DE S IGN CENTRE
While Paredes was designing fabulous fantasy sets at
work, he was also making real homes for himself and his family. And, as his recently released monograph, Alfredo Paredes at Home (Rizzoli, 2025) reveals, these private spaces are where his full aesthetic in all its coolly casual, life-well-and-beautifully-lived glory finds its fullest expression. Each of the four houses is visually and conceptually
connected to its particular location, but they share one thing in common. “They had all seen better days,” he explains, “yet right away in each one I spotted the story; the movie I saw us starring in when we lived there.” The story for the 1929 red brick house in Locust
Valley centred on its architect Harrie T Lindeberg, a figure Paredes had long admired for his Gatsby-era aesthetic, while with the duplex in New York City’s East Village, it began with the rooftop garden and its view. “I was looking for a transportive surprise in the middle of the city,” he explains, “and the view across to the historic spire of St Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery reminded me of the set from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rope and garret apartments I’d seen in Europe.” The white clapboard cottage overlooking Dering
Harbor on New York’s Shelter Island reminded Paredes of an Edward Hopper painting; he envisioned a weekend
place where his husband, the writer Brad Goldfarb, and their children, Carolina and Sebastian, could go barefoot, and where even the formal spaces had a lived- in casualness. The dining room, immaculately and eclectically furnished with custom chairs by Alfredo Paredes Studio, a glass-fronted bookcase and a hint-of- kitsch surfboard, is a comfortably undone space that doubles as a library.
“I ’VE DONE ROOM SERVICE AT
SMART HOTELS. I ’D LIKE MY NEXT EXPERIENCE TO BE THE PEACE AND QUIET OF THE OUTDOORS”
The smallest and simplest of the houses is perhaps
where Paredes’ storytelling and famed ‘perfect visual pitch’ can be seen most clearly. A former fisherman’s cabin at the end of a wharf in Provincetown, Cape Cod, it is he says, “a fantasy of what I think a summer cabin perched on the water should look like.” The open kitchen/living space, with its worn leather armchairs and found wicker sofa strewn with blue and white
striped cushions, extends onto the dock through a pair of sliding barn doors. When the wind blows, the sheer curtains billow like sails. These houses brim with personality. It’s no wonder
that Alfredo Paredes Studio is in such demand from private and hospitality clients alike. In just six years, he and his team have created homes from the beach front of Cabo, Mexico to the mountains of Vermont and restaurants including Sailor in Brooklyn and the recently opened Latuli in Houston where all-American detailing meets Mediterranean vibes. The legacy of Ralph Lauren lives on – his own homes and those he makes for others are peppered with the brand’s wares – but Paredes is clearly enjoying the freedom of heading up his own studio. He would love to do a hotel, citing it as “the ultimate experience.” But before that, there is a holiday to take. When home
is a dream come true, he admits that going away loses its appeal, but he “adores” London and is keen to call in at Ralph Lauren Home in Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour (the first stand-alone homeware showroom in Europe) for a spot of shopping. And then there’s the lure of the wild. “I’ve done room service at smart hotels,” he says, “so I think I’d like my next experience to be the peace and quiet of the outdoors.”
ABOVE: Paredes chose a classic blue and white palette for his summer cottage in Provincetown Bay, which is perched romantically on the end of a jetty OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A spot for larger dinners when the weather turns cool in Paredes’ Shelter Island home, with a surfboard taking the edge off the room’s formality; Latuli in Houston, a restaurant inspired by both laid-back American style and Mediterranean architecture, features ‘Carrington’ lanterns from Ralph Lauren Home; Dering Harbor Cottage, the designer’s picture-perfect Victorian house on Shelter Island
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© Douglas Friedman
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