Feeling at Home
In the Electric Bowery studio, cofounder Lucia Bartholomew is programming for people.
By Alex T. Williams
I first met the architect and designer Lucia Bartholomew when I was 19 years old, spending the end of a gap year in Santa Barbara before heading off to RISD. We discovered an unlikely shared connection: Her family spent summers on Squirrel Island, a small community off the coast of Maine not far from where I grew up. Our lives and careers have continued to intersect in serendipitous ways ever since.
Now, after nearly two decades building a career in Los Angeles—including an early stint at Gehry Partners—Bartholomew has become one of the most thoughtful voices in contemporary hospitality and residential design. As cofounder (along with Cayley Lambur) of Electric Bowery, a Los Angeles–based architecture and interiors studio, she has helped shape projects ranging from Wildflower Farms, a Hudson Valley retreat set among meadows, mountains, and orchards, to Casa Cody, a historic desert hideaway in Palm Springs.
I reconnected with her just as she was preparing to leave Los Angeles and move to New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. As I listened to Bartholomew describe her return to the Empire State (she grew up in Saratoga Springs), I was struck by how closely the qualities drawing her back—seasonality, connection to landscape, gathering, and a sense of belonging—mirror the qualities she has spent two decades creating for others through her work.
You’re preparing to move back to the Hudson Valley after two decades on the West Coast. How does it feel to be returning? Has your idea of home changed along the way?
It feels great to be going back. At this phase of my life, it still feels like home.
Building our business in Los Angeles was so much about creating homes for other people. We started with development projects where we were almost designing for a fantasy client; we didn’t know who would eventually live there. Over time, we moved toward much more personal, residential work, collaborating closely with homeowners to define what home meant to them.
Southern California also shaped the way I think about living. The boundary between indoors and outdoors is much blurrier there. Living rooms extend outside, people work outside, practice yoga outside. A lot of East Coast clients actually come to us looking for that West Coast sensibility and the way it redefines the relationship between architecture and landscape.
But now, having a young child, I find myself drawn back to the seasonality of New York. The house we’re moving into has beautiful framed views, and I’m excited to experience a home that evolves throughout the year. There’s something special about watching a place change with the seasons.
When you think back to places that made an impression on you growing up, what qualities made them memorable?
Seasonality is a big part of it. The house I grew up in had a huge den that always felt a little chilly in winter, but it had this massive fireplace. In the colder months, that’s where everyone gathered. In the summer, we’d spend most of our time on the patio. When I think about childhood memories, I think about spaces being used differently throughout the year. Certain rooms became important at certain times. That progression creates a sense of time passing.
That’s actually one of the things that’s felt strange about California. The weather is wonderful, but the spaces are used much more consistently throughout the year. You lose some of those seasonal rituals.
I remember that den would almost be shut down for parts of the year, but then in winter it became special. That’s where the Christmas tree went. That’s where everyone gathered around the fire. Part of what made it meaningful was that it wasn’t used all the time.
You’ve designed private residences, hotels, and retreats—what have hospitality projects taught you about making people feel welcome?
Hospitality has changed a lot over the last 15 years. People no longer go to hotels purely for leisure. They’re working remotely, taking meetings, integrating parts of everyday life into travel. Hotels have had to become much more fluid.
It’s no longer just a lobby, a restaurant, and a guest room. People want spaces where they can have coffee, work for a few hours, meet someone, or spend time alone without sitting in their room all day.
As a result, hospitality spaces have become much more residential. We [at the firm] think a lot about creating living-room-like environments that encourage both conversation and comfort. That relationship goes both ways. Our hospitality work influences our residential projects, and our residential work influences our hospitality projects.
Places like Wildflower Farms and Casa Cody create a feeling that’s difficult to describe but easy to recognize. What makes a place genuinely comfortable rather than simply beautiful?
Context is a huge part of it. With Wildflower Farms, one of the most important moments is arriving on that covered porch and immediately understanding where you are. You’re looking out toward the mountains, connected to the landscape, grounded in the setting. We wanted the experience of arrival to feel like a gradual reveal. You come in, the view opens up, and suddenly you’re situated within the larger landscape.
The other piece is creating spaces that encourage connection. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve found myself talking not only with the people I arrived with, but also with complete strangers. The seating arrangements, the scale, the relationship to the landscape—it all encourages people to linger and interact.
How do climate and geography shape the way you think about comfort?
They’re fundamental. With Wildflower Farms, there was concern early on that guests would have to walk through snow to reach their rooms, but that ended up becoming part of the magic. You’re forced to engage with the elements. The weather becomes part of the experience.
The same thing happens in Palm Springs, just differently. You’re embracing the heat rather than the snow. The pools, the sun, the mountain views—they all become part of the identity of the place. The best projects don’t separate people from their environment. They help people engage with it.
How has your hospitality work influenced the way you approach residential projects?
Many residential clients come to us because they’ve experienced one of our hospitality projects. They’re often looking for some version of that feeling at home.
We’ve become much more interested in creating spaces that don’t fit neatly into traditional categories. Instead of thinking strictly in terms of living room, dining room, and family room, we think about how people actually want to spend their time. Maybe it’s a place for coffee and reading in the morning. Maybe it’s a covered porch that becomes an everyday gathering space. The programming becomes more personal and less conventional.
Are there things homeowners tend to get wrong when thinking about comfort?
Sometimes people focus too much on resale value.
They worry about bedroom counts or conventional layouts because they think that’s what future buyers will want. But often the most memorable and successful homes are the ones that are uniquely programmed around the people who actually live there.
Los Angeles has experienced an extraordinary period of disruption in recent years, including the wildfires. Has that changed the conversations you’re having with clients?
Definitely. We’re doing fire-rebuild work now, and there’s a much greater awareness of resilience and fire safety throughout California. But more broadly, I think people are thinking differently about permanence.
Fifteen years ago, clients would often talk about creating their “forever home.” We hear that much less now—instead, people tend to think in terms of a particular chapter of life. Like, this is the house that works for us right now.
Maybe that’s because of climate change. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic. Maybe people are simply more mobile than they used to be. But there does seem to be less focus on forever and more focus on the present moment.
What else do you think people are craving right now?
People want warmth. They come to us looking for spaces that feel timeless, grounded, and connected to nature. We’re using a lot of wood. We’re paying close attention to materiality. We’re trying to create spaces that don’t feel newly built, even when they are. People are looking for authenticity. They’re looking for connection to landscape, and something that feels human.
Going back to warmth—what does it mean to you?
Warmth is a sense of coziness, a space you don’t want to leave. It’s natural materials. Soft lighting. Spaces that transition gracefully from day into night. It feels like something made by hand rather than by a machine.
Maybe that’s partly a reaction to the world we’re living in now. As AI becomes more present, I think people increasingly want environments that feel undeniably human.
For me, warmth is that feeling of being in a place where people have gathered together. A place made of wood, lit by candlelight, where you can feel the human touch behind everything around you. That’s what people are craving, and what we’re always trying to create.
Before we wrap up, is there a hospitality experience you find yourself returning to again and again?
The other three women I run Electric Bowery with and I do these little retreats together, and one place we’ve returned to several times is the sushi restaurant at Treebones in Big Sur. It’s this tiny restaurant housed in a canvas structure overlooking the Pacific. The fog rolls in; there’s barely audible classic rock playing in the background; and the staff are incredibly warm and familial. The food is exquisite, and the dishware is beautiful. It’s this blend of perfect quality: Everything feels thoughtful and considered, but also completely relaxed and effortless. You leave dying to go back. That’s very difficult to do well. ⌂