Who

Dubbed "Miss Minimalism" by British design bible Wallpaper, Berke is the buzzy architect who runs Deborah Berke & Partners Architects.

Backstory

Berke helped pay her RISD tuition during the '70s with money she earned as a part-time model (she appeared in Macys ads for the Daily News) and then spent a number of years working at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, where she rubbed shoulders with leading luminaries like Peter Eisenman and Kenneth Frampton. Her first commission came along in 1982, when she was asked to design a building in the idyllic-sounding town of Seaside, Florida, earning a miniscule $500 for her efforts. She's come a long way since then. By the early '90s, she was attracting attention from fashion and art insiders—photographer Fabrizio Ferri hired her to turn a rundown garage in the Village into a studio and famed art director Fabien Baron tapped her to design his apartment. Baron later introduced Berke to Calvin Klein, who hired her to design a slew of retail outposts around the world. She's been involved in countless residential, retail, and commercial projects ever since, earning a rep for an elegant, subdued aesthetic.

Of note

Over the past decade, Berke has moved seamlessly between high-end residences, condos/hotels, and retail concepts. On the residential front, she's designed lofts for photogs Annie Leibovitz and William Wegman, and was responsible for crafting the Hamptons home of Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg. On the art front, gallerist Marianne Boesky hired Berke to design her first gallery in Chelsea several years ago. In 2004, she branched out into hotel design when Steve Hanson and Danny Errico asked her to design the James Hotel in Scottsdale. More recently, in 2006 Berke wrapped up work on the 21c Museum Hotel, an artsy boutique hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Her most high-profile project these days is 48 Bond, a sleek, 11-story building with 14 units on Bond Street in NoHo.

On the side

Berke teaches, too. Famed architect Robert A.M. Stern brought her to Yale to serve as a professor of architecture.

Personal

Berke has been married to Peter McCann, a surgeon at Beth Israel and the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Orthopedics, since 1991. Practicing what she preaches, Berke keeps their Gracie Square apartment spare; its walls have no pictures or adornments of any kind. The two also have a house in East Hampton.

True story

The strangest project Berke's ever been asked to complete? A graphic artist in SoHo hired Berke to design his loft in 2003; his rather unusual request was that all the furniture in the apartment be on wheels. Berke complied, right down to a rolling kitchen table.