The Designer’s Eye: Linda Lee Butler's Vision

It is that ineffable sense of classic American style that infuses each room designed by Linda Lee Butler. She creates an aura of history, social grace and gentility, while infusing her clients’ spaces with pure American verve.

“I help my clients to realize their own vision,” she explained to Newport Seen.

The designer, whose work on her own remarkable waterfront house in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, has just been featured in Renovation Style magazine, has also just received the “Best New Design Shop” award from Rhode Island Monthly magazine.

“It was an unexpected honor,” she stated quietly.

Antiques pieces made new with upholstery &

unexpected groupings

Ms. Butler works on very traditional homes, and, taking inspiration from Ralph Lauren, layers family-specific traditions within her design scheme, first finding the essential “focus” in each room – a fireplace, a view....

“All houses come with a basic personality," she explains, "and I assess the 'bones' of the residence before creating what I call 'the intrigue'."

Of her East Main Road, Portsmouth shop, she says: “It’s really more of a showroom for my studio", but it is replete with breathtaking, wonderful room vignettes, showing what can be done with the grandest to the smallest room with creative uses of art, wallpaper, the unexpected object.

Vivid fabrics catch the eye

“I place an antique in every room,” she says. She seeks and savors classic pieces, finding intriguing new uses for wonderful old furniture and furnishings, and honoring the craftsmanship of the past, bringing it to new life.

Ms. Butler has been working for years for clients in Newport and around the country. She is a graduate of Swain School of Design at the University of Massachusetts, and attended the design program at Rhode Island School of Design.