Marshall Watson's 'Art of Elegance': His Designs Are At Home Wherever They Go

Marshall Watson is excited that spring has arrived on the East End. On a recent warm, sunny Sunday, he was found hard at work in the garden of his waterfront home in Springs where he was preparing beds and tidying up the property in preparation for the growing season ahead.

You could say Mr. Watson is almost as passionate about his garden as he is about interior design—and for good reason. The landscape outside a home should ideally work in concert with and support the interior space as well, and at Mr. Watson’s home, his talent and vision in both realms is on full display.

It’s true that good design is a mantra for Mr. Watson, and when he takes on a project his goal is to infuse a space with distinct personality and a sense of style—but not his own.

Instead, his mission is to create a beautiful and comfortable environment that reflects the life of his clients. They, ultimately, are the ones who have the starring role in his designs.

“I like to design, I’m passionate about it,” said Mr. Watson, taking a break from the gardening to talk about his work. “I’m not an artist, I’m a designer. If I was an artist it would be my vision totally.”

“I design through people. It’s their script,” he added. “I take every design tool in my quiver and use that to realize their most heartfelt fantasies of home.

“That’s the fun part of my job.”

Since founding Marshall Watson Interiors, his Manhattan design firm, more than 30 years ago, Mr. Watson has focused on creating light-filled, elegant interiors with a modern sensibility. For the last decade, he has also written a regular design column for The Press.

Earlier this spring, Mr. Watson published his first book, “The Art of Elegance: Classic Interiors.” It highlights several of his design projects from across the country and around the world. No two are alike, either in setting or style, and from a classic Fifth Avenue New York apartment overlooking the Metropolitan Museum of Art to a modern beach house on the California Coast, each project reflects the vision of the people who live there.

Mr. Watson approaches his design projects with a multi-layered set of experiences at his disposal. He studied design at Stanford University, as well as engineering and literature. Later, he trained in theatrical design and even tried his hand at acting.

As a designer, his vision is a sum total of his occupations and avocations, all of which are integral to how he approaches a design project. Chief among them is his ability to be a good listener. Mr. Watson maintains that his job is not to impose his own taste and vision on a client’s home, but to incorporate their personality and values into a space that is livable, comfortable, and, most importantly, an accurate reflection of who they truly are.

“I do try to know clients as much as possible and understand their taste,” he admitted. “I don’t like it when a designer says, ‘My client has terrible taste.’ There’s no such thing. Your job as a designer is to figure out what their taste is and what they’re really comfortable in. What do they wear? What’s their dream—and is that really their dream?

“You have to be careful with every client and have an instinct for people,” he added. “My clients are all incredibly different and I have to listen and perceive them. I know what people put in their bedside cabinets—or don’t put in there—and that’s about as personal as it can get.”

Mr. Watson spent three years working on “The Art of Elegance,” and he notes that his desire to publish the book stems largely from what he feels is lacking in the world of design magazines these days.

“I felt like many designers feel—that we’ve done a lot of really credible, beautiful, solid work. But the magazines, by their nature, have to cover the absolute most fashionable design movement at the moment,” he said. “They have to show what is newsworthy. But it’s not necessarily always beautiful, well done, or appropriate to the clients.

“I’m not sure people are getting what they want,” he added.

Ensuring that clients ultimately get what they want is not just about listening. For Mr. Watson, it’s also about doing extensive research. His training in theater design taught him to respect the story, as it were, even when that story is an individual’s actual life and home. In addition to understanding the sensibility of the client, he also takes into account the history of the home and its setting, incorporating the wider context of the area in the design as well.

For example, one of the homes featured in Mr. Watson’s new book is located in Sweden. A study in muted tones, Mr. Watson’s beautiful but simple design for the home speaks to the quiet, understated nature of Scandinavian life.

“Design is Sweden is light and rather spare,” he said. “There’s no Swedish word for tchotchke.”

“When I was working in Sweden, it was fascinating,” Mr. Watson added. “They have two paint decks—they don’t have 50 different paint companies like we do here. They have five whites, but they all work in the Swedish light.”

“I was so disappointed when I went there and found out they only had five,” he said. “Then I realized, it’s not about choice … it’s about good choices.”

It’s also about layers and building meaning in a project by adding design touches that may be subtle, but ultimately contribute to the final product. A portal in Mr. Watson’s own home, for example, utilizes a series of blue and white Delft tiles with harbor scenes and windmills to pay homage to the view beyond of Gardiner’s Island and its historic windmill, which is visible from Mr. Watson’s living room.

While some of these design stories may be subtle details that are easily overlooked, their very presence conveys a deeper layer of meaning and adds to the sense of place.

In addition to good design, another key element is good architecture, and Mr. Watson is passionate about the importance of architectural intention, especially proportion, in creating a beautiful and successful home environment.

Another project profiled in his book is a 1930s California Mediterranean home with Moroccan and Mission features as well as Catalonian influences. Ironically, this home is not near an ocean, as one might expect, but a lake—the Great Salt Lake of Utah, to be exact.

It’s probably the last place where most people would expect to find this kind of home, but for Mr. Watson, it’s familiar terrain. He grew up in Kansas City in a suburban neighborhood filled with a diverse collection of homes representing various architectural styles—Tudor, Swiss chalet, Provençal chateau—all happily and tastefully living side by side.

“I’ve worked all over the country. There is this period I call the architectural petting zoo,” Mr. Watson said. “These were really good architects with a good sense of proportion working in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. They had a great understanding of classic design before minimalist design took away the sense of classic proportion.”

“Mies van der Rohe understood classic proportion, but other people threw it away and didn’t look at what the proportions were before,” he said. “I think that’s why so many of our structures today don’t work.”

For the Salt Lake City house, Mr. Watson collaborated with the landscape designer to create a cohesive experience throughout the entire property.

“We really worked out in our minds what the architect in the 1930s was thinking,” Mr. Watson explained. “We put in a plaster ceiling and exceptional ironwork, which was made by a world-class ironworks studio in Salt Lake City.”

In the home’s breakfast room, a series of arched doorways brings in light from the garden and a mosaic floor was installed so it could be used as a plant room.

“A lot of my work is about bringing the outdoors in,” he said. “If there’s gorgeous plantings outside, why fool with color on the inside?”

Why indeed? And with a palette provided by nature, who could go wrong?

“People say my environments are livable and approachable—part of that is because they are filled with light,” Mr. Watson said. “I want my environments to be comfortable, but also uplifting. There’s a sense of occasion when you come here or to any of my homes.

“It’s real and inspiring at the same time.”

Marshall Watson has several events coming up on the East End in the months ahead. On Saturday, June 3, at 4 p.m., the Garden Conservancy will sponsor “Digging Deeper: The Art of Elegance—An Afternoon at Home with Marshall Watson.” Mr. Watson will spend the late afternoon with an intimate group as they explore his waterfront home both inside and out. The festivities will include wines from Joullian Vineyards made by his brother, Carmel Valley vintner Ridge Watson. Admission is $65 for the public, or $60 for Garden Conservancy members. To register, call 1-888-842-2442, or email opendays@gardenconservancy.org.

On Saturday, June 24, at 5 p.m., Mr. Watson will speak at BookHampton in East Hampton and on Saturday, July 22, at 5 p.m., he’ll be at Sylvester and Co. in Sag Harbor. Mr. Watson is also scheduled to take part in an East Hampton Historical Society luncheon on July 27 at the Maidstone Country Club and will speak at Fridays at Five at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton on August 18.