Procurement · Berkshires, NY · 2024
Upstate Playroom
A room that finally understood what children actually need.
View project →Interior Design in Berkshires
Interior Design in the Berkshires
Where the landscape sets the brief.
Curio Studio Interiors is a full-service residential interior design studio serving the Berkshires, including Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and Lenox. Savannah grew up here. Based now in Kerhonkson, NY — a short drive across the state line — we work on full-home renovations, second homes, and primary residences across Berkshire County and into the Vermont border region, on a senior-led, full-fee retainer scaled to the home.
The Berkshires have always attracted people who want more — more quiet, more beauty, more intention in how they live. The homes here reflect that. They're not just houses; they're a statement about how someone wants to spend time. Designing in the Berkshires means understanding the altitude of the aspiration and meeting it with equal rigor. Savannah grew up in the Berkshires. She knows the light in July and the cold in January and the particular kind of coziness that a Berkshires home needs to earn through design rather than season.
The light in the Berkshires is its own argument for a particular kind of home. July is loud and green and generous; January is hard, blue, and honest in a way that no thermostat hides. The houses that work here are the ones designed for both — the ones that earn their warmth in February rather than perform it in October. We pay attention to how the morning light comes off the Housatonic and how the late-day light flattens against the Taconic ridge. We choose materials that hold up across that span: wools that breathe in summer and insulate in winter, white oak that deepens against snow, plaster that takes a January sun without going chalky. Materiality, here, is climate response. It is not decoration.
What we know about Berkshire homes is that the housing stock is unusually layered. The big Gilded Age "cottages" of Lenox and Stockbridge — and the word cottage is, of course, a particular kind of regional irony, since these are mansion-scale houses — carry their own grammar of proportion, plaster, and millwork that asks for restraint and rewards depth. The New England colonials and Federals of Sheffield, Egremont, and West Stockbridge hold their bones beautifully and want to be honored rather than gutted. The Shaker-influenced vernacular that runs through the region carries a built-in argument for craft and quiet that the design conversation here too often ignores. The contemporary builds along the higher elevations face a different question: how do you sit a modern house in this landscape without arriving as a guest who has not removed their shoes.
We serve clients throughout Berkshire County and into the southern Vermont border — Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Lenox, Lee, Sheffield, Egremont, Tyringham, West Stockbridge, Becket, and north into Williamstown and North Adams where the Clark and MASS MoCA have reshaped what the region's design conversation can include. Each town reads differently. A 1920s cottage in Lenox is not the same project as a Federal in Sheffield, and a contemporary intervention outside Great Barrington is not the same project as a renovation of a Williamstown academic. We pay attention to where, not just to who.
Our trade network reaches the Berkshires through the same regional, craft-first relationships we have built across the Hudson Valley — and through Savannah's own roots in the region. The masons who know Berkshire bluestone and Stockbridge marble from out-of-state lookalikes. The millworkers in Lee and Great Barrington whose drawings we have lived inside of. The plaster crews that know how a Gilded Age wall actually behaves under lime wash. Sourcing across the state line is a logistics conversation as much as a design one, and we plan it that way from the first site visit. The ecology of the work is regional and earned.
Projects in the Berkshires include cottages, country homes, and seasonal residences across Berkshire County, MA and the southern Vermont border region.
How a project unfolds
The shape of the work.
Drive time and scope
Kerhonkson to Great Barrington is about ninety minutes across the state line — Stockbridge and Lenox under two hours, Williamstown and North Adams closer to two and a half. We plan site visits in real time on the property rather than a quick stop. The scope that makes sense in the Berkshires is usually broader than a single room: full-home renovations, second-home builds, primary-residence work that wants a coherent point of view applied throughout. The houses tend to ask for the whole conversation, not a corner of it.
How we work in this region
Every project begins with a slow walk through the house in the light it actually lives in — a Lenox bedroom at six in the morning, a Sheffield kitchen at dusk, a Williamstown front hall in a February storm. We meet the architect and contractor early. We layer specifications: envelope, structure, materiality, light, and then the moveable life of the rooms. The Berkshire build calendar runs around mud season and the deep winter, so we plan procurement and on-site work against the actual seasons of the region, not the calendar version of them.
Recent project descriptors
A 1920s cottage in Lenox, rethought as a year-round home — new envelope, a quieter palette, plaster restored rather than replaced, a single room finally allowed to be a library again. A contemporary outside Great Barrington designed for a family that splits time between the Berkshires and downstate, where the design question was how to make a modern house feel rooted in this landscape rather than airdropped into it. Both projects took longer than the clients first imagined. Both came out, in their words, like the house they had always meant to be.
Common questions
Berkshires questions.
How much does interior design cost in the Berkshires?
Curio prices its Berkshires work the same way it prices everywhere else — transparently, scoped to the home. Consulting is $150 per hour, principal-led. Procurement engagements start at $25,000 in design fees. Full Service residential projects begin at $50,000, with furnishings, construction, and specialty trades budgeted separately. For industry context, the ASID 2024 Compensation & Benefits Report (https://www.asid.org/resources/research) places median residential designer billing at $150 per hour nationally — Berkshire work tracks at or slightly above that, because the housing stock is older, the Gilded Age and Federal renovations carry real coordination weight, and the cross-state-line trade logistics add time to every project. We price in writing, in a defined scope, before any work begins.
What is the typical timeline for a Berkshires project?
A full interior renovation in the Berkshires typically runs nine to eighteen months from first conversation to install — sometimes longer for a Gilded Age "cottage" or a Federal that needs real structural and trade coordination. New construction tracks the architect and builder schedule. The Berkshire build calendar moves around mud season and the deep winter, so we sequence procurement and on-site work against the actual seasons of the region. Nothing rushed here ages well.
Do you work with my architect or general contractor?
Yes — and we prefer it. The strongest Berkshires projects come out of a real conversation between architect, builder, and designer from the earliest sketch. We coordinate early, share drawings openly, and work to keep the design intent intact through the build. If you do not yet have an architect or contractor, we can point you toward regional partners we trust on both sides of the state line.
Do you work on weekend homes or primary residences?
Both, and the work is different. Primary residences in the Berkshires need to carry the whole rhythm of a year — real winters, real daily life, the front hall that takes the wet of a January boot. Second homes have to function harder in concentrated bursts and recover quickly between visits. The architectural respect is the same. The textile and storage logic is not. We design for how the house is actually lived in, not the brochure version.
What style suits a Berkshires home?
There is no single Berkshire style, and the "Berkshires aesthetic" sold in shelter magazines is a flattened version of a much more interesting regional reality. The houses that age well respond to the specifics of the site — the orientation, the light, the architectural bones, the climate. That can read as a restored Federal in Sheffield, a quiet contemporary on the ridge above Great Barrington, a Lenox cottage brought back to its proportions. The work is to find what the particular house wants to become, not to apply a regional costume.
We are New Yorkers buying a Berkshires second home — do you work on those?
Yes, and a meaningful share of our Berkshires work is exactly that. The honest version: a second home in the Berkshires is not a smaller primary residence — it asks different design questions. It gets used in concentrated bursts. It needs to be ready for guests inside an hour and recover overnight after a long weekend. The storage logic is different, the textile durability conversation is different, the way the kitchen has to perform between a Friday arrival and a Sunday departure is different. We are based in Kerhonkson, NY — a short drive across the state line — and we design the cross-border project as one continuous relationship rather than two disconnected ones. The conversation usually starts before the closing and continues for years.
Are you a Berkshires designer or a New York designer who works in the Berkshires?
Savannah grew up in the Berkshires. She knows the light in July and the cold in January in the way only someone raised in the region does. The studio is now based in Kerhonkson, NY — about ninety minutes from Great Barrington across the state line — and the work in the Berkshires is built on local trade relationships that go back longer than the studio itself. The honest version: we are a Hudson Valley studio with Berkshires roots and a real Berkshires practice. Not a New York studio that visits for a project. That distinction matters to the work.
How We Work
Find your path.
Full Service
You're not managing this — we are. From first concept to final installation: every vendor conversation, every site visit, every decision that needs making. You show up for the moments that matter. We carry the rest. Projects starting from $50,000.
Full Home or Per RoomSee what's included →
Procurement
The bones are good. What's missing is the layer that makes it yours — furniture, textiles, lighting, the objects you actually live with. We source, specify, and coordinate the whole furnishing. You don't place a single order. Projects starting from $25,000.
Full Home or Per RoomSee what's included →
Spec Book
The full design plan, in your hands — every finish, every fixture, every spec, drawn clearly enough that your contractor can build it without us in the room. You handle the ordering. We handle the thinking. $1 per square foot, $500 minimum per room.
Full Home or Per RoomSee what's included →
Guidebook
A clear direction for every room — paint, materials, furniture references, how the space wants to be arranged. You source it yourself, on your own time. We hand you a plan worth following. $1 per square foot, $500 minimum per room.
Per RoomSee what's included →
Consulting
An hour with Savannah. Bring your floor plans, your samples, your questions — and your uncertainty. We work through it together. $150 per hour.
HourlySee what's included →
Our Work
Recent projects in Berkshires.
Meet your designer
Savannah grew up in the Berkshires. She knows the light in July and the cold in January and the particular kind of coziness that a Berkshires home has to earn through design rather than season. The studio is in Kerhonkson now — close enough to drive, far enough to be its own conversation — and the work she does in the Berkshires is built on roots she has had longer than the studio.
CEO & Principal Designer
Savannah Dodge
Savannah Dodge is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Designer of Curio Studio. She earned her BFA in Interior Design from the New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University and brings over a decade of experience designing thoughtful, layered homes. Her work spans full-service residential projects, renovations, investment properties, and country homes throughout the Hudson Valley and New England. Originally from the Berkshires, Savannah maintains a deep connection to the cultural and natural landscape of the Northeast, along with a strong regional network of architects, craftspeople, and trades. She leads every stage of the design process, from initial concept and construction documentation to FF&E selection, procurement, and final installation.
At the heart of Savannah's work is the belief that great design restores the relationship between people, place, and planet. She approaches each project as a living ecosystem, considering how architecture, interiors, and landscape work together to shape the experience of home. Drawing on color theory, restoration, and principles of human ecology, she creates spaces that transform the energy of a home to support the people who live within it. For Savannah, sustainability is not a trend or aesthetic but a foundation for thoughtful, enduring design that allows a home to feel both deeply personal and connected to its surroundings.
Also serving
Other regions.
Hudson Valley
Rooted in the landscape. Designed for how you live here.
Saratoga Springs
Historic character. Contemporary living.
Catskills
The mountains, designed with intention.
Capital Region
Albany, Troy, Schenectady — designed for real life.
Lake Placid
Mountain homes that earn their setting.
Western Massachusetts
Pioneer Valley and beyond.
New England
Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine — we travel for the right project.
Working on something in the Berkshires?