Gale Sitomer Design Creates Interior Magic from the Hamptons to Palm Beach

When it comes to servicing elite clientele in the so-called Golden Triangle — the Hamptons, Palm Beach and New York City — Gale Sitomer Design is doing things right. The interior design firm, which also has projects in Westchester, the Berkshires and Connecticut, has built a reputation over more than 20 years for creating beautiful, bespoke homes and commercial projects while also delivering a full-service, soup-to-nuts experience covering everything from land selection, hiring staff and even stocking food and staging dinner parties.

The firm’s founder and namesake, Gale Sitomer, got her start in fashion and event planning before discovering her passion and talent for interior design while working on her own home. She launched the business in 2002 and was joined by her partner Cara Velten in 2012. Both women spoke with Dan’s Papers about what it takes to create exceptional spaces and please some of the most discerning people in the world’s most luxurious ZIP codes with a hands-on approach that’s working well.

“What separates us, apart from many designers, and I never really know whether that’s what exactly what we should be calling ourselves, because most of our clients, I would say 50% if not more, hire us at the very beginning of the process, even prior to hiring their contractors,” Sitomer explains. “So for example, on multiple projects, we are brought in to look at the property that they’re considering purchasing, or looking at the house that they’re considering purchasing, getting our opinions on what the house needs or apartment needs, or property would dictate,” she says.

“A lot of times it’s when they’re looking with the broker at a property to see if it’s something that they’d even be interested in purchasing. So it’s so far before most people normally think about hiring a designer,” Velten, who has a master’s degree in architecture, adds.

“And then we assemble, for the most part, the team, whether it’s the architect, the builder, the landscape architect, the landscaping people. And then it even goes further than that, because once we’re done working on the house, we oftentimes are asked to buy their dishes, buy their glasses, set the table when they’re having a dinner party. Could we do the flowers? Can we work on the menu? Do we know babysitters?” Sitomer continues, describing their deep relationship with clients. “I could probably say 100% of them have remained in our lives going forward, whether it’s a second house, whether it’s redoing a room that we did — I’ve been doing this for 24 years — whether it’s something that we did 15, 20 years ago. That’s basically when people hire us, it gives them peace of mind that all the aspects of the project are going to be taken care of.”

In one case, Velten says a client hired them to stock the home with food for weekends and set up the audio-visual components. Eventually they were asked to stage the house each weekend to appear exactly as it looked right after she and Sitomer had finished designing it for the first time. “So they would come out on the weekend. And between their six kids and two dogs, and guests and whatever, everything would get a little discombobulated. They said, ‘Can you please come every week and just make it look exactly like this?’” Velten shares. “We filled their fridge with some necessities, we did their flowers, and it was just a really special relationship, and we’ve developed those relationships with a few of our clients now.”

“What I think I’ve learned is that there’s nothing people won’t ask us to do, and we always accommodate them,” Sitomer says, getting down to the essence of the service they provide.

But of course, none of this service would be in play without great design. Sitomer and Velten say that understanding their clients’ desires, tastes and practical needs, along with having a keen aesthetic eye, is key to creating a space that demonstrates the pinnacle of form and function working harmoniously together, often with help from Velten’s architectural background and understanding of space.

They also acknowledge that, from time to time, part of their job is protecting clients from their own bad ideas.

“I always use the expression that we don’t know how to do ugly. Most of the people that come to us already know the style that we lean towards, and we don’t have a particular style. It’s always up to the client, what they like, what they’re looking for, whether it’s contemporary, traditional. Most of our clients, are younger, so they want things that are cooler. They want things that are clean lines. … We’re not known to be doing tassels… It’s not our vibe,” Sitomer says.

Whether it’s in fast-paced NYC, the slightly calmer Hamptons or the slowed-down world of Palm Beach, Sitomer and Velten say they work by referral and remain very selective about the projects they agree to take. “It has to be a family or a couple that are respectful of our time and how much effort we put into it — this is a career. It’s not a job,” Sitomer says. “We already know about the families that we’re working with, and they’ve all been amazing. … We’re really blessed and extremely grateful.”

Learn more at galesitomerdesign.com.