Paul Rau and Betsy Bauer have three decades of combined experience as interior designers, with projects in Santa Fe as well as New York, San Francisco, Martha's Vineyard, Pebble Beach, CA and other locations across the country.

In his 17 years as a designer, Paul Rau has excelled at working closely with clients during the design process to create stunning cutting-edge homes. His exceptional knowledge of architecture and materials, combined with his interior design expertise and keen attention to detail, results in a well-designed home that is both functional and beautiful.

Betsy Bauer has worked on interior design projects for residential and commercial clients throughout the U.S. for the past 15 years. Trained as a fine artist and painter, she has an innate sense of design and color that brings freshness and vision to every project. In addition, Betsy's knowledge and love of fabrics, texture, painting, sculpture and materials adds unique distinction to each home. Her business and marketing skills are integral to the business as well.

Together, Paul and Betsy's passion for design and dedication to the client's vision and lifestyle results in an excellent and exciting team. Their approach incorporates custom designed furniture executed by Santa Fe artisans, bringing a unique Southwestern flavor to their projects. Whether starting a home from the ground up or remodeling traditional or contemporary residences, Paul and Betsy work closely with the homeowners and building team, providing full-service interior design and an enjoyable experience for clients in creating a comfortable, unique and energized living space.

Meet the Designers

Paul Rau and Betsy Bauer talk about their interior design philosophy, process and inspiration as well as their stunning Plaza del Centro home project, which won Grand Hacienda 2018 and is featured in the “Haciendas – A Parade of Homes” on August 10-12 and August 17-19, 2018.

What's it like collaborating as a team?

Paul: There's a lot of discussion between us on how to approach a project because there's a lot to consider. There's the architecture. There's the personality of the clients. And while we work with building trends, we abhor trendiness. I see the house as an organism and our project is fulfilling the house's potential.

Betsy: We want it to be a strong and bold design with classic lines, but also soft and radiating warmth. It's layering, a process that fulfills natural design challenges that arise. Like a form that needs to be filled. It's a lot of hard work, discussion, looking at samples and a rejection of so much. It's a lot of blood, sweat and tears, actually.

Paul: It's surprising how much refining and distilling has to happen.

How do you find your way in to a particular design projects?

Paul: We take our cues from the architecture. I always look at the architecture with my work. We cater to what the client wants, but we feel a deep commitment to what the architecture wants.

Betsy: We want the architecture to shine, not be a background.  We try to help the client understand why it's important to respect the architecture.

Paul: That's how you integrate a more classic and timeless interior. You can create an interior that can be beautiful, but if it's dissonant with the architecture then it's a fail. If the interior doesn't reflect the architecture, why hire an architect? Why hire an interior designer if you're not going to create this perfect house?  Even the landscaping fits in. It's all equal.

Describe the Las Estancias project?

Paul: It's warm Contemporary Santa Fe. The integrated indoor and outdoor speaks to our lifestyle here, and the sloping roofs and exterior lines and planes fit in with the terrain.

Betsy: It's a new level of contemporary for Santa Fe that still retains warmth and respect for the terrain. You could say it's classically Western.

What intrigued you about the Las Estancias project?

Paul: The architecture in the house. Most houses are orthogonal, based on 90 degrees. This house is built on an arc.

Betsy: We wanted to accentuate the shape, rather than hide it.

Paul: The seating area, for instance, was like a quarter circle. We had to figure out how to retain that. How do we respect and accentuate this strong design feature and still have it be functional and beautiful.

Betsy: Beauty and function is always a lot of the challenge and that becomes a creative new solution that's born out of trying to meld function and beauty. Or to take beauty and make that functional. It's a yin yang.

How does your process work?

Paul: We always view the house as one whole, almost like an organism, with a hierarchy. Certain rooms drive what happens in other rooms. But I know that I have failed if the house looks like a showroom, where each room is not related to the next. We work very hard to do variation on a theme. Even the colors. They're not the same, but we have the core palette and that influences the other colors.

Betsy: It's like the seasoning and the spice. Everything has its own flavor but it's one dish.

Paul: I dislike houses that feel like they're three different houses in one.

Betsy: It becomes like a theme park. We always look for a continuum. The other thing that we always strive for; there are certain elements in the room that are the star and then there are supporting characters, like the cast glass chandelier in the Plaza del Centro home in the Entry.

Paul: Often finding the supporting characters is harder than finding the star.

Betsy: The  Minotti sectional is another example of the star in Las Estancias. And it was really difficult to find a coffee table that lived up to the beauty of that sectional. We did a simple drawing of a table that incorporated hot rolled steel handcrafted by a local artisan. That really took a while to develop. There were a lot of things we didn't use. We considered multiple options over quite a long period.

Paul: We put together many solutions that we thought were beautiful; This spoke to keeping with the integrity of the rug beneath the table. And hot rolled steel is a thing in this house. The fireplaces are made of it, the tower on the buffet is hot rolled steel as are the towers in the office and it's used in many exterior architectural details.

Betsy: We work with a lot of artisans like the one who made the hot rolled steel, who love what they do, who are passionate. Santa Fe is full of wonderful craftspeople. We have a great woodworker who really understands wood. His father was a woodworker, it's in his blood.

Paul: And it shows in their work.  A lot of our artisans bring something to the design that we hadn't thought of.

Betsy: It's another part of being present in the design, and everybody bringing their most passionate work. It brings surprises. That's what keeps our work interesting—it's a really organic process.

Describe some of the key details of your design for the Las Estancias house?

Paul: The mandate from the client was, “We want this house to accommodate 14 people intimately. We want to see 14 people at the dining table and we want to see 14 people snuggle on the couch and watch tv. We want to accommodate a close circle of family and friends.” Family is important to the owners and they wanted a house that could transition from luxurious for two people to comfortable for guests. So the master wing was separate from the guest wing yet able to accommodate groups of people in the living room, dining room, kitchen and even on the portals. The dining table was 46 inches wide to accommodate two people at either end so when they celebrate holidays, there's a place for everybody.

Betsy: I think we were successful with the play between an open, sweeping feeling in how people inhabit the house in the furniture, that integrates the seating and beauty of the expansive views with the intimacy and coziness of a lived-in home.

Betsy: We wanted all the finishes, flooring, the skin of the house, all the paint, wood flooring, tile, cabinetry, built-ins, ceilings, lighting and countertops to have a classic contemporary feel that also spoke to the landscape and the high desert we live in here in Santa Fe.

Paul: Yes, for example, the countertops look like a cross section of the terrain here, with brown, espresso, taupe, and terra cotta colors.

Betsy: They are one of the strongest elements that keep the house feeling like it relates to the desert. The countertop stone is used in the bathroom, kitchen and outdoors.

What's your reaction to the finished project?

Paul: What I really like is the effortless elegance that ultimately was achieved. I can't stand pretentious interiors and despite the level of quality of the furnishing and the luxurious materials, this still has an accessibility and a “sit-ability”. When you go in there you just feel like you want to sit on the sectional, even though it's a luxury sectional. There's nothing prissy about this house. There is nothing fussy about this. It's strong and it's durable.

Betsy: I think we achieved a blending of masculine and feminine. The design is strong but it has a soft color palette.

Paul:  The client cooked pizza for me in the pizza oven outside on the portal with his family and it was wonderful seeing the space in use the way that I had envisioned it. Ultimately, we're truly grateful to the clients, not only for allowing us to do what we do, but for what they brought to the table here.

What do you hope your designs bring to your clients?

Betsy: We love people and we love getting to know them and discovering how we can really enhance their living. A lot of people who've been working hard all their lives come to Santa Fe to retire. They're coming here to be inspired and to have a new outlook on life that's more about beauty. We want to inspire them and make their house an experience that enhances their life.

Paul: We're attracting people who have worked really hard and sacrificed their fantasies throughout their career. We seek to fulfill those fantasies. We seek to provide them a place to do that; Not to figure out what they want but even pull them along to the next step.

Betsy: We're almost like design lifestyle coaches.. These are houses where we really strive for the clients to be in the moment, integrated into Santa Fe.

What's up next for Paul Rau Interiors?

Paul: We started out in our careers doing almost exclusively Traditional and Contemporary and it reflects Santa Fe on some level. But some of our Traditional work was very Santa Fe and some wasn't. We both have been feeling how much fun it would be to do a Traditional house again, but a new Traditional house. We've talked about manifesting ideas from our Contemporary work that brings us to the Traditional. What we have that's kind of exciting is a couple of Contemporary eras, meaning in the recent past, that we can actually start drawing from. Like the '80s and the '90s and into the early 2000s. I've seen elements from the '80s that I'd like to revive, for example using graphic Southwest, but not in a predictable way. It would be very new to borrow from that era. People don't want to go there, it's sort of taboo and we want to do that and turn it on its ear. Artistically, that is interesting to us.

Betsy: We're just finishing a home that we incorporated a Mid-Century Modern vibe with a relaxed, Southwest feel. Paul and I both get excited by strong, clean design with a flair that speaks to the history and richness of Santa Fe and New Mexico.