Gulfshore Life Home March 2023

The Art Enthusiast: Suzanne Lovell

Chicago-based designer and interior architect Suzanne Lovell is a chameleon—her aesthetic morphs with each project. “We always create a home that best reflects the client, which is why our work varies from bright white minimal and modern to opulent luxury,” she explains.

Constants in her projects include an elevated presence of art and artisan detailing, resulting from her collaborations with craftspeople. Walk with her through a home she’s designed, and she can tell you about every detail: the maker who created the dining table (and it may be her own design), the origin of the intricate millwork, the meaning behind a mural.

Because of this, even her laid-back projects read as sumptuous. A South Carolina vacation home may feature shiplap and pine beams coupled with color-washed paintings by Christopher Le Brun to nod to the coast. Meanwhile, in a St. Regis Residence Club Manhattan owner’s suite, high-sheen paint and leafing highlight the Beaux-Arts architecture.

Lovell started her firm in Chicago in 1985, and her eponymous brand has since become synonymous with art-centric interior design. As her portfolio has grown, so has the reach of her work, extending to Southwest Florida, where she’s established relationships with some of the region’s top makers, like Matthew Riley at Thomas Riley Artisans’ Guild. For a waterfront penthouse, the duo created a ‘wooden box’ with slatted cerused-oak to conceal mechanical functions and to frame the kitchen. She also opened the space from the front door to allow a complete ocean view.

Look closely to find thoughtful design cues woven into her projects, like a mirror that reflects Nick Night’s Black Kate painting in the St. Regis condo. Lovell’s had art advisors on staff for decades to curate and build clients’ collections. (For an Irish-American couple’s Lincoln Park home, Lovell traveled to Ireland with the couple to meet artist Joseph Walsh, whose wooden furnishings now fill several of their homes.) Last year, she launched Lovell Art Advisory, a boutique art consulting firm that allows clients to leverage her exclusive access to international art fairs, auctions and private sales.

On a recent Naples project, Lovell channeled the client’s superyacht to transform their penthouse, incorporating nods to the sea with rope-wrapped columns. “What is remarkable is that the residence—with all of the painstaking attention to detail and effort it took to put it all together—feels warm, gracious and inviting,” Lovell says.

She always aims to create spaces that are in tune with the homeowner and the surroundings: “Southwest Florida is a tremendous inspiration as weather and nature here are truly in charge, and we always create with that in mind.”

By Blake Miller
Photography by Eric Piasecki