As an editor, author, and interior designer, Sara Ruffin Costello has touched just about every side of the design world possible. Most recently she’s taken the south by storm with the debut of New Orleans newest hot spot: The Chloe Hotel. Packed with charm, the carefully curated mixture of vintage pieces are combined with new additions, while paying homage to the city itself. After working alongside The Rug Company’s design studio to create bespoke rugs for the space, we sat down (virtually) with Ruffin Costello to learn a bit more about her life spent in design and the inspiration behind the her most recent feat.
Tell us a little about how you started your design career?
I spent the first part of my working life as a magazine editor and Creative Director and I wrote books and articles about travel, art, style, personality profiles for all sorts of wonderful people including the New York Times, Vogue, etc. By the time I moved to New Orleans, still as a writer, I was asked to decorate a townhouse in New York. That first job happened to be an enormous townhouse in the West Village and luckily pretty simple. The goal was to live in it for a few years and sell. The first month he was there, he had a dinner party and a friend offered to buy the place. We were all pretty pleased with ourselves. I went onto designing several small jobs where I’d just sort of help people room by room as well as a few bigger jobs. At this point, I tried to limit my scope to one big job and maybe 2 smaller to preserve sanity. The learning curve never ends, that’s for sure.
What is your first design memory?
Watching my mother use her scale ruler to design our beach house. She had seen this modern, octagonal 70’s house in Playboy of all places and wanted to copy it. She tried to be a decorator, but she hated working with clients, so it didn’t last long. I was heavily influenced by how she saw things—differently than everyone else in traditional Richmond, Virginia—she was my very first introduction to mixing Chippendale and lucite. She made everything fun to look at.
Where do you find inspiration for your interiors?
The best way is to explore someplace new. The Medina in Marrakech, Georgia O’Keefe’s house in Santa Fe, The Prada Foundation in Milan, Cathedral Gorge campground in Nevada, which looks like John Pawson designed it, the tiny little bars and nightclubs I discovered in Sayulita Mexico, Ett Hem in Stockholm, Chiltern Firehouse in London, John Soane’s Museum, Havana! I have been to a lot of those but not all, that’s where the internet comes in handy. I also really like a fashion show for colour and pattern.
Tell us a little about your new hotel: The Chloe.
The genius behind The Chloe - Robert Le Blanc of Leblanc + Smith group -
had the idea to do a clubby hotel and restaurant with a pool in uptown New
Orleans. The project was interesting because there was nothing like it in that
neighbourhood. Most of New Orleans hospitality is situated in the Central
Business District and The French Quarter.
When Robert showed me the house, which is classic New Orleans vernacular;
sort of a Queen Ann/Victorian/bad 80’s reno mashup, I said “Yes! Let’s do this!”.
Having renovated my own house which was very similar to what we were getting
into, I felt qualified to execute. The learning curve however, once again, was steep.
Hospitality is a bit different than residential. You’ve got to deal with all these
grown up things like Codes, ADA, signage, sound mitigation, flame restatements,
UL listings, endless budgets. Things got serious.
What was the design process like?
Pretty joyful, Robert gave me carte blanche to execute my vision. He really allowed me and my team to flex creatively. It made the process a very happy one. There are so many things that can go wrong in decorating; huge, costly mistakes and minor ones that no one will notice. You simply have to stay on your toes. Conversely, I have learned that much of that hand-wringing is unnecessary. For example, should furniture be covered in ginger-coloured linen or Japanese denim or stripes or polka dots, paisley or chintz? Those choices will pull a room in one direction or the other.
How did you go about finding the vintage pieces that are so prominent at The Chloe?
The previous owners left behind a treasure trove, much of which we resuscitated and repurposed. High Victorian furniture that I wouldn’t ordinarily look at, we recovered in simple linens and House of Hackney fabrics. New Orleans is great for vintage. I spotted a gigantic unframed round mirror lying on the side of a building in the pouring rain. $50 later it’s hanging above the fireplace in the reception area. We got lots of pieces from local auction houses that seem to be giving away traditional brown furniture. Additionally, my husband Paul Costello, a photographer who curated The Chloe art collection, was scouring online auction sites for paintings, photography, ceramics and anything interesting.
When do you decide to use a new product versus a vintage one?
Good question. There’s a yin and yang to it. If you’ve got a modern overhead light in a room, it might be nice to have squishy upholstery…or if you’ve got a traditional desk, then I like to pair it with a modern chair…it just depends…old architecture looks great with modern design and contemporary architecture sometimes benefits from cosy pieces with provenance. Generally, I gravitate toward an old-world mix that still feels like young people live there, if that makes sense. Contemporary art also helps to pull the period interiors into the 21st century.
Tell us a little about your bespoke alligator rug. Where did you find the inspiration for the design? Colour?
Alligators are a very real part of life down here. I was paddleboarding this past September when all of a sudden two gators got into a splash fight about a foot in front of me! Granted it was the time of year when babies are hatched, so they are all a little aggressive about food. Probably not a great time to be paddleboarding in the bayou, but anyway it’s all terrifying and amazing and we are so lucky to have such a diverse swamp life. I just became obsessed with these prehistoric lizards and knew they had to be a feature at The Chloe. I saw a rug Diane von Furstenburg had created for The Rug Company in bright green with a leopard racing up the steps and decided we should do the same with a gator. I worked with JR and his team at The Rug Company to draw and perfect the gator. We didn’t want it too cartoon-like or scary. It had to be just right. I have always loved the idea of a deep red stair runner for a hotel in New Orleans— it’s just so Pretty Baby mansion—so we matched a Farrow & Ball deep burgundy and set about getting it all measured. The finished product is amazing. We should all be getting royalties for how much it’s photographed!
What is one piece of advice you could offer to a designer tackling their first hotel project?
Don’t forget about service stations and linen closets and the employee lounge! Back of house design is often overlooked and it’s so critical to the harmony of the whole scheme.
Do you have a design mantra?
Composition and narrative. What does the canvas look like and what is the back
story? How does the space make the characters look and behave? Set design is
fascinating, but the trick is to make it last!
All photos by Paul Costello
