LET US BUILD YOUR STORY

With Midwest roots, Hovey Design blends slick staging with real living in Brooklyn, New York.

The warm, luxurious interiors pictured on Hovey Designʼs Instagram page look like features in such worldly design publications as Elle Decor and Architectural Digest. Yet the firmʼs success at staging residential real estate in New York City with a mix of new and old can be traced directly back to Kansas City, where sisters Hollister and Porter Hovey grew up.

The pair recalled during a recent phone call that they went antique shopping with their mother nearly every weekend. Those frequent expeditions instilled in them an appreciation for well-made furnishings with a patina and a history.

A passion for interior design runs through bloodlines on both sides of the Hovey family.

The sistersʼ paternal grandmother lived in what they call “the most beautiful apartment ever” in New York City. Meanwhile, their own mother—who was born and raised in Nebraska—had such a predilection for art, style and other aesthetic forms that

Turn the page she landed a job as an editor for Mademoiselle, a oncepopular Condé Nast fashion magazine, in New York during the 1970s.

After growing up in Overland Park and Mission Hills, Hollister and Porter set off for the East Coast: Hollister to major in journalism at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and Porter to study photography at Bard College in New York. Hollister did PR for financial firms upon graduation, while Porter worked her way into the world of real estate.

But the roots of their design and staging business took hold soon after college, in 2005, when they moved into a loft together in Brooklynʼs Williamsburg neighborhood and began visually documenting their lives. Their social media posts were so popular that Rizzoli New York published their book Heirloom Modern: Homes Filled with Objects Bought, Bequeathed, Beloved, and Worth Handing Down which it marketed as offering “a look at the homes of todayʼs stylish ʻheirloomists.ʼ”

Porterʼs career in real estate got the sisters thinking that maybe there was a way to incorporate their knack for creating elegant yet eclectic interiors by staging homes on the New York real estate market. Thus was born Hovey Design.

Porter says the sisters aim to meld the architectural styles with the neighborhood vibes of the properties they stage to appeal to the right type of clients.

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One of their recent projects, Jefferson 47, a historic townhouse located in Brooklynʼs Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, had recently been updated and converted from a four-unit apartment building to a duplex. Envisioning a young family living in one or both of the units, Hollister and Porter brought in a mix of furnishings by such design stalwarts as Milo Baughman, Gio Ponti and Tobia Scarpa. They complemented the townhouse with warm colors, textured textiles and chrome and marble tables.

“We want our design to have a point of view, but we donʼt want it to have too much quirky personality,” Hollister says. “Itʼs a very fine line between being fascinating, memorable and beautiful, but not looking like a tiny narrow personality would fit in it. So it has to be sort of broad, but also memorable.”

Their staging stands apart from that of other New York firms that do “beautiful, slick work” thatʼs perfect for super high-end properties but isnʼt always appropriate for others, Porter says.

“We saw a massive opportunity for something in the middle, because we werenʼt seeing how anyone we know lives. We thought there has to be something that reflects a different kind of buyer, which is the majority of people,” Hollister adds.

They blend big-box store furnishings that are simple and classic—CB2 and Crate and Barrel are favorites—with antiques and mid-century pieces— particularly French and Italian that they buy at auctions—to create designs that look like theyʼve been accumulated over time.

“Itʼs collected and tells the story of how people evolve in their own lives,” Hollister explains. “Those make the most interesting homes—when you can see that there are layers. We wanted to bring that to staging.”

Above: All of the bedrooms and the living room have fireplaces. A Nelson Saucer Bubble pendant floats above a bed that’s sheathed in simple organic textiles.

Le : Art, lighting and accessories bring creativity to the dark walls— and ceiling—of the home o ice.