August 31, 2025“I like a push-pull,” says Andrew Torrey, referring to the creative tension that undergirds his interior designs from New York City and the Hamptons to Cabo San Lucas and Miami.
The design of his new monograph, Torrey: Private Spaces, Great American Design (Rizzoli), reflects this same dynamic. The word “private” in the title evokes the discretion he fosters with his clients, but the book’s eye-catching bright-red cover with big white type forcefully announces his talent, and his passion for design.
Torrey is a native of Dodge City, Kansas, who has been known to wear a cowboy hat. His parents ran a landscaping business and tree nursery.
“They were entrepreneurs, and I saw what that entailed,” he recalls. “There were no days off. I took that to heart, and I still have a hard time not working.”
There were early signs pointing to his future career path. “I always loved design and rearranging things,” he says. “As a kid, I rearranged my room four hundred eighty-five times — at least.”
Torrey got out of Dodge, as the saying goes, and made it to New York City. Before opening his own design firm, in 2013, he had a varied résumé. Among his jobs was a stint as a real estate broker, which allowed him to see inside many residences and also gave him other valuable experience.
“I learned a lot from the team about managing budgets and clients and interacting with other teams,” he says. “Being on the business side of high-worth transactions was invaluable.”
Torrey’s firm is based in Midtown Manhattan, where he also lives, nearly across the street from his office. He has a staff of 17, and he’s hiring more, to work on the many design plans that are underway. “We have projects all over the world — we’re very lucky,” he says.
When clients in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood came to him for help with their loft after a four-year renovation, asking for a Soho House club vibe, Torrey gave them just that, but with elevated finishes.
The living room has striking custom wood bookcases, which stand behind an orange sectional with sapphire pillows, the ensemble’s velvety textures adding just a touch of luxe. Such bold jewel tones pop up in much of his work, frequently, as here, softened by the fabric choices.
When pressed about the styles he favors, Torrey cops to an affinity for Art Deco, though not the “fussy French kind.” He leanes more toward the relaxed Italian Deco look. “There’s something about it that makes me want a cigarette and a cocktail,” he says. “It implies a sophisticated, fabulous lifestyle.”
For a project in the Art Deco fortress that is Manhattan’s Walker Tower, evoking that ambience meant adding subtle details like new wood floors laid in a Chevron pattern, a nod to one of the signature flourishes of the movement, and populating the rooms with a mix of custom and vintage furniture.
Deco inspiration also guided the design for a 1930s Normandy-style stucco residence in Beverly Hills once owned by a movie producer. Torrey decorated it in what he calls an update of the Hollywood Regency style. When told that the ghost of actor-turned-decorator Billy Haines lightly lingers there, he replies, “I won’t dissuade the comparison. I should be so lucky.”
The clients, who work in entertainment and finance, are friends of Torrey’s with whom he had a standing Thursday-night dinner date on the terrace of the Sunset Tower Hotel during the height of the pandemic.
The designer was staying there while working on the interiors of another project, a Bel-Air “farmhouse” with a chic living room that gets its push-pull energy from juxtapositions like shearling-covered ottomans paired with a live-edge burl-wood coffee table.
The future Beverly Hills homeowners were New Yorkers considering a more permanent L.A. move, and Torrey convinced them to buy the house. He knew that, after giving the exterior a needed coat of paint (the former gray-purple was off-putting) and some TLC, he could provide them with what they wanted inside, especially for the social gatherings they frequently host.
“They entertain a lot,” Torrey says. “They’re very theatrical. They wanted drama.”
Given that the dining room now features a Doug Aitken light-box work spelling out the word DRAMA in big letters, they seems to have gotten what they asked for.
That space — like the whole house and much of Torrey’s work — is replete with 1stDibs finds: stackable silver candleholders, a vintage mirror, an Edward Wormley credenza and a brass-and-vintage-glass chandelier, among other pieces.
It’s not only the variety of the items availible on the site that Torrey appreciates. “As a designer, I really appreciate how customizable the search options are by size, availability and material,” he says. “That’s so important for me.”
The barrel-backed shape of the chocolate-brown-velvet and brass dining chairs is echoed in the living room’s Vladimir Kagan Nautilus swivel chairs, from 1stDibs. The latter’s ivory bouclé covering is part of the room’s largely neutral palette, which forms a backdrop for more text-based art, in this case by Hank Willis Thomas.
The eye is also drawn to another showstopping element, in the corner of the room: a glittering 1970s bar made of suede, brass and chrome, again from 1stDibs.
Torrey’s Deco penchant is evident in the primary suite’s custom bed, made of satin, suede and brass. The headboard, with its series of dramatic peaks, was designed to echo the faceted facade of the Sunset Tower Hotel, in honor of Torrey’s and the clients’ Thursday-night dinners.
“We spent so much time there,” Torrey says.
Further drama is provided by a dedicated cabaret room, where the clients spend much of their time entertaining guests and inviting performers to sing and play their vintage Steinway piano.
There’s a bar, of course, with vintage-looking stools upholstered in a maroon mohair. A large curved sectional sofa by Milo Baughman in black velvet surrounds a cut-glass coffee table by Timothy Oulton. The table even lights up, throwing illumination on green velvet swivel armchairs from 1stDibs.
The room conveys a distinct sense of place, which gets back to Torrey’s desire to craft unique spaces for his clients that thrill them, and him.
As he puts it, “When they come home they know where they are — in Beverly Hills at an estate with an old Hollywood pedigree.”
