In this Designers at Home episode, I tour the Chelsea loft of Lori Weitzner, a New York City pattern designer with her own brand of fabrics and wallcoverings, whose trims are carried by Samuel & Sons. Lori is a born-and-bred New Yorker, and she and her husband designed their loft to be a calm, nature-filled oasis, a counterweight to the concrete jungle right outside the door.
I only saw one houseplant in Lori’s home, yet nature is everywhere. It’s in the walls, which are made from banana fiber, mulberry, and lotka paper woven in Nepal. It’s in the upholstery, a layered mix of wool, silk, cotton and velvet. It’s in the patterns, drawn from leaves, feathers, and honeycomb without ever being literal. And it’s in her willingness to let things age, like cane chairs that are slowly wearing away and antique maps that live in the sunlight.
This is what I’m calling nature as a source, not an accessory: the idea that nature in a home isn’t something you add at the end, like a plant or a botanical print. It’s something you design from, in material, in pattern, and in the way you let things change over time. Nature is one of the five design elements I talk about in my book, Slow Style Home, that are found in every Slow Styled Home, and Lori’s loft is a full expression of it.
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This episode is sponsored by Aura House.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Nature as a source, not an accessory: going beyond the houseplant
Houseplants are wonderful, but they’re only one way to bring nature into a home. In Lori’s loft, nature is built into the materials, the patterns, and the way the home is allowed to age. When nature is the source of your design rather than a finishing touch, the whole home feels connected to it.
Letting natural materials age
Lori’s cane dining chairs are wearing away, and she’s chosen to leave them that way. Her antique maps of Cheshire, some from the 1600s, hang in a sunlit room. “The biggest mistake people make is they buy these precious things and then they don’t live with them.” When you bring natural materials into your home, you also bring in what nature does: change. Fading, wear and patina can become part of a home’s story rather than a reason to replace something.
Natural wallcoverings for spaces where art won’t work
Lori’s entry hallway is lined with handmade paper tiles made of 100% abaca, or banana fiber, which harden on the wall and look like stone. Her reasoning is useful for anyone with a long, narrow hallway: artwork would be dwarfed by the wall, and you’d be standing too close to see it. Texture does the work instead.
Layering natural fibers in upholstery
Lori mixes wool, silk, cotton and velvet, plus embroidery, chenille and metallic thread, to create depth in a room that reads as neutral from a distance. As she put it, “It’s not one note. It’s three note… it’s a chord.” Mixing shine with matte and large-scale texture with small-scale texture makes a room feel inviting.
Patterns inspired by nature, not copies of it
Most of Lori’s patterns aren’t literal drawings of natural elements. Her Expedition embroidery reads as rain on leaves to some people and feathers to others, and that’s the point. A trim from her Metamorphosis collection, carried by Samuel & Sons, was inspired by honeycomb. She also designs with negative space: “Do people see the leaves, or do they see the space between the leaves?”
Color that connects to feeling
Lori’s colors come from palettes she’s named herself, like Whisper, Earthly and Fragrant Woods, each tied to a different emotional experience. Her bedroom leans on Whisper, soft and quiet, with a brown-tinged purple that keeps it calm. Her book, Ode to Color, and its free color quiz are a wonderful place to explore this further.
Lori Weitzner is a pattern designer based in New York City. Find more Designers at Home episodes and full show notes at SlowStyleHome.com/podcast.
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Links Mentioned In The Episode
Lori Weitzner: https://www.loriweitzner.com/
Ode to Color: https://www.loriweitzner.com/shop-ode-to-color-book
Ode to Color quiz: https://odetocolor.loriweitzner.com/
