Master of the Southwest: The Interior Designer Creating Modern Yet Timeless Spaces

February 6, 2025

Interior designer Holly Wright creates beautiful, versatile luxury spaces.

By Paula M. Bodah | Portrait Photography by Carl Schultz

It’s been several years since Holly Wright completed the house that she calls “Modern Antiquity” on her website, yet she still counts it among her favorite projects in a two-decade career. “My client was very forward-thinking, very modern, with a bit of an Italian aesthetic,” she explains. “She liked to incorporate antique elements. It was fun to create this hybrid of modern with antiques, and it was a new aesthetic for me, pushing me beyond my boundaries.”

The chance to push, to grow, to chart new design territory is what keeps Wright excited about her work and what has led to a well-deserved reputation for excellence.

“The key to good design is not just creativity—it’s also being an excellent listener.”

Holly Wright, interior designer

An Arizona native who grew up in Glendale, Wright always knew she wanted to run a business, although she was vague about what that business might be. Even as a child, she says, playing house wasn’t her thing. “I played grocery store clerk or business lady,” she says with a laugh.

She started her college career at Glendale Community College, studying business administration. “I was so bored,” she says. “I took interior design as an elective, and everything just clicked.”

Although she did get her associate degree in business, Wright continued on to Northern Arizona University, earning a bachelor’s degree in interior design in 2005. As a student, she scored an internship with the venerable Scottsdale interior design firm Est Est. “I guess they saw promise in me because they hired me as a designer before I finished school,” she says. “I had clients before I even graduated.”

She spent the next 15 years there, honing her craft and learning everything she could. “I was hungry to get my hands on everything,” she says. “I wanted to submerge myself in the industry. I worked on model homes, custom residential, new construction, offices, hotels and restaurants.”

Over the years, Wright says, she was often asked why she didn’t start her own design firm. “It seemed so intimidating because there’s so much to know,” she explains. “I don’t like to do anything halfway, and I always felt I wasn’t ready to go out on my own.”

In 2017, however, she and her husband, Eric, went on a vacation to Hawaii. “Somehow, on that trip, a veil lifted, and it became very clear that I was ready. I got back from vacation, put my notice in, and opened my firm in October that year.”

In the years since, Wright and her team, which currently includes eight employees, have created beautiful homes in the Valley and beyond. “About 75% of our work is local, but we have projects in Las Vegas, Texas, Wisconsin and Florida, and we just wrapped up one in California,” she says. “I love taking on out-of-state work because the aesthetic can be so different.”

Holly Wright Design currently has 18 projects in various stages, a number that allows her to maintain the hands-on involvement she believes is important. “I’m at every client meeting, overseeing everything through installation.”

Her attention to every detail of her projects has earned her the respect of the architects and builders with whom she works. John Schultz, president of Scottsdale’s Schultz Development, has collaborated with Wright since she was at Est Est and currently has two projects with her. “The first time I worked with Holly was on a large contemporary home in Paradise Valley,” he recalls. “She was super-organized and very talented. The right brain, left brain thing doesn’t always exist in the same person, but Holly is the whole package of what it takes to be a good designer.”

Far from the boredom she experienced as a business major, Wright says what she loves about interior design is that every day is a new challenge. “I can do a modern European aesthetic one day, an art deco home the next, and an organic contemporary the day after.”

She doesn’t have a signature style, although she confesses to a tendency toward minimalism. “I don’t like to get stuck doing the same thing. I don’t know that you could look at my work and say ‘Oh, Holly did that.’ ”

Architect Brent Kendle agrees. “Holly doesn’t get pigeonholed into any one aesthetic,” he says. “She looks for that unique opportunity in each project. We recently completed two exquisite homes with her that are quite different from each other. Her style, sense of color, texture and restraint match well with our design ethos of strong architectural form and spaces that respect and complement the site while capturing the essence of clients’ personality and taste.”

Outside of work, Wright can often be found at the cabin she and Eric have in northern Arizona, hiking with the couple’s three dogs, a Yorkie named Hamilton and his Husky pals Kodo and Kosmo. “I find refreshment when I can disengage from what I do for a living,” she says. “It frees me up to be creative for my clients.”

She also finds great satisfaction in helping young women launch their own businesses. “I’m a girl’s girl,” she says. “I love to see women be independent. I like to share what I’ve learned about how to structure a company and deal with things such as insurance and contracts. I love celebrating women at the start of their careers.” As for her own profession, Wright is always looking for a new challenge. “I’ve been getting my feet wet with the development side of things,” she says. In 2024, she worked on the Silver Sky community in Paradise Valley with architects Stratton Andrews and fellow Master of the Southwest, C. P. Drewett. “I’d like to work on more communities because you can really put your mark there,” she says.

Of course, in the end, what makes her work worth it is seeing her clients fall in love with their homes. “It was a huge compliment when one of my clients told me they use every single room in their house every day,” she says. “That’s good design.”