Interior designer Marla Mullen is making old new again on Nantucket, in Boston, and beyond.
By Robert Cocuzzo
Portraits by Reece Nelson
Architectural Photography by Matt Kissiday
Interior designer Marla Mullen grew up doing her homework on an 18th-century mahogany drop-leaf secretary desk with ornate brass pulls and knobs. It was one of countless museum-quality furniture pieces that filled her childhood home, as her parents were revered in the ultra-exclusive world of priceless antiques. Her father, Walter Mullen, who hailed from a long line of expert craftsmen and fine upholsterers, apprenticed under his father-in-law and learned the craft that stretched back generations on Mullen’s mother’s side. It was not unusual to find him working on a chair that Benjamin Franklin once sat in, just as it was likely to come upon one of his finely upholstered pieces at a Sotheby’s auction, or showcased at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
All the while, young Mullen soaked up the family business. She tagged along with her parents to grand estate sales, antique shows, and auction houses up and down the East Coast. She spent hours in her father’s workshop after school, surrounded by fabrics and textiles. When she lay her head to rest each night on her antique four-poster canopy bed, her imagination swirled with visions of textures, colors, fabrics, and furniture that told stories from long ago.
Fast-forward to today: Mullen is a celebrated interior designer known for expertly marrying old and new. “In my mind, they work well together,” she says. “While I do use a lot of contemporary patterns, textures, and furniture in my projects, antiques are always my baseline. I can mix them in very well,” she explains. “Antiques, vintage pieces… every room needs a piece that tells a story.”
Mullen’s main critique of the modern aesthetic is that such spaces often lack character, leaving them feeling somewhat sterile or like a showroom. Introducing an antique chair, say, or a piece of vintage folk art into a contemporary room gives it a richer identity. Yet, she doesn’t shy away from modern design. “I do contemporary just as much as I do old,” she says. “I don’t think I will ever be the type of designer known for just one aesthetic.” This is why clients hire her, Mullen believes. “They want me to challenge them to think about their space just as much as I want to challenge myself with ideas,” she says. “There is too much fun to be had and much to learn from every project.”
In her work, she instinctively grasps how a space should be treated before her pen hits paper. “My childhood exposure to antiques, furniture, and grand estates taught me how to create conversational elements and add depth to rooms,” she says. “Homes represent who we are and how we want to live with family and friends,” she continues. “I may not always use traditional ‘antiques,’ but I learned that rooms should tell a story through pattern, color, or art.”
While many interior designers have degrees in their discipline, Mullen took a different, more circuitous route. In college, she shifted her passion from colors and fabrics to cleats and jerseys. She was a highly competitive Division II soccer player at Rollins College, where she studied psychology. After graduating, she set her sights on becoming a sports psychologist but instead ended up working for a sports marketing agency representing women’s soccer icon Mia Hamm.
However, when Mullen set out to start her own agency, she was drawn into real estate instead. She helped run a start-up residential real estate firm, which she eventually parlayed into real estate development and hospitality with a growing portfolio of properties on Nantucket Island, a place she visited throughout her childhood.
Nantucket became the canvas for some of Mullen’s most striking projects. Designing over a dozen private homes, a restaurant, and a store, Mullen struck a unique chord by making her spaces feel like Nantucket while not necessarily looking like the island. With vibrant colors, bold textures, and imaginative furniture, her rooms offer an ideal coastal ease.
Her commitment to the island extends to an interest in preserving its historical character of the island as a whole. Mullen sits on the board of the Nantucket Historical Association. Assisting an organization whose mission is to preserve the stories, antiquities, and authenticity of that island she loves so much “is a true gift,” she says.
This past summer, she also co-chaired Nantucket by Design, a four-day event that brings some of the biggest names in the industry (such as Palm Beach’s The Colony Hotel) to the island.
Most recently, Mullen has expanded her work to Boston and elsewhere in New England, where her old-meets-new approach translates seamlessly. “My dream is to design small B&Bs and more retail stores,” she says.
Whether on private homes, charming inns, or boutique shops, Mullen says she “loves collaborating with others.” Perhaps her degree in psychology invites trust within her working relationships and allows her to understand their hopes and dreams deeply. Regardless, the result is spaces that tell stories, often bridging the gap between generations and proving that some things are timeless.
