Roman and Williams Buildings & Interiors ─ Things We Made

For their tenth anniversary, the design studio Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors presents projects that blend the spirit of our collective history with a modernist edge. Roman and Williams’s style honors craftsmanship, the use of natural materials, and the overlooked in unexpected ways. Their understated, glamorous sensibility is imparted in Manhattan’s Ace Hotel interiors and restaurant The Breslin, The Standard Hotel, with its iconic Boom Boom Room, and the Royalton lobby. For such popular restaurants as The Dutch, the duo created environments with textured backdrops that reference a rich past with a contemporary sensibility. Their innovative work has captured the attention of firms such as Facebook—they recently completed its campus food hall—and their residences for celebrities such as Ben Stiller and Gwyneth Paltrow are equally imaginative. This book surveys the firm’s prestige projects, presented with Alesch’s architectural hand drawings and sketches and detailed views. Also included is their loft and Montauk home, which serve as design laboratories, and a collection of furnishings and fixtures.

Following a career as Hollywood production designers, Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer founded Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors in 2002. The New York firm’s scope includes buildings, interior design, and product lines, where they place a premium on such aesthetic juxtapositions as high/low and spare/baroque. Former Surfing magazine editor Jamie Brisick writes for the New York Times and Details, and has authored two books, including Have Board Will Travel. Actor and film director/producer Ben Stiller is a prolific talent. Standefer and Alesch did the production design for Zoolander and Duplex and designed his homes.