The Suave Bill Sofield
Meeting Bill Sofield was one of the highlights of my recent trip to High Point, NC. This is a guy who earned three degrees from Princeton University – in art, architecture, and urban planning – in four years. He has also designed stores for Gucci, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, Boucheron, and Bottega Veneta. Plus, he decorated Ralph Lauren’s homes in Montauk and Bedford, NY. He’s currently working on the flagship store for Santa Eulalia in Barcelona.
Superstar Architectural and Interior Designer Bill Sofield in his Baker showroom in High Point, NC, pauses for a moment during the recent fall market.
What struck me most is that Sofield is such a stealth designer. Take the Bill Sofield collection he designs for Baker. It makes me dream. I look at the Crawford Vanity, for instance, and imagine prinking for glamorous black tie events. (It’s fun to fantasize.) I see refined, thoughtful, high quality design, rather than some designer’s immediately recognizable fingerprint on furniture.
“If I do a really good job, nobody will know I existed,” said Sofield, who has the greatest respect for his clients’ individuality and personalities.
The Crawford Vanity provides storage, and even dips down in the back so that cords will disappear.
“Most of my job is about problem solving,” Sofield said. For instance, people often put their sweaty cocktails down on tables and leave watermarks, so he designed a sophisticated glass bar cart.
The urbane bar cart precludes watermarks.
The masterful workmanship in his designs is a big part of the appeal, too. Inlaid, exotic wood, such as in the Wisteria Table here is exceptional.
I was particularly surprised to learn that his Gracie bed is king size.
The way Sofield designed this king-size bed creates the illusion that it’s smaller than it really is. It doesn’t overwhelm a room at all.
“I travel all the time and I pull from everywhere,” said Sofield, who lives in New York.
I was struck by the sense of luxurious refinement and timelessness of his furniture designs. “These pieces are going to be expensive, so damn it, they should look expensive and have staying power,” he said, his eyes smiling.