The 25 – Bunny Williams

AD 100 List and AD Hall of Famer Bunny Williams is a designer, businesswoman, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and philanthropist.

Williams, who is in the Interior Design Hall of Fame, has designed products for numerous iconic brands, including wallpaper for Lee Jofa and furniture for Ballard Designs, along with her own namesake line of home furnishings, Bunny Williams Home.

She opened her eponymous New York City design firm in 1988 after a 22-year apprenticeship with the esteemed Parish-Hadley Associates, and in the following decades created her own indelible imprint and legacy rooted in traditional design.

Renowned for balancing refined beauty, welcoming livable appeal, and attention to detail in a variety of city apartments, country estates, and cottages across the United States and abroad, Williams has been an inspiration for generations of designers.

She’s written eight books, the latest of which, published in 2024, is “Bunny Williams: Life in the Garden,” and is a sought-after speaker and mentor on design, decoration, gardening, and entertaining.

Williams, who grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, fell in love with interior design at 15 when she visited the Dorothy Draper-decorated Greenbrier Resort, which had a color palette unlike anything she had ever seen.

She studied interior design at Garland Junior College in Boston, and after moving to New York City, worked for Stair & Co., an antiques gallery frequented by seminal designers Sister Parish and Albert Hadley, whom she subsequently worked for.

Of her Parish-Hadley days, she says, “I was honored to work there and was exposed to so much; their extraordinary projects and partnership, the design process, everything. By the time I left, I’d been the secretary, an assistant, and a buyer. I had the tools and experience to run my own enterprise, which I did – starting with three people working out of my guest bedroom.”

In 1991, Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, opened Treillage, a home and garden furnishings boutique on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that drew A-list designers, editors, and tastemakers.

Williams, who has a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, remains passionate about her work because “the field is always evolving because the way that people live is always changing” and hopes that her work will continue to inspire future interior designers.