Joelle Uzyel takes Manhattan projects as a regular market. Upper East Side and Upper West Side pre-wars, SoHo and Tribeca lofts, Hudson Yards new construction, and West Village townhouses. Board packages, alteration agreements, and design-build under one studio. $250M+ portfolio. Featured in Architectural Digest, Elle, and WSJ.
The Direct Answer
Hiring an interior designer in New York is a building-rules job before it is a finishes job. Co-op and condo boards, alteration agreements, elevator reservations, and work hours decide the calendar. Full projects at this level typically run $500K to $5M and up. The practice is based in Beverly Hills, runs a board-package design-build model, and already works Manhattan with site visits and local vendors.
This Market
The architecture is not one language. An Upper East Side pre-war is moldings, ceiling height, and a board that will reject the wrong drawing. A Tribeca loft is volume that has to be held, not filled. Hudson Yards is a raw floor plate and a skyline. A West Village townhouse is a tight stair, a narrow lot, and rooms that have to work harder than their square footage.
Square footage is the scarcest material. Storage is architecture, not a closet company. Kitchens are engineered into the plan, not dropped in from a showroom. Lighting has to work at night against the city, not just photograph at noon.
The building sets the calendar before the design does. Board review runs two to four months on a complete package and considerably longer on an incomplete one. The alteration agreement decides work hours, elevator windows, and which days freight is available at all. A renovation drawn without those constraints gets redrawn anyway, after the board sends it back.
The first conversation belongs with the designer, before a contractor prices a kitchen the board will not allow and the elevator cannot deliver.
Pre-war apartments with original bones worth protecting. Full renovations that respect the moldings and the proportions while bringing systems and finishes current.
Loft conversions where the scale is the opportunity. Open plans anchored by architecture-level millwork and materials that hold the volume.
New-construction towers with a blank plan and a skyline. Layout, lighting, and custom cabinetry that turn a raw high-rise into a finished home.
Townhouses and low-rise homes with character and constraints in equal measure. Warm, restrained interiors built for the way the house actually lives.
Central Park West and the streets behind it. Pre-war co-ops with long galleries, real ceiling height, and boards that have seen every renovation argument twice. The work restores the proportion the plan was drawn with and brings the systems current, without sanding the character off the building.
Cast-iron loft buildings inside a landmarked district. Column grids, deep floor plates, and windows that fall only where the facade allows. The plan is organized around what cannot move, so daylight reaches the middle of the floor instead of dying in a corridor.
Yes. The practice is based in Beverly Hills with select New York projects. Design work is managed from the Beverly Hills studio with site visits and established New York vendor relationships.
Manhattan primarily. Upper East Side and Upper West Side pre-wars, SoHo and Tribeca loft conversions, and new construction in Hudson Yards and the West Village. Select Brooklyn projects when the scope and the client are the right fit.
The design process includes a board package phase, meaning design documentation prepared for co-op or condo board submission. The construction side works with qualified New York contractors who understand building rules and board timelines. One firm holds it all together.
A co-op board can reject a renovation on taste, precedent, or timing, and it does not have to explain the decision. A condo board generally reviews for compliance and moves faster. Co-op alteration agreements also tend to be stricter on work hours, contractor insurance, and what is allowed to move. That difference changes the drawing set and the schedule, so it is settled at the first meeting rather than after the design is finished.
From the first meeting through installation, a full apartment typically runs 12 to 24 months. Board review alone is commonly 2 to 4 months, and summer work restrictions in some buildings extend it. Active construction after approval is usually 6 to 12 months depending on scope. Kitchens run 12 to 24 weeks and bathrooms 10 to 16 weeks once the building lets the trades in.
Yes. Interior work inside a landmarked building is usually unrestricted, but anything touching a window, a facade, or a protected lobby goes through the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Upper East Side, SoHo, Tribeca, and the West Village all sit inside historic districts. Knowing which line a project crosses before drawings are issued is what keeps the schedule intact.
In this market, full home projects at this level typically cost $500K to $5M and up. Kitchens commonly run $150K and up and bathrooms $75K and up at this standard of finish. Design fees are scope-based and discussed at the first consultation.
Yes. Alteration agreements, work-hour limits, elevator and delivery rules, and insurance requirements are built into the plan from the start, not discovered mid-construction.
Both. Pre-war apartments with original detail worth preserving, loft conversions, and raw new-construction units that need a full interior build.
The studio manages New York work with scheduled site visits and established local vendor and contractor relationships. Documentation and specification are handled so the build does not depend on the designer standing on site every day.
A real estate development background since 2011. She reads construction documents, permitting, and contractor coordination as core expertise, not an add-on. $250M and more in completed projects, featured in Architectural Digest, Elle, and the Wall Street Journal.