“A Well-Designed Space Is Like a Great Salad”

By Jennifer Mirsky

Designer Hila Sabin knows how to blend elements to create timeless, deeply personal interiors. “I always say a well-designed space is like a great salad,” she explains. “You have a little bit of everything. Crunch, soft textures, cold, warm, sweet, salty. It’s the same thing with people who dance or act. I asked one client, ‘Is every line, every moment in your performance an exclamation point?’”

Modern and eclectic, Hila doesn’t impose her own sensibility on her clients. Instead, she notices their style, how they speak and dress, what excites them. She then marries the core principles of interior design with who they are and how they want to live.

Formal dining room designed by Hila Sabin Interiors

An Immigrant at Heart

Hila was born in Israel, in a quiet, rural area in the north. She moved with her family to Queens when she was a young girl. Being an immigrant shaped her, as did her mother’s emphasis on cooking delicious meals. “My mom is not a design person, but she understands the importance of making people feel welcome in the space they're in,” Hila says. “So that's a huge thing for me. And it informs a lot of how I treat people, how I design for people, how I host.”

Crafting Her Corner

She didn’t realize she had artistic talent until her high school art teacher noticed her drawings. With a newfound understanding of perspective, Hila started sketching spaces and anything that came to mind. As a teenager, she would walk around the city and observe window treatments and the temperature of lights. “Growing up, we had a small apartment,” she says. “Space was such a rare commodity. And I remember just really crafting my little corner and making it something that was special to me.”

All the Senses

Hila attended Queens College for a year to confirm that she wanted to commit to the field. Deciding yes, she applied to FIT, where she double majored in interior design and product development/marketing.

Viewing home design holistically, as a place to experience all the senses, Hila interned in the fragrance industry. She also worked for several years in brand management at a big corporate manufacturer. Then she became pregnant with her son, the first of her three children. After interning with a few designers, she stopped working to focus on her growing family. She just didn’t see how she could work late nights or leave her kids at home. So she looked for a way to express herself creatively, rediscovering the joy she had felt dancing as a young girl. She trained professionally and joined a dance company, performing world fusion.

Hila also tried her hand at pastry arts and was hired at a restaurant. Having worked in fragrance, dance, and the culinary arts, she concluded that what she really loves is “giving people a beautiful experience.”

Powder room designed by Hila Sabin Interiors

Her Work Today

She founded Hila Sabin Interiors, a full-service design studio based in New York City. Whether it’s a full-home renovation, new construction, or a furnishing or decorating project, Hila guides her clients through every stage of the design process, from concept and space planning to custom millwork, material selection, furnishings, and installation. Her goal is “to create elevated, highly functional interiors that feel effortless, refined, and uniquely tailored to the people who live in them.”

Though not immediately obvious, there’s a throughline between professional dancing, baking, and interior design.

“I love to give people a nostalgic feeling of something that they grew up with that they can’t access anymore. And those things, sometimes you can’t put into words, you can’t say, ‘I want this.’ But all of a sudden, when you taste it or you hear it or you feel it around you, it brings you somewhere. It transports you,” Hila says.

NYC study, designed by Hila to honor her client’s history while giving her a new and inspiring space.

Looking Ahead

For the past several years, Hila’s interior design business has been exclusively word of mouth. She’s taking the slower summer months to work ON her business as well as IN her business so she can expand her work geographically and scale up her company.

Visit https://www.instagram.com/hilasabininteriors/

Photographs by Ryan Tiscareno