Creative Mind: Max Rollitt

Multifaceted talent Max Rollitt isn’t seeking perfection—actually, he’s looking for quite the opposite. Before earning a reputation as an interior designer, furniture designer, and antiques dealer, he was a restorer. That’s how he developed a special gift for spotting the best finds and reviving them without sacrificing their character. “By restoring furniture, you deal with all these conundrums, and by understanding the architecture and structure of these pieces, you learn about the decorative arts and their periods,” he says.

Taking over his mother’s antiques shop in Winchester, England, he evolved the business into one that carried more serious designs, gaining clients such as Michael S. Smith and Axel Vervoordt. Soon, visitors to the shop started asking him for help with their homes, and his career in interiors bloomed. Now he also creates and sells his own furniture, which takes its cues from some of his favorite antiques, composed in line with how the originals were made.

As such, his interiors are defined by their richness in character and sense of unpredictability—as seen in private residences, including a London home inspired by John Soane and the restoration of a Gilded Age mansion with architect Peter Pennoyer. “It’s not about everything being exactly correct. I want it to sit together properly and in harmony.” Nowhere is that philosophy more evident that at Yavington Barn, his shop and studio filled with astonishing period-precise rooms.

Up next: Rollitt will present a dining room sponsored by Schumacher at WOW!house, the showhouse at London’s Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, which kicks off June 2.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2026 Spring Issue in the section “Creative Minds.” Subscribe to the magazine.