Studio Director

Full-time · Onsite in Gladwyne, PA · Reports to the Founder & Creative Director The Role Haldon House is an interior design and development firm. We lead the master planning, own the creative direction, and deliver interior design in-house across residential, commercial, and hospitality projects. It all comes from one design studio, the same team, systems, and standards behind every project. We're hiring this role at a defining moment. A few years in, we've reached an inflection point most firms spend a decade chasing: exceptional clients, an extraordinary pipeline, and opportunities that will shape the firm's next chapter. The Studio Director leads the Haldon House design studio, providing the design leadership, operational rigor, and sound judgment that keep exceptional work moving. Working closely with the Founder & Creative Director, who sets the overall creative vision, they carry that vision through the studio: leading the design leads, resolving day-to-day design decisions, developing the team, and keeping every project progressing with clarity, consistency, and an uncompromising standard of quality. This is as much a design leadership role as an operational one. We're looking for an exceptional designer who has grown into an exceptional leader. It's a highly autonomous seat. The Studio Director will inherit a strong foundation and have meaningful latitude to shape how the studio evolves, refining the systems, rhythms, team, and culture that allow it to scale without compromising the work. For the right person, it's a rare opportunity to help build the practice behind an ambitious body of work, early enough to shape its future, with the momentum, projects, and platform already in place. What We're Building Haldon House is doing something that extends well beyond traditional interior design. In Gladwyne, we're reimagining a collection of recently acquired properties within the village, bringing together design, development, hospitality, and placemaking under one vision, from restaurants and retail to public greens. We're not just designing spaces. We're shaping what a community becomes and how people experience it. That work sits alongside an ambitious portfolio of residential and hospitality projects, giving the studio an unusually broad canvas: intimate private homes, large-scale development, and projects with the potential to change the character of a place. The Studio Director sits at the center of all of it. Key Responsibilities Design Direction & Guidance Work with the Creative Director at the outset of each project, combining the client's vision and her direction into a clear brief the design leads can run with. Be an active design resource for the team and design leads, bringing a strong point of view to the decisions that arise throughout a project and knowing which creative calls should come back to the Creative Director. Run the studio's internal design reviews, giving design leads clear, useful feedback that strengthens the work before it reaches the Creative Director. Hold the Haldon House design language and standard across every project and sector, so the work is unmistakably ours whether it's residential, commercial, or hospitality. Protect the design intent from concept through installation, so what gets approved is what gets built. Bring deep industry experience to the team, helping designers navigate challenges with the perspective and practical judgment that come from having encountered them before. Serve as direct manager for the studio's design leads, responsible for weekly 1:1s, growth plans, deadline tracking, performance management, and process. Develop the team, setting clear growth priorities and coaching design leads to become stronger designers, decision makers, and managers. Help shape the future studio organization, identifying capability gaps and recommending when and where the team needs to grow. Uphold a high standard across design critique, project leadership, presentations, documentation, communication, and execution. Build the kind of studio culture great designers want to stay inside of: high standard, low ego, real mentorship. Create and oversee the workback schedule for active projects: design milestones, review cadence, deliverable timelines, and dependency mapping. Hold a continuous cross-project read on FF&E budgets, procurement and design schedules. Catch drift early and upscale with options. Oversee and evolve our existing studio SOP and playbook, revisiting templates, checklists, handoff packages, systems, and software as the studio grows, and ensuring consistent adoption across every project. Run the studio's rhythm, Creative Director reviews and the weekly studio sync, preparing for each and driving follow-through afterward. Work with the Founders to structure and staff project teams by phase, skill fit, and bandwidth, maintaining a live read on studio capacity and team health so conflicts and overload surface before they reach the work. Maintain consistent documentation, file, CAD, and drawing standards, so any project can be picked up by any teammate without translation. Serve as direct manager for the studio's design leads, responsible for weekly 1:1s, growth plans, deadline tracking, performance management, and process. Develop the team, setting clear growth priorities and coaching design leads to become stronger designers, decision makers, and managers. Help shape the future studio organization, identifying capability gaps and recommending when and where the team needs to grow. Uphold a high standard across design critique, project leadership, presentations, documentation, communication, and execution. Build the kind of studio culture great designers want to stay inside of: high standard, low ego, real mentorship. Create and oversee the workback schedule for active projects: design milestones, review cadence, deliverable timelines, and dependency mapping. Hold a continuous cross-project read on FF&E budgets, procurement and design schedules. Catch drift early and upscale with options. Oversee and evolve our existing studio SOP and playbook, revisiting templates, checklists, handoff packages, systems, and software as the studio grows, and ensuring consistent adoption across every project. Run the studio's rhythm, Creative Director reviews and the weekly studio sync, preparing for each and driving follow-through afterward. Work with the Founders to structure and staff project teams by phase, skill fit, and bandwidth, maintaining a live read on studio capacity and team health so conflicts and overload surface before they reach the work. Maintain consistent documentation, file, CAD, and drawing standards, so any project can be picked up by any teammate without translation. Required Qualifications 8 to 12+ years in a high-end residential, commercial, hospitality, or architectural studio, including significant experience leading design teams and complex projects. A senior design leader with a demonstrated track record of leading and developing a studio, ideally someone who has grown from design into leadership rather than moving exclusively into operations. A proven track record of building and leading high-performing teams, including hiring, mentoring, developing, retaining, and managing performance. Deep fluency in the design process, from concept and schematic design through documentation, procurement, and installation, with the design judgment to guide the work, make sound decisions, and elevate other designers. Bachelor's degree in Interior Design or Architecture, or equivalent professional experience. Ideal Experience & Skills A strong design point of view. Able to read a drawing set, weigh in on the work, make sound design decisions, and give the design leads clear, useful guidance, paired with the judgment to know which creative calls belong with the Creative Director. Fluency in how design budgets and workback schedules actually behave, and an eye for how AI can compress the work without compressing the standard. Experience building and improving studio systems: SOPs, templates, resourcing models, and the software that runs them. Background in boutique, design-driven, quality-obsessed environments where execution rigor and creative ambition are equally non-negotiable. Personal Attributes Self-directed and proactive. This seat creates leverage for leadership rather than consuming it. Calm under pressure. Direct in feedback. High standard, low ego. A builder of culture and of people. A sensibility that fits Haldon House: layered, timeless, eclectic, moody, considered. #J-18808-Ljbffr