From trader to designer, she made the leap
Rachel Laxer was just off a flight from London and back in Scarsdale, showing no signs of jet lag while she talked about interior design in a room of her own design in a century-old house where landscaping crews raced to put finishing touches to gravel walks and thick green lawns.
“This is my first show room,” said Laxer, who started her bicontinental company, Rachel Laxer Interiors Ltd., in 2007. Her redesigned first-floor sunroom was anchored by a rectangular glass coffee table that encased standing walnut slabs. The white sofa with sable cushions was “to-die-for comfortable,” said the designer who chose it.
“It”™s all about relaxed elegance,” she said of this and other home interiors she has designed in a career that has taken her from California”™s Silicon Valley to Scarsdale and across the Atlantic to London and France. “Barefoot luxury.”
“I”™m a big believer in the power of light,” she added.
Laxer had flown from her home in London ”“ in St. John”™s Wood, which is “a lot like Westchester County,” she said ”“ a day ahead of the preview cocktail party that would kick off the third annual Designer Showhouse of Westchester. A major fundraiser for Cerebral Palsy of Westchester, this year”™s event is at 2 Cooper Road in Scarsdale, a Colonial Revival mansion on four acres. Owners Renee and Sandye Berger, descendants of the three-story home”™s first occupants, have opened their doors to design-struck visitors six days a week through June 9.
The show this spring includes 20 designers from Westchester and Rockland counties, Long Island, New York City, New Jersey and Fairfield County, Conn. Laxer traveled from her home and home office in England to her home and home office in Scarsdale for the event.
Raised in Armonk, Laxer graduated from the New York University business school with a master”™s degree in finance and international business. She pursued a career as a commodities trader and emerging markets trader at the hedge fund firms of George Soros and Michael Steinhardt.
A move to Tokyo, Japan with her husband, also a finance professional, changed the course of her life and career.
“It was challenging, being a woman, working in Japan,” she said. She realized that “what I loved about Japan was the architecture.” Like the country”™s tea ceremony. “Small movements have big impact” in the Japanese design aesthetic, she said.
While there she began studies with an English art historian and architect, a connection that led to her hiring in London by renowned British designer Kelly Hoppen.
“I put it out there,” Laxer said. It was my passion. I loved it.”
While working for Hoppen”™s company in the U.S., “I started doing smaller things locally” on her own. “That”™s how the ball got rolling.”
“I do think my business background makes a huge difference in terms of how I think about projects and spaces.” For one, she knows the “balancing act” required to maximize a project budget.
“It”™s also about maximizing value” with authentic design pieces of lasting worth, she said. “I used to be a value investor. So at my core, value is really important.”
“I really focus on the high-end residential market,” where her projects have taken her from the home of clients she discreetly described as “Internet people” in Silicon Valley to the French Alps, where she designed a 14,000-square-foot ski chalet.
Would she consider doing commercial interiors?
“I would absolutely love to,” Laxer said. “I”™m waiting for the person to knock on my door and say, ”˜I”™ve got a boutique hotel”™ ”“ or restaurant.”
“I think with my corporate background, I would have fun with that.”