What the press has to say about Stephanie Stokes Avenue magazine describes what Stephanie’s clients love about her and her decorating style. “Anyone can go shopping but… it is her obsession with detail that makes the difference and distinction. Although she has a very professional approach to her work, her clients inevitably become her friends…. Little wonder that, over an 18 year career, she has emerged as one of New York’s most exceptional decorators.” Stephanie was included in the House Beautiful list of the top 100 Interior Designers in America in 2002 + 2003 where her style was described as “meticulously crafted and understated.” She is known as a mastermind of space design, especially useful for apartment dwellers. Libraries often serve as guest rooms, entertainment centers with surround sound, dining rooms, bars and office spaces. Kitchens, her own referred to by House Beautiful as a “Small Miracle” , is one of Stephanie’s fortes. In this kitchen every quarter inch is used. In KITCHENS, Chris Madden writes “With a reading lamp and chairs pulled up next to the windowsill, there is an inviting sense to this room, yet practicality abounds. Kick-out baseboards around the perimeter of the room conceal extra storage; a wooden ladder moves around the room on its own brass runner to allow access to storage high overhead.” It was while a journalist and working on a decorating column for Architectural Digest that Stephanie Stokes decided to try her hand at interior design. Fifteen years later Architectural Digest was interviewing her about her very successful design career. In an article about the renovation and decoration of her own apartment, AD described how she bought a wreck and transformed it into a living space that encompasses all of her own fantasies about comfort and style. “Hemingway supposedly once said, ‘I don’t write, I just take dictation,’” Stokes explained to the magazine. “Well, when I walk into a room, I feel I just take dictation from my brain. I already see it done” which explains why clients ask her to see apartments before they buy. Success came fast. First a French friend, Xavier Guerrand-Hermes, asked her to do a eclectic mix with Hermes fabrics and a Moroccan French theme. Food & Wine called it a “testimony to the compatibility of utility and luxury” when they featured the apartment in their magazine. A former cabinet member of the Reagan administration hired Stephanie after being introduced by a friend, as Traditional Home quoted, “I chose Stephanie because she’s not only very accomplished as a designer, but she is sensitive as well,” she said. “After several preliminary meetings, I could tell she was as caring about my emotional needs as about my taste preferences. This was very important to me.” “Stephanie Stokes’ arrival in the forefront of American interior design”, as the British House & Garden noted in their article about a New York duplex apartment Stephanie renovated and decorated, “was established by her appreciation for beautiful rooms that are both luxurious and functional.” The client’s dressing room “introduced a mood of glamour… demonstrating that a dressing-room can be flamboyant as well as functional.”