Ceara Donnelley is a New York City-based designer who is known for timeless, original, and deeply personal interiors. Her philosophy of design and decorating is grounded in the idea that a home should be a palimpsest, both of its own architectural identity and of the people whose lives unfold within it. That is, its design should embrace traces of the past, real or imagined, that commingle and layer to form a nuanced, evocative, and identity-rich present. A childhood spent in such homes, from New York City to Illinois to the South Carolina Lowcountry, helped seed this ethos, but it was not until Ceara had a family of her own that she discovered her interest in creating them, both for herself and others.

Ceara’s work has been featured by House & Garden, Veranda, Schumacher, Luxe, The Current, and Introspective Magazine, where she tells her own story of an unconventional path to design. Equally devoted to the outside world, Ceara’s commitment to her family’s legacy of land conservation and environmental stewardship is chronicled here. After more than a decade in Charleston, Ceara has returned to her hometown of New York City, where she lives on the Upper West Side with her two teenage children and three cats.