WHEN LAUREN DAVENPORT MET ONE OF HER FIRST clients, they just needed help selecting a coffee table. Twenty years later, she’s still working with them, now designing their second home from top to bottom. That single piece of furniture was the beginning of a relationship built on trust, communication and a design philosophy that has quietly revolutionized how her clients think about their most personal spaces.
As the founder and principal designer of Davenport Designs, she’s spent more than two decades illustrating that the best interior design isn’t about imposing a vision. It’s about collaboration, communication and bringing a client’s dreams to life in ways they never imagined possible. “Some worry that if they hire a designer, the designer is going to do what they want and not what the client wants,” Davenport says. “We don’t work that way. We understand that we’re in your home, it’s intimate, and we’re asking questions and analyzing everything. It can be overwhelming. But we’re really listening.”
This philosophy has defined Davenport’s career from the very beginning, transforming what started as simple furniture selections into decades-long relationships with clients who trust her to imagine or reimagine their most personal spaces.
Davenport’s path to interior design was anything but linear. While studying psychology at the University of Mississippi, a transformative summer abroad during her junior year changed everything. Immersed in the architectural styles and design traditions of Europe, she found herself captivated by the contrast of what she’d grown up with in Atlanta. The exposure opened her eyes to the power of intentional space and thoughtful design.
After finishing her degree, she returned to Atlanta with a newfound passion. She enrolled in the American Intercontinental University, at the time the only accredited interior design program in the area. But her education didn’t stop in the classroom. She worked for several designers during and after design school, absorbing different approaches and philosophies before launching Davenport Designs in 2003.
While many designers become known for a signature look, Davenport takes pride in her versatility. Working primarily in Metro Atlanta, she’s deliberately avoided being pigeonholed into a particular aesthetic. Instead, everything is custom and bespoke, tailored precisely to each client’s preferences, needs and lifestyle. “My clients don’t want to follow trends, but they want to be current,” she explains.
Her work tends to lean toward transitional and traditional styles, but that’s more a reflection of her clientele than any design limitation. She stays inspired by keeping current with trends in design, fashion and art, not to replicate them but to understand the broader cultural conversation around aesthetics. More importantly, she understands that her clients often bring their own history into a project. “Some have family heirlooms, or pieces that are sentimental to them, and we’ll work those into the design,” she says.
This willingness to honor what clients already love sets Davenport apart in an industry that sometimes treats existing furnishings as obstacles rather than opportunities. Before beginning any project, Davenport focuses on understanding how her clients want to use their space. It’s a practical consideration that might seem obvious, but it’s often overlooked in the pursuit of aesthetic perfection.
“For example, if they have pets that will be on the sofa, that’s very important to know so we can look for performance fabric,” she explains. “If they have children, where is the main room where they all hang out? That room will have much more use and traffic than a formal living room, so we have to be intentional with selections and the furniture plan.”
Perhaps most revealing is her technique for understanding a client’s vision: She starts by asking what they dislike rather than what they like. “That often gives me more information,” Davenport says. It’s a clever psychological approach that allows clients to articulate their preferences without the pressure of defining their style.
Davenport keeps a close eye on what is happening in the industry. These days, she’s seeing natural wood tones and “brown furniture” making a comeback—pieces that were often built with superior craftsmanship decades ago. “Most furniture was built better years ago, so maybe you refinish it if you don’t like the finish, and it’s more sustainable,” she says. “I encourage clients to invest in quality pieces that 20 years down the road, if you’re tired of the upholstery, you change it, and it’s still a beautiful piece of furniture. Quality furniture will never go out of style.”
Davenport has witnessed a dramatic shift in how people use their homes in recent years. The pandemic fundamentally changed the way we think about domestic space, and she’s been at the forefront of addressing these evolving needs. “Before, everyone wanted open concept. Then, during the pandemic, kids were at home doing schoolwork, parents were working at home, and nobody had a dedicated space other than a bedroom where they could close the door and have quiet,” she observes. “Homes are starting to have rooms again and not just open spaces.”
Davenport has also noticed formal dining rooms making a comeback as people entertain at home more frequently. “As entertaining at home becomes more common, I’m seeing formal dining rooms come back in a meaningful way,” Davenport explains. “No one wants to look into the kitchen or at a stack of dishes while hosting. A separate dining room creates an experience—it feels intentional, intimate and elevated. I’m excited to see rooms coming back and not just large expanses.”
She’s also passionate about preserving the character of older homes. “There’s something special about the quality and the character of an older home,” she says. “It crushes me when people tear down old homes and put up big, plain boxes. We can rework spaces, update them and preserve history at the same time.”
One of the biggest mistakes Davenport sees homeowners make is going it alone and, paradoxically, overspending as a result. She’s a strong advocate for bringing the entire team together from the beginning: architect, landscape architect, builder and designer. “The architect is looking at the home from a different point of view than the designer and homeowner,” she says. “Homeowners often begin renovations on their own and later wish they had caught potential issues from the start, which can result in rework and unexpected expenses. A designer doesn’t have to be unattainable; every project has a budget, and we work within it to ensure your money is spent with intention rather than on costly fixes later.”
Her approach to budgeting is refreshingly practical and personalized. If you’re an avid cook, invest in higher-quality appliances. If you entertain frequently, prioritize spaces that support that lifestyle. “Allocating a budget depends on what your lifestyle is and how you want the home to function,” she says. “If you entertain a lot, how do you envision that? Do you want your guests hanging around in the kitchen or in a separate space?”
She’s even helping clients customize their homes in unexpected ways. Undercounter refrigerators for cosmetics, beverage centers by the garage door, dedicated drop zones that make daily life smoother. “If you have a refrigerator by the garage door, in the morning the kids’ lunches are already in the fridge; it’s one more thing that makes it easier to get out the door,” she says. These aren’t trends from design magazines. They’re thoughtful solutions born from understanding how real families actually live.
Her recent projects showcase this commitment to form meeting function. Davenport transformed a dark, dysfunctional primary bathroom with a massive garden tub taking up too much space and an awkwardly angled ceiling into a light-filled retreat. She added a groin vault to the ceiling for architectural interest, created storage for personal items and linens, and reimagined the entire layout to work with how the clients use the space.
In another project, she took a plain living room and added ceiling molding to create architectural interest. A kitchen renovation gave a client the dedicated storage she needed while working within the existing footprint, proving that good design isn’t always about adding square footage.
Perhaps her most dramatic project involved clients who moved into a contemporary home and fell in love with a piece of stone while shopping for kitchen countertops and wanted to hang it on the wall as artwork. Davenport made it happen, bringing in a structural engineer to reinforce the walls and coordinating a team to hang the 1,100-pound slab in the dining room. “That was a lot of fun,” she says.
At the heart of Davenport’s practice is a simple but powerful belief: Your home should be an extension of yourself. She wants her clients to be proud of their spaces, to feel that their homes authentically represent who they are to their friends and family. “Homes should be livable,” she insists. It’s a philosophy that might seem self-evident, but in luxury design, it’s sometimes forgotten in pursuit of visual perfection. For Davenport, beauty and function aren’t competing priorities. They’re inseparable elements of good design. *
Robin Howard is a freelance writer in Charleston. See more of her work at robinhowardwrites.com.
