'People Think My Personality Is Cheeky and Fun. People Think I Must Also Be a Maximalist. Actually, I'm Serious and a Minimalist. I Hope Everything I've Ever Made Could Be Seen as Minimalist' – Inside the Surprising and Considered World of Jonathan Adler

Few designers have shaped modern American style quite like Jonathan Adler. Potter, sculptor, interior designer, author, exuberant aesthete – his influence stretches far beyond the glossy surfaces of his glamorous hotels or the playful silhouettes of his iconic ceramics.

What makes Jonathan so compelling isn’t simply his signature blend of wit and chic, or the surprising combination of sharp minimalism – yes, minimalism – wrapped in joyful irreverence. It’s the depth beneath the sparkle: a lifelong devotion to craft that began, fairly literally, with a fainting spell in front of a Brancusi sculpture.

From that early moment of aesthetic overwhelm, pottery became Jonathan's true love. While other teenagers were discovering rebellious music or questionable fashion choices, he was discovering clay. His adolescence was spent not only making pots but studying them, absorbing the quiet elegance of Lucy Rie, the cross-cultural curiosity of Bernard Leach, the power of form stripped to its essence. That early apprenticeship to beauty, rigor, and connoisseurship has informed everything since, from the polished modernism of his homeware to the theatrical fantasy of projects like The Parker Palm Springs.

Today, Jonathan Adler is both design legend and cultural commentator, as quick to offer wisdom on creativity as he is to craft a gold banana sculpture. In this candid conversation as part of our Layered Lives, he traces the personal moments, missteps, and obsessions that shaped his creative life – and the sensibility that still guides him.

Homes & Gardens: Can you describe the first space that shaped your sense of design?

It’s been so many things! When I think back to my youth, I had two halves to my personality. Part of me was a rugged little tyke who played American football, and the other half was someone who fainted at the first sign of beauty because they were so overcome by it.

Homes & Gardens: Can you remember the first sight of beauty that had this effect on you?

There was a brass winged sculpture at a Brancusi exhibition I went to when I was very young that made me want to faint. It also awakened my lifelong love of pottery, as I insisted on getting the book of the exhibition and then began trying pottery at summer camp. I must have been about 12.

Homes & Gardens: You're still very much a potter. Is there anything in those early works at summer camp that informed your style now?

Not visually, but spiritually, for sure. I'm normally quite skeptical, but there was a borderline supernatural moment of awakening for me the first time I tried making a pot, such was my immediate obsession with clay. It enabled me to see the world in a different way, and from then on, I spent my entire adolescence not just making pottery but looking at pottery, studying pottery, and understanding pottery and what potters were trying to say. I was taking it all in, from how Bernard Leach was inspired by Japan to how Lucy Rie had an English sweetness. I wasn't judging or thinking of what was my favorite potter or piece, but was taking a bit from all of them. One's youth should be spent taking it all in before landing on a sensibility.

Homes & Gardens: Did you start acquiring any actual pottery?

I bought a couple of things here and there when I could convince my parents to buy things for me. My now-husband, Simon Doonan, wrote a memoir (Beautiful People, published in 2008) where he talked about insisting his mom bought him a glass decanter when he was 11, and I feel like every gay man probably has a similar experience of a decorative objet they just had to own as a kid. I just had to have a casserole dish, which was so beautiful I could tell the potter must have had an incredible gift in order to create it. Sadly, I don't have it anymore, but I do wonder what happened to it?!

Homes & Gardens: Were there any people who inspired you from an early age?

My dad was a lawyer and a brilliantly talented artist at the same time. He would paint and sculpt in our basement every spare second he had, and I ended up setting up a pottery studio in the corner of that basement. We'd both be making stuff every evening. He was mostly deaf, so I'd be blaring out the new wave hits – and he wouldn't be able to tell.

Homes & Gardens: What was the moment you figured you might be able to make pottery into a career?

It never crossed my mind that I could make a living as a potter, so I tried to make it work in the real world – and failed at everything. Then, when I was 27, my grandmother cashed in some stocks and bonds and gave me $20,000, which was amazing, especially as I was unemployed, having just been fired from my most recent job. With that money, I figured that instead of trying to find a job, I would just make some pots and teach night class in exchange for free studio space. I knew someone who worked in the gift shop at the Museum of Art and Design, and they enabled me to sell some pots there. Next thing I knew, I had an order from Barney's – and, well, it was off to the races!

Homes & Gardens: And was your pottery style then similar to what you make now?

I make a ton of different things, but I hope that everything I've ever made could be seen as minimalist. Most of the things I make are pared down in some way – in an attempt to get to the essence of what I was trying to communicate. Everything is clean and precise – somewhat graphic, elegant.

Homes & Gardens: Do you think “minimalist” is a word people associate with you?

I mean, no. Not really. When people think of me – not that they ever should, but if they do – people think that my personality is cheeky and fun and silly. And that's actually served me really well in terms of building a business and getting people to engage with my personality – but it also does a disservice to the stuff I make, because people think I must also be a maximalist. Actually, I'm serious and a minimalist.

Homes & Gardens: Which project felt like a turning point in your career, and why?

I still needed to make a living, and it was improbable that I'd be able to do that as a potter, so I said yes to every opportunity that came up. A friend asked me to design her house, and I said yes – and then that house was seen by the owner of The Parker hotel in Palm Springs. He called me up and asked if I'd do the interior there, too. And the thing I love about interior design versus making stuff for myself is that it's an opportunity to understand who someone else is – a break from all the introspection that comes from being a maker. I'm being asked to interpret someone's life and bring life into their space. I always say that being an interior designer is like being a slimming mirror – you're reflecting your client at their most glam. The Parker was a true fantasy project.

Homes & Gardens: It's an iconic space, not least for the big gold banana. How did that come about?

The owner was like, "We need a public sculpture," and I was like, "Yes, sure!" In my oeuvre, I have engaged with many different themes and ideas, and one of them that crops up often is erotica – I've always found it interesting and amusing. I've made vases of women's faces and breasts, and my husband has pointed out I've never done men's bits – but it's because they're so inelegant. So that's how I started doing bananas as a cheeky nod to a phallic symbol. Then, of course, as a craftsperson I wanted this sculpture to be functional, so the three bits of peel that fold down from the fruit are seats. Though it's the only thing I've really ever properly messed up, as with that desert sun, they get far too hot in the daytime to actually sit on.

Homes & Gardens: You recently worked on the decor of the iconic Grey Gardens house – how was that experience?

My best friend on earth brought Grey Gardens (formerly owned by the cousins of Jackie Kennedy and the subject of a much-loved documentary), and having done her home in Palm Beach, I helped with many of the public spaces to give them a bit of sizzle. It's just a really fun and iconic house which gave me so much material to play with. I sort of forgot that it was Grey Gardens, as it's incredible in its own right – the gardens are unbelievable. It's just the most gorgeous, enchanted Hamptons home.

Homes & Gardens: And having just finished decorating your own home in Palm Beach, did you notice how your style had evolved since your last personal project?

I'm constantly re-making stuff anyway, so my style and homes have never stayed still. I like to live with my stuff and bring it into my own home. My poor husband is always tripping over unexpected bits of furniture. Now, as an older potter, I am extraordinarily lucky to have built a business that gives me a nice life – I honestly expected to be someone who sold their wares at rain-soaked craft fairs – and I have two houses in two amazing, glam locations. Shelter Island is more rustic, organic, and modern, while Palm Beach is more colorful and reflective of the Florida sunshine.

Homes & Gardens: So what does the concept of home mean to you, if it can be different in different places?

Home is where my husband and I bicker over who made the last cup of tea and whose turn it is to make the next cup of tea – the names we call each other are unprintable! But that's just what we do – we have a laugh all day. I am lucky to have met that little creature.

Homes & Gardens: What is inspiring you outside of interiors?

Right now, it's still mostly pottery. Ceramics are my forever love.

Homes & Gardens: And lastly, do you have any advice for new designers?

It’s so hard – but I would say that people should really study design history and become incredibly connoisseur-like. When I was describing my engagement with ceramics as a kid, I knew every reference and understood what every potter was trying to say. Every young artist should be similarly connoisseur-like – so they can utilize that frame of knowledge.

Speaking with Jonathan Adler is a reminder that great design isn’t just about style – it’s about curiosity, humor, and a willingness to follow your obsessions wherever they lead. His journey from summer-camp pottery wheel to internationally acclaimed designer is rooted in the same passion he still feels for clay today. Whether reinventing a Palm Beach home, bringing a touch of theatrics to Grey Gardens, or shaping yet another impeccably minimal vessel, Jonathan works with a sense of joy that’s impossible to miss. His advice to young creatives – study deeply, look widely, understand the lineage of your craft – feels as timeless as his work.

Layered Lives is Homes & Gardens’ in-depth interview series with iconic creatives, where conversations delve far beyond the surface. We explore the memories, possessions, and passions that shape their aesthetic – revealing the personal stories and experiences that inform their work. Each feature is a richly layered portrait of life as well as design, offering you a glimpse into the minds and lives of the people behind the rooms we admire.