The old adage “Do it nice, or do it twice,” doesn’t quite apply to Sarah Sherman Samuel, Mandy Moore’s go-to interior designer. After all, it’s because the designer did it nice that she got to do it twice. The pair first began their professional relationship nearly a decade ago, when Moore hired Samuel to work her magic on a 1950s Pasadena home that she’d recently purchased with her then-fiance, musician Taylor Goldsmith. The result was perfectly bright, airy, and honored the home’s midcentury roots. So in 2020, when the now-married couple decided to buy a property in Altadena, it was never a question that Samuel would come back for round two.
“I like to say it’s a very grown-up house but with a little sparkle,” Samuel recently told AD of the latest design, which is featured in the March 2026 issue of the magazine. “They let us run, creatively.”
But—to borrow Samuel’s own metaphor—this is far from the only artistic sprinting she’s been doing. Below, we chronicle everything you need to know about the designer’s career, firm, and practice.
Who is Sarah Sherman Samuel?
An interior and product designer, Samuel is the founder of SSS Design. After finishing a degree in graphic design, she worked at a furniture showroom in Miami before moving to LA to become the creative director for Clementine Paper, a stationery company. It wasn’t until 2014 that she branched out on her own, launching SSS Design. She describes her style as modern “with a warm touch” and says nature is a primary source of inspiration. In addition to Moore, she’s responsible for Nacho Figueras’s laid-back Florida escape, Vanessa Carlton’s bathroom, and dozens of other projects.
Four years after her firm’s launch, she relocated outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she was born. This move prompted the Magnolia Network show, Inspired Interiors, which aired in 2022 and followed the designer post-relocation as she balanced family life, work, and a new home base. If that weren’t enough, she’s launched a number of product lines, including collaborations with West Elm, Lulu and Georgia, and Semihandmade; founded an e-commerce platform, SSS Atelier; and is about to publish her first monograph, Sarah Sherman Samuel: The Intersection of Art and Design.
What style is Sarah Sherman Samuel known for?
Playfully sophisticated, Samuel’s style is often described as organic, modern, and clean. She “looks to nature’s juxtaposition of materiality, pattern, texture, and patina to inspire a grounded yet organic feeling in the spaces she designs,” her website reads. “Her work follows a wabi-sabi approach, finding authenticity in the unexpected and warmth in the imperfect.” Look through her past projects, and you’ll find scallops and soft edges, earthy tones, and thoughtful textural additions—like limewash paint or fluted wood paneling. Many of her projects include furniture she’d designed, often for her line with Lulu and Georgia, though she’s also known for her expert vintage sourcing.
What other projects has Sarah Sherman Samuel done?
In addition to the two Mandy Moore homes, AD has chronicled a number of Samuel’s projects over the years. The July 2023 issue of the magazine included Nacho Figueras’s home, designed by Samuel. “It’s so nice when a client is as excited as you are by the things you design,” she said at the time, referencing Figuera and his wife’s decision to include her furniture in the home.
Samuel’s own house was also among her most popular projects. “It was a total dungeon inside,” she said of the property when they bought it, “Like a castle gone wrong.” She and her husband had planned to buy it, fix it up, then sell it—but ended up deciding to move their family in after falling for the place during the renovation. They’ve since sold the property, but according to her Instagram, they’re now back at work on their next residence. “It’s the first one we are intending from the beginning to actually become our family home,” she wrote in a caption.