Designing a home for adults is one thing, but when it comes to adding a kidfriendly space into a home, a whole new set of challenges arise. Of course, you want it to be a functional space for the kids to learn, create and play but most parents would agree that designing a playspace that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing is no easy feat. That’s why we turned to Manhattan-based Designer Purvi Padia to help understand how to create a playful space for kids that isn’t a giant eyesore for adults.
Purvi Padia spent ten years in the beauty and fashion industry before opening her namesake residential interior design firm in 2008. Padia has designed some of the most stunning living spaces in New York City and has the awards to prove it. In 2012, Padia’s design work won her the Best of Remodeling Award from Houzz and in 2020, Padia won the Best of Manhattan Award in the Interior Designer category from the Manhattan Award Program.
We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Padia recently and she told us exactly how to easily create a fun place for kids that’s not an eyesore for adults.
My goal is to create spaces that feel authentic and effortlessly curated. I prefer to not follow trends but rather merge a variety of design genres resulting in spaces that have a sense of unexpected cohesiveness.
What are your top tips for millennials decorating their new Hamptons home?
To be true to what inspires them and to avoid following trends. Your home is an extension of your own personal style!
Tell us about your product line with your daughter, Reven!
House of NeveRland has been a wonderful way for us to strengthen our bond and challenge each other. I love watching her creativity. The innocent ambition of a 10 year old is such a beautiful thing to experience.
Samantha Gallacher, Purvi Padia, Amanda Freeman, Tony DiMasso and more make up an impressive coterie of professionals
In every GRAZIA Gazette issue, we highlight a coterie of professionals who embody success, culture, change, and the art of living well. In the latest GRAZIA Gazette: Hamptons, we’re highlighting a slew of Hamptonites who are the top of their game in everything they do. Meet them all, below.
Amanda Freeman
A graduate of Duke University and former talent agent and trend forecaster, Amanda Freeman is the founder of Stretch*d and SLT, the 50-minute Megaformer workout with a following of A-listers including Scarlett Johansson, Hailey Baldwin, Nina Agdal and Chrissy Teigen.
Emilia Fazzalari
As co-founder and CEO of Cincoro Tequila, Fazzalari oversees the day-to-day activities, including production, marketing and a successful nationwide rollout. Since launching in 2019, Fazzalari has helped the brand sell over 1.5 million bottles of the award-winning tequila. She’s also an active member of the Trust Board of Boston Children’s Hospital and Trustee of Giving | Grousbeck Fazzalari charitable foundation.
Danielle Bernstein
A native NewYorker, Bernstein has amassed a fan base of over 3 million Instagram followers thanks to her popular WeWoreWhat brand and philanthropic arm, WeGaveWhat. Founded in 2010, the fashion blogger turned business mogul is also a New York Times best-selling author and former Forbes’ “30 Under 30” recipient.
Purvi Padia
When she isn’t designing breathtaking homes and table scapes, Padia is focused on helping improve the lives of the 1.5 million orphaned children in India through LION, a subset of UNICEF that she launched in 2018.
Purvi Padia’s Bridgehampton Home is a Bespoke Retreat.
There are a multitude of ways that the architecture and interior decoration of a vacation compound of generous proportions in the Hamptons can go wrong. As an interior designer, Purvi Padia was well aware of the perils and pitfalls. So when she and her husband found the perfect plot of land in Bridgehampton some time ago — five acres on a quiet lane with views of Sagg Pond — she knew there was only one sure means to ensure that their future home would be a masterpiece. Rather than cede creative control of the project, she would choose an architect with whom she could collaborate — ultimately, she tapped Blaze Makoid — and she would design the interiors herself.
After all, no one was more familiar with her family’s wants and needs than she was. And then there was her own trained eye and cultivated sense of style. “I had a clear vision of what I wanted the house to look like,” explains Padia, who imagined three connected pavilion-style structures. One of them — a flat-roofed building with soaring twenty-two-foot high windows on one floor — is the 17,000-square-foot compound’s center of gravity. That space is book-ended by two gabled structures that are two stories high, one for the family of four and the other for guests and staff, respectively. There is also a pool house.
Purvi Padia cut her teeth in corporate design, working for beauty and fashion brands for 10 years before realizing it wasn’t the right fit. “I always felt something was missing—that there had to be a way for me to feel more professionally fulfilled,” she explains. “Since I was a little girl, entrepreneurship was a dream of mine—and while I loved fashion and beauty, I soon realized interiors were my true passion.”
So she went back to school, graduating with a degree in interior design from Parsons School of Design and going on to launch her own firm in 2010. “I take pride in delivering spaces that feel truly curated,” says the Ohio native. “The thing that matters most to me in design is that every piece feels special and evokes beauty and joy.”
Needless to say, she doesn’t believe in following trends. “I don’t worry about design styles or eras—my only concern is creating a cohesive space that feels authentic,” she notes.
Padia’s greatest source of inspiration? “My children,” she smiles. “They are a constant reminder to inject joy into my work and to always keep things in perspective. Their optimistic outlook on life and philosophy of endless possibilities inspires me not only to push the boundaries in my design work but also in my life as a whole.”
Below, the designer reveals her favorite paint color, why she loves TikTok, and the fellow creative she admires the most.
Get to Know Purvi Padia:
Tell us…
What’s underrated in decorating?
Listening to your own voice and collecting an assortment of pieces that all resonate with you even if they don’t all “go together.”
Name an inexpensive decorating trick that can make a big impact.
Furniture arrangement in a room is so important. No matter the pieces you have, if they aren’t placed properly to play up proportion, silhouette and lighting, you won’t get the desired feel.
Location: New York City & Bridgehampton
Aesthetic: Casual Elegance, Luxurious, Eclectic
Kassatex: How did you start designing?
Purvi Padia: I started in the beauty fashion world straight out of college and worked as a buyer for Bloomingdale’s. I was there for a short while and then was recruited by one of the brands I bought for which was in the entrepreneurial stage. The CEO at the time gave me this huge job as the head of sales and marketing – I was maybe 22 years old. I couldn’t believe he put so much faith in me, but he believed I could do it, and that was my first real exposure to a start up and I think many years later, it’s actually what gave me the courage to start my own company. It was a crazy learning experience. While in marketing, I had the opportunity to learn about the design world as well and I quickly realized showroom design was actually the favorite part of my job. I decided to study at Parsons in NYC in the field of interior design and then launched my firm in 2008.
Holiday House NYC hosted the opening of their Fall 2021 ‘Coming Together’ Tabletop event on Wednesday, December 8th at The Elizabeth Taylor Mansion, helping to raise critical funds for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). Founder and breast cancer survivor, Iris Dankner, was joined at her exciting and festive live showcase by co-chairs Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’s Thom Felicia, Amy Lau and Jean Shafiroff. Over 200 guests walked throughout the stunning three-floor space, while enjoying bites from Elegant Affairs Caterers and sips from Tito’s, Danos and Wolffer Estate.
The evening featured the talents of designers including Austin Gray Design Group, Badilla Painters x Rio Hamilton, Barbara Ostrom Associates, Beth Donner Design x Andrea Correale, Eric Haydel Design, Evan Mason Designs, Pembrooke & Ives, Kim Seybert, Leeann Lavin, Michele Safra, Mottahedeh, Purvi Padia Design, Sandi Berman x Deluxe NYC, Unlimited Earth Care by Frederico Azevedo, and Vanessa Deleon Associates. Each presented chic and cutting-edge holiday tabletop designs featuring the latest interior design trends.
Who says newer is better? Three designers share their tried-and-true favorite products.
Prized Collection
Designer Purvi Padia taps Gabriel Scott’s Harlow series for a variety of lighting needs.
“I first came across the lighting brand Gabriel Scott about five years ago. They were still pretty new on the scene at the time, but I saw them on Instagram and loved their look. I was especially drawn to their Harlow series, and have used it a lot. I was especially drawn to their Harlow series, and have used it a lot. One of my least favorite questions is when people ask me to label my aesthetic, because I don’t want to pick a lane. I like to bring together different influences, and with these lighting fixtures, you can really do that. The Harlow collection includes chandeliers, pendants and sconces, all of which can happily live in modern or more traditional spaces.”
Discovering your calling amid a successful career in fashion as an interior designer is just what happened to Purvi Padia, who established her studio, Purvi Padia Design, in New York City in 2008. But what is so advantageous to having a background in fashion, is that your aesthetic is honed and refined.
Padia’s portfolio is chock-full of neutral-toned luxe interiors that are not only luxurious, but livably comfortable. The lines and colors harken the work of historic legend, Jean Michel Frank, with a touch of mid-century modern and neutral-hued maximalism. Her sense of balance is so on-point that any of her designs would work in both traditional or contemporary architectural homes. Her family’s home in Bridgehampton is her “favorite place on earth.”
In 2012, her work received the Best of Remodeling Award from Houzz, an online platform for residential remodeling and design, chosen by the more than 1.2 million registered members of their avid community. Purvi Padia Design was also selected for the 2020 Best of Manhattan Award in the Interior Designer category by the Manhattan Award Program and is also an Honoree in Interior Design in Luxe Interiors + Design’s 2020 Gold List. Most recently, Padia designed a room she dubbed The Lioness for the Kaleidoscope Project at the historic bed and breakfast Cornell Inn located in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Beyond her amazing work, her passion for philanthropy also runs deep. Padia has sat on a number of non-profit boards including Girls Inc, UNICEF Next Generation, and UNICEF USA, to name a few. In 2018 Padia founded Project Lion, as a UNICEF initiative. The focus is to improve the lives of India’s 1.5 million orphaned children who live in impoverished conditions and endure lives deprived of basic human rights. Since the start of the program, Project Lion has reached more than 582,000 children. In addition, she collaborated with London Jewelers to create the Lioness collection which found an early celebrity following, and 100 percent of proceeds go to support UNICEF Project Lion.
We talked to Padia to learn more about her intense life of design and philanthropy and how she managed through the pandemic.
Everyone is mad about organizing right now. Editorial Director Joanna Saltz chats with four designers about finding solutions that actually improve your quality of life (and your mood).
Joanna Saltz: I have a theory that in times of chaos, people crave neatness, and that’s why we’ve gotten so into organizing lately. Have you noticed that?
Dee Murphy: Definitely. With more people at home over the past year, we all want to find a place for everything or else it just keeps adding to the chaos. So whether it’s organizing drawers and doing the Marie Kondo edit or structuring spaces with custom storage, it’s about making it not feel like an absolute mess. For me, with my kids at home and desks in the dining room, we really needed to just rein it in.
Purvi Padia: When kids aren’t out of the house as much, your home is also where they’re playing, learning, doing everything, and so there’s a lot more stuff.
Jean Stoffer: From a kitchen perspective, people are using that space more than ever and realizing they need new equipment and tools. So that means organizing all that efficiently for cooking.
Jo: Beyond the kitchen, where else are people organizing?
Purvi: Well, rooms are being used multifunctionally now. People want the living room to be an office during the day and a living room at night, but they don’t want to spend hours transforming it from one to the other.
