Designer Alfredo Paredes.Frank Frances Studio/Supplied
In 1986, Ralph Lauren opened his flagship store at the corner of 72nd Street and Madison Avenue in what was once the Rhinelander Mansion, built in 1898 by a reclusive heiress who never moved in.
Lauren knew the French chateau, in the heart of Manhattan, would be the perfect backdrop for his brand’s moneyed style, part English aristocracy, part sporty American East Coast elite. In the storefront’s eight picture windows he created dreamscapes into another world, where beautiful people play croquet, polo and fly first-class.
The person Lauren tasked with executing his vision of aspirational luxury was Alfredo Paredes, a 23-year-old graduate from the Art Institute in Atlanta and a design ingenue with a knack for making the ordinary extraordinary.
At the time, Paredes was an unknown, with a lot to prove. Now he’s one of America’s top interior designers, with a new coffee-table book called Alfredo Paredes at Home, published by Rizzoli last month.
So who is this man with the magic touch? A first-generation American of Cuban descent, Paredes is the oldest of four kids weaned on stories of the Havana Yacht Club and debutante parties at the presidential palace.
His writer-husband, Brad Goldfarb (who co-authored the book), believes those stories of a paradise lost “instilled in Paredes an appreciation, reverence even, for the past.”
He grew up in 1970s Miami, with its mix of hippie cool and Latin American swagger. That free-wheeling, spontaneous environment also left a mark. “There is a confident looseness and dynamism” to Paredes’s work, writes Goldfarb. “Even in the most formal of his spaces, we sense that life is meant to happen there; fun will be had, messes will be made, human dramas will play out with energy and abandon.”
Alfredo Paredes’s coffee table book features properties he and his family have lived in over the years, including a cottage in Provincetown, Mass., pictured, and an East Village duplex in New York City, above.Douglas Friedman/Supplied
In the introduction, Lauren writes it only took him a few months to recognize his protégé‘s potential. “I took him under my wing because I saw not just his talent, but his passion and love for creating and storytelling. I guess I saw a little of myself in him when I first started out.”
Paredes worked for the designer for 33 years, ultimately serving as executive vice-president and chief creative officer, overseeing global store development, the brand’s Home Collection Design Studio and New York’s beloved Polo Bar.
When Paredes decided, in 2019, that it was time to set up his own design studio, he says it “wasn’t an easy choice.”
“I love him. Ralph is like a father figure,” said Paredes, on the phone from his penthouse office in NoMad, an acronym for the vibrant neighbourhood north of Madison Square Park. “He loves creatives. He likes to nurture them, and he gives them lots of room.”
“He is also an anything-is-possible kind of person,” says Paredes. “He never got caught up in the weeds of the impossible-ness of something. He would be like, ‘Let’s do this! Let’s make it better, make it bigger, let’s make it happen!’ He had this ability to operate with fearlessness.
“I still work the same way.”
Paredes’s rambling Victorian on Shelter Island, N.Y.Bjorn Wallander/Supplied
Paredes’s book is as gorgeous as you’d expect. He is a master at bringing harmony and soulfulness to spaces, with his deft use of vintage and antique pieces, earthy tones, comfy furniture, rich woods, rattan flourishes, houseplants of all shapes and sizes, lots of books, natural light and beautiful art.
Paredes’s English-style mansion, built in the 1920s, in Locust Valley, Long Island.Noe DeWitt/Supplied
The homes featured are four of the properties he has shared over the years with Goldfarb and their two children, Carolina and Sebastian. They include an East Village duplex in Manhattan, a cottage on Captain Jack’s Wharf in Provincetown, Mass., a rambling Victorian on Shelter Island, N.Y., and their current abode, an 11,000-square-foot English-style mansion, built in the 1920s in Locust Valley (the north shore of Long Island, which inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby).
The latter, recently renovated with careful consideration for its historical integrity, is a showpiece. But all four are special. Their magic lies in the fact they look lived in – and loved.
In Paredes’s homes, there are nicks and scratches, candles are half-burned, tables have clutter (albeit curated clutter) and family pictures are everywhere (and the frames don’t match!).
Goldfarb, who has been with Paredes over three decades, calls his partner a design alchemist, who, with a bit of nostalgia here, a dash of glamour there, makes tired homes spring to life.
“Alfredo would return home to our home after a work trip somewhere, and before it seemed he’d even put down his bags, a lamp would be shifted, a chair repositioned, a stack of books realigned just so and, suddenly, the space would sing anew. The transformation would leave me speechless, as if I’d witnessed some sort of magic trick.”
Paredes says he was a precocious kid with creative energy to burn. When his parents would go out, for instance, he would enlist his younger siblings to help him carry all the furniture onto the lawn so he could redecorate the house.
He was also a budding cinephile, and loved old movies such as The Thomas Crown Affair or Catch Me If You Can. “If I hadn’t gone into design, I would have gone into film. I loved how they conjured up other worlds.”
The love of movies was something he and Lauren shared. “Those early windows at the mansion communicated a type of glamour typically associated with movies of the 1930s and 40s. Film provided a deep connection between the two of us. We shared the same visual language.”
After high school, he went to Atlanta to study art and got a part-time job at Laura Ashley. Soon, he was doing floor and window displays.
He ended up in Washington, working for Britches of Georgetown and Uzzolo on Dupont Circle, trendsetters in home decor in the eighties. A friend hired at Ralph Lauren in New York recruited Paredes to the mansion’s visual display team.
The rest is history, and the four homes featured in the book come with design tips he’s learned along the way.
The East Village duplex, for instance, was not huge. So, to maximize the feeling of spaciousness he recommends using “a continuity of palette to establish a sense of harmony from one room to the next.” The living room, which led directly to the rooftop terrace, has French limestone throughout.
The cottage in Provincetown is filled with nautical pieces he’s picked up over the years. It’s essential to “never stop collecting objects that, for whatever reason, speak to you. They tell a story. Your story.”
The white Victorian on Shelter Island is another lesson in continuity. “I always like a house whose rooms reflect the tones you can see on the exterior, which in this case meant relating furnishing to the green-and-white striped porch awning visible from every window in the living and family rooms.” Green became the home’s foundational colour, with various hues in carpets, art, dishes and furnishings.
And the big house in Locust Valley, called “Cocuyo,” which means “firefly” in Spanish (a nod to Paredes’s Spanish heritage), teaches respect for history, and what came before.
“I get upset when people rip the soul out of a house,” says Paredes, who was careful to preserve the integrity of the home’s original design by architect Harrie T. Lindeberg, known for crafting graceful country estates for wealthy New Yorkers in the early 20th century.
“Before taking on a major renovation, I always recommend letting a house ‘talk’ to you so you can understand what it really does or does not need,” he says.
Beautiful homes carry themselves though time, aided along by the people who live there. “They might have a little wear and tear, but that just shows how much they are loved.”
