Today, I'm excited to speak with Sarah Walker, Founder and Principal Designer of Nuance, a legacy estate interior design & wellness advisory firm that helps families and family offices create homes that feel deeply personal, wellness-centered, and effortless to live in. Over 20 years, she has delivered more than 50 multi-million-dollar estates and compounds, specializing in homes that feel like private retreats while remaining straightforward for staff to operate.
Born and raised in Dubai and educated in interior design, art, and construction management, Sarah combines a global design perspective with a strong technical foundation. Prior to Nuance, she led interior design across Nordstrom stores, spas, and restaurants nationwide, aligning large teams around an elevated experience and making complex environments intuitive to use. Sarah has been featured in Architectural Digest, Luxe Interiors + Design, Forbes, The Seattle Times, Homes & Gardens, and many other publications.
We kick off the conversation with Sarah's explanation of what wellbeing-centered design means. She offers her definition of the concept and describes what it takes to design and build living spaces that embody the family's values and help both individual family members and the family as a whole flourish.
Sarah describes the connection between family governance and the design of the family home and talks about instituting an "operating system for the home" and explains how that operating system can support the family across multiple generations.
Sarah offers some practical tips to families and their offices related to designing homes and personal spaces that support and advance the physical health of family members. She touches on key practical and technical aspects, such as air quality and water purity, that families need to consider and incorporate into the design of their living spaces.
Sarah also touches on the practicalities of designing a home that facilitates and promotes interpersonal connection, mental health, and personal happiness of the family members and describes how family leaders can achieve the objective of building a wellness-centric home.
Enjoy this instructive conversation with a leading player in the world of wellbeing-centered design for UHNW families.
