Myra Hoefer: National fame, local loyalty

House Beautiful is featuring on the cover of the April edition of their magazine with a tribute named “Wild About American Style.” This marks her sixth appearance on the cover of this gold standard of  American home design magazines. 

“I am excited to be featured again in House Beautiful and especially so in an edition that celebrates the history and honors those that have inspired me over the years," Hoefer said.  "It is even more exciting that this comes at the same time that I am launching my new line of furniture, 'A La Reine.'”

"A la Reine" is a full line of furniture that uses aspects of vintage 1940s style with lots of white plaster.

In the April edition of House Beautiful, there is a huge pullout graphic that shows a family tree of great American designers. At the base are Frank Lloyd Wright, Gustav Stickley and A.J. Downing, to name a few.

On the branch marked American Style, there is a cluster of names that bridge American and International. Hoefer is on the same branch of this tree as Michael Taylor, John Dickenson and Tony Duquette.  

Hoefer has been chosen for this honor because of the lineage she has followed in her pursuit of designing American dream homes.House Beautiful is definably the venue to showcase these American designers.

“It is the Rolling Stone of design magazines," said Myra’s assistant Quinn.

House Beautiful published their first magazine in 1896. Soon after that, Edith Warrington came out with her book, "The Decoration of Houses," and it was the law of the land.

Around the same time Frank Lloyd Wright named one of his masterpiecesm coincidentally, "The House Beautiful." These events led to a new profession: interior design.

Hoefer has been a Healdsburg interior designer and artist for several decades. Her home base is downtown Healdsburg: one of her two locations is a retail store is located in the g building on Healdsburg Avenue.

She holds office hours Friday to Monday.

Hoefer's office and design center is located in the building that we locals call the Ivy House, across the street from the (It is the house with the ivy growing on it..duh.)

Hoefer is a fun person -- her designs transmit that sense of fun, sophistication and elegance with some great surprises. My favorite in the showroom was the goat stool. The legs look like white plaster goat legs.

You may recognize Hoefer as the eclectic gal in the wheelchair tooling around town.

“Let's deal with the wheelchair thing first," Hoefer said. "I  broke my back about a year ago and I am getting close to a full recovery.

"I am out of the wheelchair now and using a power chair to get any distance," she added.

"The problem with the power chair is the lack of fabric choices,” says Hoefer, tongue in check. 

 When asked if you could change anything at this point in her life Hoefer said she wanted to clarify her public mission.

"I have no regrets, except I hope that people do not  think that I only do the high end design," Hoefer said. "Some of the most fun for me is going into local homes and doing mini-makeovers using what is on hand.

"I get lots of local calls where I can tell they want to stay in a budget, but not talk about it.," she added. "It is so fun and amazing to see what you can do with simple objects to create a new environment." 

Please Visit www.myrahoefer.com for the entire House Beautiful article.