Soon the branches of their company will be united under a common roof: a firm headquarters is in the works across the street from La Mercerie, where staff will be trained in Roman and Willliams–certified romanticism. “I do think we tend to attract a person who’s a little dissatisfied by the design education system,” says Alesch, who describes himself as a “soft architect,” one drawn to elements like drapery and interior detailing, and Standefer as a “hard interior designer,” who loves stonework, timber, and diving into construction methodology. Together, they make spaces that feel spontaneous yet rigorously premeditated—and always luxurious. “A lot of our staff are people who got criticized for being focused on beauty or emotion in their designs. We’re sort of a safe haven for those people.”
With this team, Roman and Williams is also designing the first ground-up building on Gramercy Park in 75 years; a hotel and spa in the English Cotswolds that foregrounds the Roman ruins on its site; and a San Francisco hotel for the Hearst family, for which Alesch and Standefer were invited to pull architectural artifacts and furniture from the family archive held in a Bronx warehouse since 1945. After launching their own furniture line a few months ago, they are experimenting with lost wax and glass casting for a new bronze lighting collection. In turn, these projects and technical explorations may inspire new design questions.
According to Standefer, the firm has always strived to answer the question: “How do you look at the past and future with a new point of view?” With history as a scale, their work thus far is just a drop in the bucket. But, what is important, they say, is the legacy they can leave with the design principles they keep. “We want to make an archetype,” Standefer explains, “and you just don’t do that in a year.”
Two decades in, the duo have shared with AD PRO the principles that have driven their business so far—and hopefully, will light the way for the next 20.
Ethos Over Style: “Our work is bound by an ethos, not a style. We don’t fit into typical architecture and design tropes or categories and reject the common stereotypes of what it means to be modern today. Instead, our work is undergirded by a core set of beliefs and is an extension of these values, a continuum of longevity meant to live beyond them—like the name of the studio itself, named for our maternal grandfathers.”
Narrative: “We animate spaces by unearthing stories, amplifying history, and exploring symbols. Everything we design, from an object to a building, is underpinned by narrative.”
Nature: “We are naturalists, inspired by the twists and turns of wild imperfection. We love natural materials and their evolution through use.”
Voltage: “We create voltage by combining opposing ideas and elements. We believe that there is richness in the tension of “the mix” that is order and disorder, organization and freedom, rigor and spontaneity, high and low, refinement and rebellion, past and future, unity and variety.”