Celebrating 20 Years of Design Excellence!

As Soucie Horner celebrates our twentieth anniversary, we’ve enjoyed looking back on the past two decades – and looking ahead to the direction our path will take in the coming years. What started as a wild idea between two School of the Art Institute study-abroad students over a glass of wine in a Parisian cafe—what if we opened our own design firm in Chicago?—took on a life of its own. In the ensuing years, the firm crystallized into something far beyond our founders’ initial vision. “We’re doing every kind of design we ever imagined,” says Shea. “Our dreams have come true.”

Those dreams have blossomed over the decades into three distinct business divisions: Soucie Horner Interiors, SH Studio, and Soucie Horner Collections. Years of working with clients on luxury residential projects have given our teams the ability to apply that knowledge to commercial design. “Our talented designers get to flex their muscles and leverage ideas across categories,” Martin says. “It’s opened up new avenues for their endless creativity.” For SHIIR – the artisan-crafted, custom rug line that is the cornerstone of Soucie Horner Collections – that means getting micro: experimenting with fibers from all over the world, learning about dyeing and spinning, and exploring innovative new techniques with weavers.

Regardless of division, Soucie Horner’s creative process always begins the same way: by getting to know the client. “When you really take the time to build a real, honest relationship, you build trust,” says Martin. “Then you understand just how to give a client something that will make them happy. Making that personal connection may be the most rewarding part of the job.”

And building lifelong relationships pays off in more ways than one. When clients build other homes or corporate headquarters, they return to Soucie Horner. Martin recalls a client who did an apartment in Chicago, then a flat in London, then a ski chalet in Aspen, and finally a corporate headquarters back in Chicago. “We’re fortunate enough to have clients who have taken us around the world,” Shea says. “As they’ve grown and evolved, so have we.”