A&D SERIES 06: Contemporary Classic - Esther Gutmer

From Brussels to Bombay, via Antwerp, Geneva, Saint-Tropez and Knokke-Zoute, all of Esther Gutmer’s interior projects radiate a real feeling for the art of living and a consistent sense of good taste. Her personal preference is for a contemporary style with Anglo-Saxon accents, but with a strongly international slant: the hallmark of this tireless traveller.


Over the course of her twenty-five-year career, Esther Gutmer has gained an enviable position within the world of exclusive home design. Her name is often linked to that of Ralph Lauren, with classic Anglo-Saxon aesthetics and opulent luxury.

She developed this taste during the years spent in the US where she studied interior design and discovered the home collections of New York stylist Ralph Lauren.

Soon after she arrived in the United States from her home country of Belgium, Esther Gutmer recognised a real revolutionary force in the vision of this American designer, in his creation of dramatic settings and integration of people into his interiors. Ralph Lauren adds poetic elements to the world of decor: life in a castle, the author’s study, the fisherman’s hut. Upon her return to Belgium in 1986, Esther Gutmer became the exclusive distributor for Ralph Lauren Home Collections.

She opened her first boutique in the Zavel district of Brussels and then established a business on Waterloolaan, which also became the base for her work as a freelance interior architect. Still very much influenced by her experiences overseas, her style shows a strong Anglo-Saxon bias. She favours English and American mahogany furniture and is passionate about the idea of the cottage, the country house and the fisherman’s dwelling with expansive views of New England. Many further journeys abroad have broadened her horizons and resulted in a truly international style.
Esther Gutmer likes to incorporate souvenirs and personal items into her projects, noble materials, antiques, family heirlooms, ethnic and contemporary art.

She attaches a great importance to volumes as well as light and to how it affects the spaces.

Today Esther Gutmer heads a team of ten architects and interior designers. She insists on managing each project down to the smallest detail, and employs the services of Le 3ème Bureau, her husband’s carpentry factory. Kitchens, bathrooms, libraries, dressing rooms and other interior elements are always designed and created individually for each project.
With a quarter of a century’s experience behind her, Esther has excellent insight into new tastes, design trends and public expectations. She also includes new materials and modern technology in her deliberations on contemporary interior design. This explains why she remains one of the leading Belgian interior architects of her generation, without renouncing her classic roots. Her approach has an elegance and femininity that can be felt in every detail of her creations.