Interior Designer in Bronxville, NY
Village of Bronxville households average 2.86 persons, so a renovation there plans for several people sharing kitchens, baths, and work space every day. We design full interior renovations around that daily life. Our work opens divided rooms, adds built-in cabinetry that stores and seats, and keeps the character of an older building intact.
Planning changes to a Bronxville house or apartment? Tell us about the rooms and the people who use them.
Talk through your Bronxville renovation
Consultations are confidential.
Key Highlights
Cityzen's Lazzaro Residence turned a conventional 1,000 sq ft two-bedroom in a landmark Lower East Side building into one open loft.
Built-in desks, window seats, and translucent walls let small rooms share light and serve more than one purpose.
Cityzen coordinates with your architect, engineer, and contractor, and permit drawings come from a registered architect or licensed engineer.
Founder Azin Valy is a Cooper Union architecture graduate with more than two decades of design and renovation experience.
Lawrence Park in Bronxville is a National Register historic district of Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Classical Revival homes.
Interior design services in Bronxville cover layout, built-ins, light, and finishes
Our interior design service for Bronxville homes covers the whole interior: how rooms connect, where storage lives, how daylight reaches the center of the plan, and which materials finish it. Furniture selection is one part of the work. Most of the effort goes into the floor plan and the built pieces that hold a household together.
| What you want for your home | What Cityzen designs | Who else is involved |
|---|---|---|
| Open up rooms that feel cut off | A new layout that removes or shifts walls where the structure allows | A licensed engineer checks structure; a registered architect or engineer prepares any permit drawings |
| More storage without adding walls | Built-in cabinetry, desks, window seats, shelving, and platforms | A cabinetmaker or general contractor builds and installs |
| Daylight in inner rooms | Translucent walls, sliding panels, or switchable glass | The general contractor and electrician install |
| Materials that suit the house | A palette of woods, metals, stone, and color, plus refinishing of existing floors | The contractor and flooring trades |
| A home built around furniture or art you own | Rooms planned to frame the pieces you keep | You, with Cityzen |
| One plan everyone builds from | Design decisions shared with the architect, engineer, and contractor | Your full building team |
Every row above comes from finished work in our residential portfolio. Translucent sliding panels hide a home office in the Colp-Haber Residence. Switchable glass separates bath, kitchen, and entry in the Munter Residence. Refinished maple floors anchor the Freedman House in Greenwich.
Bronxville homes and households shape the design brief
Bronxville renovations start from two facts: many households are full families, and many houses are old. The Census Bureau table linked above puts 31.4% of village residents under 18. A design for that household needs a homework spot, coat and boot storage near the door, and a kitchen where several people can cook and talk at once.
The housing stock adds a second layer. Lawrence Park, a National Register historic district in Bronxville, holds Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Classical Revival houses, with periods of significance running from 1875 to 1949. Houses from those decades were often built as a series of separate formal rooms.
Can an older Bronxville house have an open plan and keep its character?
Yes, in most cases. The design keeps the details that give an older house its identity, such as window shapes, trim, and stair placement, and opens the paths between rooms. Built-in cabinetry can mark where cooking ends and sitting begins, so the plan reads as open without losing structure. A licensed engineer confirms which walls can move.
As an illustrative example, a family of five in a 1920s Tudor might use its formal dining room twice a year while the kitchen next door overflows every afternoon. Widening that opening and running one built-in bench and storage wall across both rooms gives the kitchen a table, the children a homework counter, and the house one shared center. One Bronxville homeowner, describing her own Tudor renovation to a local paper, put the goal plainly: "keep the feel of the classic Tudor but hide the modernization away."
Historic building renovation in a small floor plan: the Lazzaro Residence
The Lazzaro Residence shows how Cityzen renovates inside a historic building with very little square footage to spare. The apartment sits in the landmark Amalgamated building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. At 1,000 sq ft, the conventional two-bedroom layout left each room small and closed.
Cityzen Designs reworked it as one open loft. Maple-veneer plywood with its layered edges exposed forms the desks, counters, and window seats. White built-in cabinetry sits behind it as a calm backdrop. A continuous recessed aluminum strip runs between the two and carries concealed lighting under the upper cabinets.
The bathroom got the boldest move. A translucent wall and door let the bath glow into the living space, so a closed room becomes a light source for the whole apartment. Maple, stainless steel, and slate finish the palette. New York Magazine's Wendy Goodman covered the result, and the story appears on our press and publications page.
The project is in Manhattan, and Cityzen has no completed project in Bronxville to show yet. The same approach carries over to a Bronxville house or apartment with a dark center hall or a cramped back kitchen.
How do you make a 1,000 sq ft apartment feel open?
Take out the walls that only divide, then let built-in furniture do their job. In the Lazzaro Residence, desks, counters, and window seats define each activity without closing it off. Concealed lighting and a translucent bath wall spread light across the plan. The space reads as one room with several uses, which makes 1,000 sq ft feel larger.
A good built-in wall works like a long kitchen island stretched through the home. It gives every zone a place to sit, store, and work, with no extra doors. We used the same idea at the Colp-Haber Residence on the Upper East Side, where one band of birch cabinetry topped in yellow changes height to become a desk, seating, bookshelves, and a vanity. The owner, quoted on our client testimonials page, said Azin "has literally brought light into our lived experience."
Have a floor plan that feels smaller than its square footage?
Plan a more open Bronxville home
How a Cityzen interior design project runs
A Cityzen project starts with how you live and only later turns to style. Our design approach rests on three ideas: context comes ahead of style, spaces should adapt and serve more than one purpose, and clients should feel free to dream past convention.
In practice, a project moves through these stages:
A confidential consultation about your home, your household, and the scope you have in mind.
Time in the house to learn how rooms are used, where light falls, and which details carry the building's character.
A layout and built-in design that answers those findings, with materials and colors chosen to suit the house.
Coordination with your architect, engineer, and general contractor, so permit drawings and construction follow one plan.
Site visits during construction to keep the built work true to the design.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics describes interior designers in general as making indoor spaces functional, safe, and beautiful, with duties that include partition layouts, material choices, and coordination with building contractors. Our work sits squarely in that description, with extra weight on layout and custom built-ins.
Recommended: Bring existing floor plans, phone photos of each room, and a list of the furniture and art you plan to keep to the first consultation.
How long does an interior renovation take?
Timing depends on scope, the condition of the house, and the contractor's schedule, so we set it with you after a consultation. Clients have told us both stories. One renovation finished on time and on budget. Another grew larger and longer than planned, and the team kept the work careful throughout. Plan time for engineering and permits when walls move.
Azin Valy leads Cityzen's residential design work
Azin Valy, Cityzen's founder, trained at The Cooper Union School of Architecture and later co-founded I-Beam Design, an award-winning New York architecture firm. Her more than two decades of work run from a 250,000 sf international headquarters down to 250 sf of refugee housing. Schools such as Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University have invited her as a guest critic.
Small spaces and big ones get the same scrutiny under her lead. Cityzen's Freedman House in Greenwich won Silver in the Interior Design category at the 2024 New York Architecture Design Awards, listed on our awards page. Cityzen works alongside the registered architect or licensed engineer on any project that needs sealed drawings.
Commercial and hospitality interior design in Bronxville
Bronxville shops, restaurants, and offices can work with Cityzen Designs, which designs commercial and hospitality interiors as well as homes.
Our commercial interior design includes the 7,000 sq ft Andrew Davidson & Co. offices, which I-Beam Design, the practice Azin Valy co-founded, planned around a circular conference room inside Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condict Building. Inc. and Architizer named the space one of the World's Coolest Offices in 2011.
Our hospitality interior design includes the Macao Trading Co. restaurant in Tribeca, a 4,000 sq ft I-Beam Design project with an 82-seat dining room under a mezzanine. Salvaged teak lattice screens divide the room into smaller zones, and custom light fixtures reuse antique bicycles, boats, and rickshaws.
Older buildings set the terms in both kinds of work, from the Bayard-Condict offices to the Lazzaro Residence in the landmark Amalgamated building, so we plan new uses around what the building already has.
Key Takeaways
Village of Bronxville households average 2.86 persons, and 31.4% of residents are under 18, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
Lawrence Park is a National Register historic district of Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Classical Revival homes.
Cityzen's interior design service covers layout, built-in cabinetry, light, materials, and coordination with the building team.
The Lazzaro Residence opened a 1,000 sq ft two-bedroom in a landmark Manhattan building into one loft.
Permit drawings come from a registered architect or licensed engineer.
Ready to talk about a specific house or apartment in Bronxville?
Frequently asked questions
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An interior designer plans how the rooms work, then decides what fills them. On a Cityzen renovation that means the layout, built-in cabinetry, lighting placement within the design, materials, colors, and furniture choices. The designer also shares the plan with the architect, engineer, and contractor, so everyone builds from the same set of decisions.
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Many renovations need both. An architect or licensed engineer prepares and seals the drawings a building department requires when walls, structure, or plumbing change. An interior designer shapes the plan, built-ins, and finishes that make the rooms work for your household. Cityzen coordinates with your architect and engineer and does not seal drawings.
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Yes. Cityzen designs around existing collections often. The Lazzaro Residence was planned around the owner's mid-century Eames furniture. At the Freedman House, walnut built-ins complement the family's mid-century pieces. Bring a list or photos of what you plan to keep, and the layout can give each piece a proper place.
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Most work in the Cityzen portfolio is full interior renovation, and some projects include exterior work too. The contact page invites projects in a newly purchased home or an existing residence. If your plan covers one room or one floor, describe it at the consultation, and we will talk through whether the scope fits.
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The first consultation is a confidential conversation about your home, your household, and what you want to change. Expect questions about how each room is used, what feels wrong today, and which pieces you want to keep. Floor plans and a few photos of the rooms help us talk through scope.