Leta Austin Foster & Daughters

About

Leta Austin Foster grew up in Jacksonville and opened her Palm Beach design firm in 1975. She added a New York office in the 1990s, and her daughters, Sallie Giordano and India Foster, run the business with her as partners and principal designers.

Giordano left journalism for interiors in 1993 and leads the New York office, where she oversees projects across the Northeast. India Foster came home in 2006 after several years at Tedrick & Bennett in San Francisco. The family designs in styles from traditional to contemporary and commissions one-of-a-kind pieces from artisans.

In 1990 Foster restored space in an Addison Mizner building and opened a shop there, on Via Mizner, where you can buy the kinds of pieces she uses in her rooms. Brian Coleman documented the family's work in the book Traditional Interiors (Gibbs Smith, 2015). House Beautiful and Architectural Digest have published their rooms, and The Franklin Report lists the firm among its design resources. If you want gracious, classic rooms from a firm with five decades on the island, start with this family.

Specialties

• Classic residential

Notable projects

• Shop in a restored Addison Mizner building on Via Mizner1990
• Traditional Interiors monograph by Brian ColemanGibbs Smith, 2015