker, 55, says with a smile.
Today, the Florida native is a nationally recognized interior designer who recently embarked on a second career as a licensed real estate agent for Compass Hudson Valley Group in New York.
Despite her early interest in interior design, Whittaker didn’t initially consider it a career.
“When I was in college, interior design wasn’t even offered as a major,” Whittaker says. “It didn’t seem like a viable career unless you were able to land a job with a prominent interior designer such as Albert Hadley, Bunny Williams or David Easton.”
After graduating from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Whittaker worked for Ralph Lauren for seven years doing public relations and special projects. She then accepted a job at Forstmann Little & Co., as director of special events and fell in love with helping to design spectacular affairs.
“I worked with event planner Robert Isabell and we would do these over-the-top, gorgeous parties in California, Aspen, Texas, and all across the country,” she says. “And then the next day, we would take everything down. It just broke my heart to see all the time and energy we put into creating something so beautiful just gone; it didn’t feel rewarding to me.”
Instead, Whittaker decided she wanted to use her creativity for something more permanent.
“Here I was helping to plan these amazing events, attended by guests such as Oprah Winfrey, Henry Kissinger and Nelson Mandela, yet I was focused on the tablecloths, the flowers and creating a beautiful event environment,” Whittaker says. “Realizing that was my passion, I decided to pursue a career in interior design.”
In 2004, she began working as a design assistant for Markham Roberts in New York City and although she says the work was 10 times more difficult than she ever could have imagined, she fell completely in love with interior design.
Two years later, Whittaker opened her own interior design firm and quickly became known for her modern spin on traditional designs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications ranging from The New York Times to House Beautiful and Homes & Gardens.
“One of the ways I like to describe my work is fun, even if it’s formal,” Whittaker says. “There’s always color, playfulness and approachability. I want people to walk into a room, sit down and stay for a while.”
With a design approach often referred to as neo-traditional, Whittaker enjoys taking antique items and making them feel fresh by reupholstering them with fabric.
When meeting with a new client, Whittaker says she always starts with a furniture plan, followed by a wallpaper plan and ending with artwork and plants.
“The plan says to clients, ‘This is how we think you can live in this house,’” she says. “We present options such as a cozy corner in the living room where people can sit and read, or the perfect place to have dinner in front of the fireplace or even a dining room with enough space to entertain 30 dinner guests.”
She then has a conversation with clients about their lifestyle, to determine where they are in their life; whether they have children, are empty nesters or retirees and how they see themselves living in their home on a day-to-day basis.
“There’s so many ways that our lives evolve, and our houses really need to evolve with those life changes,” she says. “Once I understand how they plan to use the space, we can begin the design process.”
A Home Of Her Own
When Whittaker and her husband were looking to buy their own home in Millbrook, N.Y., they couldn’t find a space that felt quite right for their family of five. Both Whittaker and her husband, Andrew Spence, wanted a layout that would accommodate their son, Andrew, now 9, Whittaker’s two stepdaughters, Kyla and Lachlan, who are now in their twenties and their yellow Labrador Retriever, Dutchess.
Working with a local architect, Whittaker and her husband decided to build the house of their dreams. Despite being new, the home looks like many of the original 19th-century buildings in Millbrook. The family moved into their new home in 2018 and Whittaker designed the interior to make it feel both lived in and welcoming.
“We had a visitor recently who walked into our home and asked if he should take his shoes off,” Whittaker says with a laugh. “I never want anyone to think they need to remove their shoes in my home, ‘Please come in with your muddy boots or whatever,’ everything is durable.”
Whittaker’s motto is “the best house is a well-loved house,” a theme that resonates throughout her book, “The Well-Loved House: Creating Homes with Color, Comfort, and Drama” (Rizzoli, 2021).
“I believe homes should be beautiful, but they should also be lived in and enjoyed,” she says. “I like to use everyday china for formal entertaining and use my formal china for everyday occasions, there’s no reason to keep things for a special occasion that may or may not come.”
From Interior Design To Real Estate
In October of last year, Whittaker announced she would be leaving her successful interior design career to focus on selling real estate.
“I grew up in Gulf Stream, Fla. where my mom sold real estate for 44 years,” she says. “I’ve lived in the world of real estate my whole life and always knew at some point it could be a career option for me.”
Last year, Whittaker says, everything seemed to fall into place. She looked at how she was traveling three days a week to stay and work in New York City, then returning home to be with her family in Millbrook.
“I have this beautiful life with my family in the Hudson Valley and I thought, ‘Why am I leaving this to commute to the city?’” she says. “I was working to create a beautiful life for everybody else and I decided I wanted to have more time to enjoy this wonderful life of my own.”
Although she’s not taking on any new projects, Whittaker still has her hands in the interior design world.
“There are certain projects to which I’ve committed, and so I’m finishing those, and I’m also bringing my design expertise to real estate,” she says.
Whittaker has found her design background is valuable in helping her real estate clients prepare to sell their homes.
“Many people have way too many personal effects and furniture in their homes,” she says. “Sometimes staging your home involves taking down a big painting over your fireplace and putting up a mirror so potential buyers can physically and emotionally see themselves in the house.”
While leaving her successful interior firm wasn’t easy, Whittaker is certain she made the right decision. She says spending time at home during the pandemic made her realize how much she loved her home and how quickly her young son was growing up.
Whittaker knows what it takes to create a well-loved home and hopes the colorful, pattern-filled classic rooms she’s designed over the years will continue to inspire joy.
“I’ve often said, ‘If the arms on your living room sofa aren’t worn out in 12 years, I didn’t do my job.’ I want living rooms to be lived in and have people enjoy the rooms I designed and to have fun in them.”
