Designer Libby Cameron is known for creating homes that are layered with eclectic style while being incredibly warm and inviting. With a striking ability to mix prints and use color to wonderful effect, any home she sets her focus on feels beautifully designed and yet totally natural with an effortlessness that is enviable.

Photograph by Eric Piasecki

Despite having spent years in the city, first studying at Parsons and later working at Parish-Hadley, Inc for 14 years before opening her eponymous design firm, she never lost her love of Maine where she summered as a child.

Photograph by Julia D’Agostino

The beauty she discovered there would make a lasting impact that informs her design aesthetic to this day. “We spent summers in Maine and if any place has had an impact on my design aesthetic – it is Maine – its simplicity, and the beauty of  Maine, and summer cottages. The colors there are so beautiful you can’t imagine or understand how many different blues and greens there are until you spend time near the water looking at the water and sky next to each other. There are so many lovely greens there as well. At times the water is green, depending on the light and the time of day, and the trees add that other layer and varied spectrum of greens.”

Photograph by Julia D’Agostino

Her love of and great skill with color can easily be seen in her work. While some of the colors she makes use of may be bold, they are never overwhelming and do not take over a space completely, but rather compliment the overall feeling of the room.

Photograph by Jonny Valliant

“You really can mix it all up-colors, patterns, and textures, as long as there is a thread that connects everything together. I think of it as layering; the more layers of textures, patterns, and colors, and things you love, the better.”

Photograph by Julia D’Agostino

Not one to limit a room to one era or one simplistic look, her designs are wonderfully layered, integrating new pieces alongside antique and vintage finds.

Photograph by Erin Kestenbaum

“Combining old and new makes for a more interesting room. Depending on the project, I try to use old pieces as often as I can to anchor the room. I like a modern table thrown in and will add a few newer pieces as well. An old bed with new night tables, for instance, almost always works as long as the pieces don’t swear at each other.”

With no “right” way to put a room together, experimentation and having the confidence to break the rules may be the key to bringing it all together. “Having a totally ‘correct’ room can feel unwelcoming and lifeless to me-be it a period room or a contemporary room. Color and pattern add character and warmth, and there is no reason a more formal piece can’t live beside a country piece. The trick is having the confidence to use it all, and use what you love, and to not be afraid to do just that!”

Photograph by Eric Piasecki

Getting to know Libby Cameron

 

TLV: Favorite book? or show/movie?

LC: I am always drawn to historical fiction and biographies, and am now reading a new biography about Eleanor Roosevelt by David Michaelis-it is really just wonderful, “Out of Africa” is probably my favorite movie-it is so beautifully filmed, and the footage of the animals is so fantastic. I am a hopeless romantic at heart.

 

TLV: Ideal way to spend a summer afternoon?

LC: Sitting on the porch in Maine with my family and dogs, watching what is happening on the water with the birds, the boats and the lobsterman, and reading.

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Text by Liana Hayles Newton / Photos courtesy of Libby Cameron