There are designer-client relationships that unfold like storybook romances, with late-night texts, long lunches, shopping sprees, and impromptu trips to Paris. This was no such project—much to everyone’s relief. When McKayla Kingston and Arpan Podduturi, two busy tech executives, purchased an apartment in a historic Brooklyn building, they arrived with clear ideas and a sense of urgency. “We didn’t want to wait a decade for some place to feel lived-in and loved,” recalls Kingston, who came prepared with a meticulous dossier of reference images and notes. “It needed to feel like home as quickly as possible.”
Enter consummate professional Heidi Caillier, a Seattle-based talent whose moody twists on tradition caught the couple’s attention on Instagram and whose streamlined approach, they happily discovered, aligned with their own. “Our process is super condensed,” reflects Caillier, who in just 10 years has grown her practice from a one-woman show to a team of seven, with upwards of 20 projects on the boards. “We design everything top-to-bottom in one fell swoop.” Brainstorming is limited to one epic onboarding session, during which she and her clients go room by room in exacting detail. “Brass or nickel? Upholstered or non-upholstered dining chairs? Monoprint or pattern mixing?” muses Caillier, rattling off just a few or her many routine questions. Mind meld accomplished, she then devotes herself to developing the complete plans. “By our next meeting, everything is in place.”
And so it was just weeks after the couple contacted her that Caillier presented them over a video call with what would then become the final scheme for their home. “It was a resounding ‘yes’ to everything,” Kingston says of the designer’s nuanced array of furnishings and fabrics. “Trends accelerate, peak, and fade so quickly. We wanted a mix that would age such that you couldn’t date it to a specific year, even though it was all done at once.”
Good bones laid the foundation. “There was already enough detail that the rooms felt special,” Caillier recalls of the interior architecture, conceived by the AD100 firm Workstead as part of the building’s recent conversion. “All we had to do was layer on top of it.” True to that strategy, an airy foyer gives way to a visually impactful dining room, where a floral Fromental wallpaper serves as a bold backdrop to a 1950s Stilnovo chandelier, contemporary table, and vintage Henning Kjaernulf chairs. In the adjacent living room, by contrast, white walls offset an eclectic array of furniture—some new, some vintage—and a salon-style art arrangement. “You need places to breathe,” says Caillier, noting that the view from the living room extends past the entry to the powder room, where decorative painter James Mobley created an immersive mural of dots and stripes.
That kaleidoscopic rhythm continues throughout the 2,500-square-foot apartment, whose circuitous floor plan centers on the kitchen. Whereas the guest suite is cocooned—walls, curtains, bed, seating—in a densely patterned Rosa Bernal textile, the primary suite is a melange of muddy tones, handsome plaids, and tactile details. The office reveals rich coats of Farrow & Ball’s Bancha green—a verdant counterpoint to the chocolate scheme of daughter Vivian’s nursery. “I will marinade on a room until it’s perfect,” Caillier reflects. “But once it’s done, it’s done.”
As a final, personal leitmotif, the couple has sprinkled in an array of Etsy finds, including artworks and lighting. “We both work at companies that empower small businesses, so it was important to incorporate that into our home,” reflects Kingston, who—ever organized—maintains her own secret shortlist of online vendors. In a sign of the times, she and Podduturi have yet to meet Caillier in person—not that they feel any less of a connection to her work. “Heidi has so much confidence and conviction and heart. It made every decision super easy.”
Painted in Benjamin Moore’s Simply White, the entry displays a vignette of antiques and a photograph by Joe Maloney; the pendant is by Visual Comfort.
The living room—designed by Seattle-based Heidi Caillier—groups a sofa by Commune for George Smith, a pair of vintage Paolo Buffa armchairs, a John Derian lounge chair, and a custom ottoman beneath an Isamu Noguchi lantern; the curtains wear a Rose Tarlow fabric.
The existing kitchen cabinetry was repainted in Farrow & Ball’s Vert de Terre; the range is by Wolf.
Fromental wallpaper sets the stage for the dining room’s 1950s Stilnovo chandelier and vintage Henning Kjaernulf chairs; the table is from Shoppe Amber Interiors.
Decorative painter James Mobley updated the powder room in an immersive mural of dots and stripes alongside vintage Murano-glass sconces and Waterworks fittings.
An antique Japanese folding screen pops against walls of Farrow & Ball’s Bancha green in the study, which is furnished with a Servomuto pendant, a John Derian settee, a vintage Frits Henningsen desk, a chair from Hollywood at Home.
The guest bedroom features an all-over scheme of Rosa Bernal’s Sevilla fabric; bed linens by Parachute, sconces by Lumfardo, vintage Louis Sognot chandelier.
A corner of the guest bedroom features a midcentury desk, vintage Oswald Haerdtl armchair, and a painting found at Obsolete.
A botanical wallpaper by St. Jude’s enlivens the guest bath; the sink fixtures are by Waterworks.
In the primary suite, walls clad in a Ralph Lauren grasscloth treatment offered a textured backdrop to the bespoke bed and armchair, both upholstered in sylvan fabrics; coverlet by Commune, nightstand from Shoppe Amber Interiors, vintage midcentury Swedish pendant.
Painted in Benjamin Moore’s Mustang brown, the nursery was originally conceived as a second study until the couple learned they were expecting; the crib is by Kalon Studios, while the chair is by Nickey Kehoe.
