Meet the Connecticut Judges
Wesley Moon
Wesley established his eponymous Manhattan based boutique design firm in 2008, and continues to be intimately involved in the design, development and execution of every project.
Trained as both an architect and designer, Wesley develops a comprehensive interior architectural and decoration package to ensure that the final result is seamlessly cohesive.
Wesley’s interiors are layered with a balance of contemporary and eclectic pieces, as well as a color palette and materials that exemplify comfort and intrigue. The result is a unique space that is timeless, elegant, and reflects each client’s personal taste.
Intentionally accepting only a small number of projects each year ensures that the team is providing the best quality work and highest level of customer service.
His portfolio ranges from Manhattan apartments and townhomes, to private residences across the country, to a 125 foot vintage motor yacht. Current projects include the complete design of a ground up estate in Chapel Hill, the renovation and decoration of California’s largest ocean front home located in Laguna Beach, and the design of a boutique Omakase restaurant in Santa Barbara.
Wesley’s work has been published by NYC&G, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Galerie, Introspective Magazine, Luxe Magazine, and New York Magazine, among others. Wesley made the 1stdibs top 50 designers list for five consecutive years.
On Style, published in 2019 by Rizzoli, featured Wesley as one of the 50 influential contemporary “new guard” designers “who not only have great taste but are moving the discipline forward.” He is also a two-time winner of the NYC&G Innovation in Design award.
Wambui Ippolito
Wambui Ippolito is an award-winning Landscape Designer and horticulturist who in 2021 was named one of “11 Revolutionary Female Landscape Designers and Architects Everyone Should Know” by Veranda Magazine.
Her optic is influenced by an early childhood in the Great Rift Valley, and its wide vistas and spatial organization inform her work. Wambui won the 2021 Best-In-Show and Gold Awards in landscape design at the PHS Flower Show and in addition to her garden work, she lectures widely both in the United States and internationally.
Wambui specializes in fine estate gardening, with an emphasis on designing for humans and their pets. She views Nature as the greatest healer and seeks to make her gardens elegant and curative. Wambui is also a trained horticulturist, having graduated from the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture.
Sarah Robertson
A kitchen-ninja, a cabinet-wizard, a social media maven…Sarah is the accomplished designer at the helm of boutique kitchen design firm, Studio Dearborn, known for its meticulously orchestrated artisanal kitchens for which people around the globe aspire. She possesses a true gift for transforming ordinary spaces into stunning and intuitively functional kitchen oases amidst the chaotic demands of our ever changing worlds. Her work has appeared in nearly every major shelter magazine and has garnered international design awards and been downloaded millions of times on social media. Sarah demonstrates exemplary professionalism and has achieved notoriety through her leadership and innovation in the design industry.
Matthew Patrick Smyth
Matthew Patrick Smyth is an interior designer whose work evokes an enduring, traditional sense of style. He was consistently listed as a top designer on Elle Décor’s “A” List for 10 consecutive years. His work has also been featured in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Traditional Home, New York Magazine, WSJ, and Connecticut Cottage & Gardens. Matthew is also a recipient of the D&D Building’s Stars of Design Award.
Currently Matthew’s projects include residences in Palm Beach, Nantucket, Aspen, Geneva and Hampshire, England as well as homes in Litchfield and Fairfield Connecticut; the Hamptons; and city apartments in New York, London, and Paris.
Further personalizing his distinct blend of history with a modern study of scale, Matthew has broadened his work into product design with two rug collections for Patterson Flynn, and a collection of fabrics and wallcoverings introduced by F. Schumacher.
Matthew has participated in numerous designer showhouses, including five times for the prestigious Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. Additionally, he reimagined the NY Mets Room at The Ronald McDonald House of Long Island and designed a celebratory room in honor of Traditional Home’s 25th and Schumacher’s 125th anniversary as a part of Holiday House NYC’s annual showhouse. As he wrote in his first book, Living Traditions: Interiors by Matthew Patrick Smyth from Monacelli Press, now in its second printing, “A single object can bring the entire room into focus and cause everything else to fall into place.” Likewise, the right designer can bring even the most challenging project into focus, imbuing the work with a harmonious feeling of balance.
“Through a Designer’s Eye” is Matthew’s most recent book for Monacelli Press
Joeb Moore
Mr. Moore’s work has received over 60 National, Regional and State architectural design awards. In 2010 Residential Architect Magazine named him one of the “Top 50 Residential Architects in the US.” Most recently, Mr. Moore has been elevated to the prestigious College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects in recognition of the aesthetic, scientific, and practical significance to the profession. He is also on the Board of Trustees of The Cultural Landscape Foundation and a senior advisor to the Pella Design Council. He serves the National AIA’s 25-Year Award for Design Excellence Committee and a nomination member of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander
Recent recognition includes 2023 Record House (Architectural Record – Cover), (2) 2023 Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards, 2023 New England Architecture Award, 2023 Residential Design Architecture Award (RDAA), 2022 CTC&G Innovator Award, 2022 and 2021 AIA New England Awards, a 2022 AIA-CT Design Excellence Award, (2) 2020 AIA-CT Design Excellence Awards, (3) 2018 AIA-CT Honor Awards, a 2017 Build Architecture Award for the “Best High-End Residential Firm in the NY Metro Area.” A 2016 AIA – New England Design Award for the Preservation & Adaptive Reuse of Lincoln/Stonington Residence. A 2015 AIA National Housing Honor Award for the BRIDGE House. A 2010 AIA National Housing Award for the SPIRAL House, which also received the Chicago Athenaeum’s annual “American Architecture Award” and was displayed at the International Biennial of Architecture in Buenos Aires as part of “The City and the World” exhibition by The European Center of Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies. A 2011 & 2009 “WOOD” Award from the North American Wood Council. And several recent “Best of Year” citations from Interior Design Magazine. In 2010 Residential Architect Magazine named him one of the “Top 50 Residential Architects in the US.” Mr. Moore has been published widely in a range of magazines and books including Dwell, Architecture, Architectural Record, Architect, Interior Design, Residential Architect, Metropolis, and ArchDaily. Most recent books include Taschen Books’ Architecture Now-Houses 2011, The 2011 and 2010 WOOD Institute Books, and The Nice House Book, 2010. International Landscape Architecture Prize.
Mr. Moore is an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the Barnard/Columbia Undergraduate Architecture Department. He joined the faculty in 1992 and continues to teach design studios and history/theory seminars. From 1996–2006 he was the Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Architecture Department and Coordinator of the History & Theory Track curriculum. His academic research focuses on three key areas: The history and theory of aesthetics & beauty in Architecture; Architecture in the expanded field of landscape, art, & architecture; and the historical and contemporary relationship between architecture, technology, and culture.
In 2006 Mr. Moore joined the Yale School of Architecture to teach Core Graduate Design Studios and the Design/Build Studio. In 2022, he was elevated to Senior Critic. The studio focuses on questions of dwelling and concludes with a student-built, community-based housing project the students build over the summer. In Spring semester 2018 he co-taught a graduate-level “Fluid Studio” at Clemson University on “The Culinary Arts and Architecture.” And in the Fall of 2016 he taught the “Firm in Residence” Graduate studio at Roger Williams University.
Mr. Moore’s most recent lectures include “The Talk & The Walk in Four Dimensions” in San Diego; “Agents of Change – Rethinking the Past, Present & Future in Four Projects” at University of Texas, Austin; “The Modernist Legacy and its Discontents” at Clemson University and “Second Wave of Modernism – The Emergence of Biological Thinking” at MoMA. He serves on several boards including the Board of Trustees for The Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, D.C., whose mission is to support historic landscapes and heritage; the Board of Trustees for the Clemson Architectural Foundation; the Advisory Board for the University of Nicosia – School of Architecture and Design, Cyprus. He is also a member of the Committee of Planning & Urban Design of the AIA New York Chapter.
Jamie Drake
Jamie Drake is co-founder of the award-winning, multidisciplinary interior design firm Drake/Anderson. Lauded for his exuberant design sensibility and his ability to distill his vast knowledge of periods and styles with discriminating connoisseurship, Drake creates environments that are both glamorous and eloquent, yet always interpreted through the unique prism of each client and assembled with a sense of contemporary comfort.
With an illustrious career spanning 45 plus years, Drake is equally adept at appointing a cosmopolitan glass-sheathed penthouse, a sprawling oceanfront estate or such commercial interiors as private foundations and state-of-the-art medical facilities. He is also a prolific designer of luxury products for the home with collections including carpets, rugs, furniture, fabrics, lighting, and bath fixtures and accessories.
Drake’s work has been featured in virtually every design publication of note, including Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Traditional Home, House Beautiful, Interior Design, and more. Among accolades too numerous to mention, he has held a spot for several years on the prestigious Architectural Digest AD100 list and in 2022 was inducted into the AD100 Hall of Fame. He is a longtime member of the Elle Decor A-List and also has been bestowed with Fashion Group International’s Night of Stars Award for Interior Design, inducted into the ASID College of Fellows, named to Interior Design magazine’s Hall of Fame, and was designated by House Beautiful as a Master Class designer.
Active in many causes, Drake currently serves as chairman of the New York Community Trust board, and serves on the boards of The Alpha Workshops, Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club and Parsons School of Design. He is vice chair of the Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse, benefiting the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, is co-chair of their President’s Dinner and is an avid supporter of Housing Works and its Design on a Dime fundraiser. Drake is also a recipient of a Partnership for the Homeless Director’s Award.