Imbuing Environments With Originality and Nuance

Billy Cotton is a multi-disciplinary American design firm known for its intelligence and unique sensibility. Led by creative director Billy Cotton, its mission is to imbue environments and products with originality and nuance. Specializing in a multi-scaled approach to design, Billy Cotton’s work spans architecture, interiors, furniture, lighting and product design. The practice produces projects ranging from residential to commercial as well as new constructions and renovations. The firm has been recognized on the Architectural Digest AD100, Elle Décor A-list and featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The World of Interiors, among others.

Beach House | Los Angeles County, California

This bright, contemporary house, gloriously situated on the Pacific Ocean and built from the ground up, was a collaboration with architect William Hefner. The goal was to craft a home at one with its magnificent location, full of color and personality, that reflected the client’s joyful spirit. The interiors take cues from the brilliant light and colors of the ocean, where a range of blues segue into a spectacular symphony of orange, yellow, and pink at sunset. There are pedigreed treasures aplenty, including Gio Panti rattan chairs, Pierre Chapo’s classic eye-form coffee table, Hans Wegner dining chairs, and a Charlotte Perriand cabinet that, despite its elevated status as a design trophy, feels perfectly at home thanks to its humble conception and hardworking materials.

West 17h Street | New York, New York

Billy Cotton designed this newly renovated, full-floor apartment in the Flatiron District for a Southern gentleman with a deep appreciation for 1970s glamour and European savoir faire. In the living and dining rooms—both crowned by Isamu Noguchi paper globe lanterns —the walls are caramel brown, echoed in the woven window coverings and the dhurrie carpet. The Guillerme et Chambron slipper chairs and Roger Capron cocktail table, as well as the 1970s travertine table and midcentury steel dining chairs, were acquired at the Paris flea market Les Puces. The bedroom is enrobed in dark blue paint, with Afra and Tobia Scarpa’s Soriana seating in chocolate velvet, and a custom faux-crocodile headboard that nods to the homeowner’s childhood on a Louisiana crocodile farm.

Beverly | Beverly Hills, California

For this archetypal 1920s Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills, Billy Cotton conjured a relaxed, youthful atmosphere in opposition to the formality of many nearby homes. Painting the living room’s beamed ceiling white significantly altered the space’s complexion, providing a luminous backdrop for texture-rich furnishings. A low-slung yellow velvet Mario Bellini sofa sits on a Moroccan carpet laid wall to wall, while a built-in banquette boasts multicolored Majorcan ikats. The kitchen’s wallpaper is by artist Alviro Barrington — part of a collection of contemporary art with works by Laura Owens, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince, and Josh Smith. The result: an unpretentious environment in sync with the rhythms and rituals of contemporary life.

East 57th Street | New York, New York

Artists Lisa Yuskavage and Matvey Levenstein’s Upper East Side apartment had been previously renovated in a 1990s architectural style, with oddly curved walls and dated door details. The pair stressed the importance of living amongst their own deeply personal artworks, so Billy Cotton bathed the apartment in tranquil shades of gray to ensure that the paintings were the stars of the show. The furnishings complement the gray-on-gray palette, accentuating the mood of contemplative repose. Sparingly deployed, signature pieces by Pierre Paulin, Maria Pergay, Achille Castiglioni, René-Jean Caillette, and Giovanni Offredi offer sculptural integrity without disrupting the space’s serene composition — an aura of calm animated solely by the play of natural light across surfaces and materials.

Greenwich Street | New York, New York

For artist Cindy Sherman’s triplex penthouse in the West Village, Billy Cotton wanted to distill the architectural envelope by utilizing a limited palette of humble materials. The boldest of these gestures, reflecting the unconventional spirit of the artist herself, was their decision to cover the walls and ceilings in a highly textured popcorn plaster that is typically associated with 1970s Midwest motels. More nuanced than the predictable white walls of a standard gallery, the plaster treatment nevertheless provides a uniform backdrop for Sherman’s extensive art collection, which encompasses everything from works by blue-chip contemporary artists to eccentric thrift-store finds. Throughout the kitchen and bedrooms, maximalist application of plaster, stainless steel, and linen ultimately imbues these quotidian materials with a kind of unpretentious luxury.