Why David Kleinberg Avoids Having a Signature Look
The esteemed decorator opens up about forging his own path after Parish-Hadley, resisting trends in the Instagram age, and his handsome new book
David Kleinberg has described himself as the “evil spawn child” of legendary interior designers Sister Parish and Albert Hadley, for whom he worked 16 years before establishing his own Manhattan practice in 1997. The steady hand with which he creates his inimitable spaces indeed reflects the best of both mentors: Parish’s freewheeling, instinctual poise and Hadley’s disciplined calculus. These divergent sensibilities coalesce with consummate grace in a wide-ranging portfolio of elegant interiors that Kleinberg has realized in the nearly three decades since branching out on his own, from historic Sutton Place townhouses and Aspen mountain retreats to the glorious restoration of a significant London address that appeared in Galerie’s Spring 2025 issue.
They also seep through the pages of David Kleinberg: Interiors (Phaidon), a handsome new monograph that journeys through 11 of the esteemed decorator’s most notable recent projects. Though each embodies his signature fusion of antiques, design objects, covetable art, refined furniture, and sophisticated finishes, no two rooms look or feel the same. “For David, how a room is ‘lived in’ is just as important as how it is ‘looked at,’” the fashion designer and longtime client Thom Browne and his partner, Andrew Bolton, write in the book’s foreword. “Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel once said that ‘an interior is the natural projection of the soul,’ and this is precisely what David achieves in his calm, restrained, and understated furnished landscapes—a projection of his own soul as well as those of his clients.”
In an interview that has been edited for length and clarity, Kleinberg weighs in on not having a signature look, holding strong to his principles in the age of Instagram, and his dream commission.
I have enormous respect for people who have a signature look, but I’ve always tried not to do that. I’ve always been attracted to projects that allow me to do different things. In my book, you know exactly where one project ends and the next begins. They’re quite different in spirit and tenor. My work has an edited quality—there’s air and space around the objects. I like to think they all reflect a process of selection.
I’m pretty collaborative about the process—not just with clients, but with my team. That brings different flavors to the work. I always ask: Where is this project? Where are these people in their lives? Are they empty nesters? Do they have young kids? Is this a full-time residence? All those questions factor in, and if you’re paying attention, will be reflected in the result. The color palette will be different for a house in Northern California as opposed to Southern Florida or Austin, Texas. People live differently in different environments. I always remember that when a project is finished, I’m the one standing outside—it’s not my house! We’re lucky to have done multiple projects for clients, and they don’t want to feel like they’re walking into the same house in a different place. When you experience a different home, your relationship and response to the environment changes, too.
I don’t design with Instagram in mind. Growing up, my reference points were exhibitions, dealers, and books on design history. I still reference books, and I suppose that’s a big part of why my aesthetic has remained consistent. Of course I look at Instagram and Pinterest, but social media really isn’t my reference point. I’m a terrible shopper. When I look for images, I end up in the totally wrong place. Everyone tells me that you have to choose your words carefully. It’s not like I’m breaking up with somebody!
There’s a homogenization of design that’s happened as a result of the internet. People tend to lose sight of what their own vision could be. Fashion is not your friend! In the world of high-end residential design, things are bloody expensive. They’re not disposable and shouldn’t be thought of as such. There’s the old truism of paying less attention to what the person next to you is doing and more attention to what you’re doing.
I didn’t go to design school, but I had an incredible foundation with Parish-Hadley. I spent 16 years working with people who had an amazing eye and great knowledge of how people can live attractively. It was completely transformative. They taught me how to formulate my visual thoughts in a critical and organized way. Albert Hadley was very intellectual in his approach, with everything having a reason; Sister Parish was completely instinctual. Where Albert would look at something and want to see how it scaled in on plan, Parish would pick it up and touch it. If she didn’t like it, she’d drop it. Both things had equal weight and had to be considered. Being pretty wasn’t good enough. That has been incredibly useful throughout my whole life and career. It translates to everything.
We’re all stronger and smarter than we think, and certainly more resilient and resourceful. I always tell my team “Don’t for a minute think you’re the first person to have this problem or be in this situation.” Just ask me! Experience is a great teacher. I laugh with people of my generation when we talk about how we accomplished anything back when we used to roll up tubes of drawings and send them to each other before fax machines. Somehow, things still got done. Expectations were different. It wasn’t “I haven’t heard from you in 35 minutes, so you haven’t responded.” You just waited.
I didn’t realize I’d be so drawn to landscape design! It didn’t influence my interiors until I made my own garden in East Hampton. Of course one considers views out the window, and Russell Page always said the approach to the house was important. I became so much more aware of it through my own experience. Now I’m working on another one—a walled garden in Tangier.
I always wanted to create set designs for ballet. Years ago, there was a brilliant choreographer named Jerome Robbins for the New York City Ballet. He worked on West Side Story. I had the privilege of calling him a friend and always thought he’d ask me to do something, but it never came to pass. I have absolutely no training in set design or theatre, but it would be a fun problem to tackle. That’s what makes it so interesting to me.
Beautiful design is available and accessible. It’s not removed from everybody. Hopefully you open the pages of my book and think these are rooms you can simply walk into.
