Maryline Damour is a designer based in Kingston, New York. Damour worked in marketing for most of her adult life until she bought a house in Kingston and began to wonder about the viability of working on interiors. But she dismissed the idea until an earthquake in her native Haiti helped her understand the importance of interior design and pushed her into her new career, which has included the restoration of a damaged but structurally-sound Haitian church.

Partnerships

Because Damour found interior design later in life, she wasn’t interested in working as a junior designer and working her way up. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, she bought into to a construction company she knew she liked and her partnership with Fred Drake became Damour Drake a full-service design and construction firm.

Marketing the Hudson Valley

In 2018, Damour had the idea for the Kingston Design Showhouse to bring together the designers and artisans in the Hudson Valley whose community isn’t as close-knit as the Hudson Valley construction community. She offered a house she owned for the space and 100 designers and makers put together 10 spaces to demonstrate the talent of the Hudson Valley design community. All on no budget. Damour relied on word-of-mouth, proximity and her own know-how to draw attention to the event. She succeeded, even earning a write up in Architectural Digest, along with 6,504 Instagram followers after logging in for the first time in Spring 2018.

To see what she does with that Instagram, visit it @kingston.design.connection. And check out Damour Drake’s work at its website www.damourdrake.com.