Erick Espinoza ’13 (BFA)

Albert Hadley Scholarship Recipient

NYSID alumnus Erick Espinoza ’13 (BFA) became creative director of the prestigious interior design firm Anthony Baratta, Inc., at the age of 24. He has been named a House Beautiful Next Wave Designer, and his first house’s interior, which he designed, was featured in The New York Times, Country Living Magazine, and Connecticut Cottage and Gardens. NYSID honored him with its Rising Star Award at Gala 2024. His approach to interior design is bold, joyful, historically informed, and perfectionist. This first-generation American found a career that was “meant to be,” yet didn’t realize that interior design was a profession he could pursue until he was a senior in high school and met the leaders of NYSID.   

Espinoza will always remember the day he learned that interior design could become his career. In 2009, he was a senior at Miami’s DASH (Design and Architecture Senior High School) when he attended a portfolio fair that drew representatives from art and design colleges from all over the country. A first-generation American with parents from Honduras and Nicaragua, Espinoza had applied to DASH, a specialized magnet high school for the visual arts and design, at the urging of a middle school art teacher, and he made it in against the odds. There, he pursued a concentration in architecture. He says, “I grew up in inner-city Miami, but my high school was unusual because it pulled students from all over the city, every type of human, at every socio-economic level. This diversity made it an incredibly cool and liberating place that fed creativity.”

At the portfolio fair, one of the school’s guidance counselors approached NYSID’s President David Sprouls (then VP of Enrollment Management) and NYSID’s Dean and VP for Academic Affairs Ellen Fisher (then Associate Dean) and said, “You must meet this incredibly talented student.” Sprouls and Fisher interrupted one of Espinoza’s classes to meet him before the day was over. He spread his portfolio out on the floor of the hallway so Fisher and Sprouls could see it. “We were blown away,” remembers Sprouls. They spoke to Espinoza about NYSID and the profession of interior design. “Until that moment, I didn’t realize that interior design was a distinct field from architecture, or that you could do it as a career,” says Espinoza. “In my architecture work in high school, I had always focused on the little details, the minutiae of a room, and my wonderful architecture teacher pushed me in that direction. What I loved was interior design, but I didn’t have models of people who did it professionally. When I met David and Ellen I thought, ‘This is just what I am looking for.’” He learned of scholarship opportunities at NYSID and applied.

He says, “I was a little discouraged at the end of my senior year, because I was very late to the game in applying for scholarships and I didn’t think I would get one. There’s a Bright Futures program which provides full tuition for students above a certain GPA level in Florida, so I was on my way to a state college, Florida International University.” Late in the summer, he received a letter in the mail from NYSID telling him that he had won the Albert Hadley Scholarship, which for him meant a full ride. Within a few days, he packed up his life and moved to New York to attend NYSID. He says, “It was meant to be… This scholarship meant everything to me. It’s the reason I am sitting here today doing what I am doing, in a career I love.”

Espinoza’s story points to the importance of reaching out to high school students about the profession of interior design, and the scholarships that might be available to them, early in their development, as they are forming their identities and planning their paths. This is critical to NYSID’s mission of helping to diversify interior design through scholarships, education, and a culture of inclusion. Many first-generation Americans, and/or students growing up in underserved communities, have no models of interior designers in their lives, and no notion that interior design could be a career option or a field that would welcome them. “Providing the scholarship is really the second piece of the puzzle,” says President Sprouls. “If we want to attract artistically talented young people from underrepresented communities to the profession, we need to reach them through their communities, and expose them to the practice of interior design in high school or before.” That’s precisely what NYSID is doing with its Pre-College Program. The College is working with community organizations that include Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, YWCA-NYC, and ASID Florida South to identify students with interest in the arts and grant them scholarships to NYSID’s summer Pre-College Program. NYSID’s Pre-College Scholarship Fund is meant to work with its other scholarship funds, providing a pathway from Pre-College to college graduation.

Answering His Calling

Espinoza says, “I was never interested in the traditional college experience with a football team and all that. One of the coolest things about NYSID was the age diversity and the fact that I was exposed to career changers. I got to have such a wide variety of conversations with people who brought their own experience to the classroom.” Because DASH is both a special and specialized high school, Espinoza had two architecture internships in high school, one with HOK and one with Rene Gonzalez Architect. He came to college with drafting skills, yet he was still challenged. What impressed him about NYSID’s educators and curriculum was the fact that people who had no art or design background were also able to excel. He says, “When I saw my peers with no experience catching up and succeeding, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, these professors are good.”

The Color for Interiors course, then taught by Ethel Rompilla, was one of his favorites. He says, “I have always had an obsession with the specificity of color, and I learned from her how to get there with paint. We would have a small piece of chintz on paper, and we would paint on top of it with the goal of matching the color. There was such subtlety in it. If you had red and needed a specific pink, you’d have to use a prick of white paint on a toothpick to get the right color. That level of scrutiny is something I have carried with me and it’s part of my everyday life.” Espinoza also appreciated his Professional Practice I course, which was then taught by Veronica Whitlock. He says, “She taught us how to create a proposal and how to put together orders. Without this foundation, a first job could feel like you were thrown into the wolves’ den!”

It turned out that Espinoza would need this practical knowledge sooner rather than later. Anthony Baratta hired Espinoza as an intern for the firm Diamond Baratta in 2011, when he was a junior in college. One of the reasons he got the internship and rose so quickly is that he had done the research on the firm. He has this advice for emerging designers: “If you want to work for a firm, look at their old work, and then study the new work and how it’s evolved. Ground yourself in their aesthetic so you are coming armed to your interview. Understand the lineage and how you might fit into it.”

By his senior year, Espinoza was a full designer at the firm, completing his final year at NYSID and thesis while working. It was a tremendous amount of work, but Espinoza had the passion for it. “I am very driven, and I can’t sit still,” he muses. “The drive comes from knowing where I came from. There was no turning back in my situation. Succeeding felt like the only option. My mom is the type of person who would be supportive even if I failed, but there is an underlying expectation as a first-generation college student that you support yourself, do well for yourself, and you become better off than your parents. With pressure comes drive.”

The Best Mentors Create Leaders

Espinoza became pivotal to his firm at a time of unusual transition. He says, “Bill (Diamond) had retired soon after I started as an intern and Tony (Baratta) had started his own firm which was still fresh and new.” He points out that Anthony Baratta was always the kind of principal who wanted to hear from and engage junior staff members in real design, not have them tackle only the administrative tasks. He remembers, “Tony Baratta is known for a level of custom. From the get-go, I was designing rugs, furniture, and fabrics in addition to doing whatever else was needed.”

In hindsight, Espinoza can see that there was an important moment in his career, about two or three years after he started at the firm, when Baratta allowed him to make the transition to a leader of the design process. “The project was for a long-time client, who is a very well-known wildlife photographer, with a house in the Adirondacks. She wanted to create a Tupper Lake sanctuary for pollinators,” explains Espinoza. “Tony understood I was excited about it, so he let go and let me take the lead. He trusted me to carry the project through, and I wrapped my arms around it. The client loved animals, folk art, American antiques, all the things I love. Tony advised me when I had a question, but he let me do my thing. The project was published in House Beautiful and Country Living. That’s when it clicked for me that my career was real, and this is what I would be doing for the rest of my life.”

Collaboration Feeds Creativity

One of the reasons Espinoza has been with one firm for more than 12 years, and plans to stay, is that he had found a powerfully collaborative work culture at Anthony Baratta LLC. He explains that Baratta has more than 40 years of design experience and a specific genius, and another colleague at the firm, Jamie Magoon, has been working with Baratta for more than 17 years. “Our visions have melded together,” he says. “I have deep respect for their more extensive experience, and they recognize the power of youth. I have my own ideas for pushing the envelope. Tony keeps us all on our toes and we know each other so well we have a shorthand in the office. It’s so important to have sounding boards in design, or it could get stale. I trust them implicitly and I think the intergenerationally of our office makes for stronger design.” In this job, he not only collaborates with his team on designing interiors, but also on licensed products, such as Baratta’s lines with Thomasville Furniture and Capel Rugs.

A Home That Reflects the American Dream

From 2009 to 2020, Espinoza and his partner lived in an apartment in Queens. For years, he acquired objects, textiles, and furnishings, particularly American folk art and rustic antiques, and kept them in storage, waiting for the right time and place. During the COVID lockdown in 2020, he and his partner bought their first house in Danbury, Connecticut. He muses, “I just took all of the stuff out of storage, put it in place, and I was done!” With his own home, he was free to combine his pop-art sensibility with a layered interpretation of American craftsmanship. The house is filled with Americana, from Shaker chairs, to hooked rugs and quilts, to antique game boards and weathervanes. The interior design of his home became a form of storytelling in which he was free to layer personal history and take risks. He says, “Clients want bedrooms to be muted, soft, and calming, but I went totally in the other direction. There is something about an intersection of patterns that soothes me.” The bedroom is filled with “accumulated history, things I love from my life,” he says. The bed he brought from his home in Queens. The settee in front of the bed is a piece he found at auction, stored for years, and reupholstered with a vintage Diamond Baratta fabric for Lee Jofa, a line owned by Kravet, Inc. The bold wallpaper is also a vintage textile from the Diamond Baratta archives, created for Lee Jofa. He says, “The fabrics had never been published. I loved reintroducing these archival prints and weaves.” Images of his home, and these fabulous textiles, were ultimately published in multiple outlets, including The New York Times.

A Student of Design History

A defining characteristic of Espinoza’s work and career is the deep respect he has for design history. It’s no wonder his advice for emerging designers is about the right way to study those in the profession who have come before. He says, “You must read and collect a lot of design books. It’s not a popular thing in this age of technology. I was taught early on to look at design books. That was a Tony and Bill thing. Design history matters, and a design book is a concentrated vision of a specific design aesthetic. You simply cannot find that online. You have to find it in these old books.”

Becoming a Model for Others

Espinoza feels blessed to have found and forged a career in interior design that he loves. He is now able to be a role model and mentor for others. He’s adamant about giving back to both his alma mater, and the field. He’s donated his time to work on projects for the Ronald McDonald House, Design on a Dime, Rooms with a View, and the Center for Special Studies. He’s giving back to NYSID: He spoke on a panel at the Kravet Student Design Forum for NYSID students last fall. He feels the most important thing NYSID can do to further diversify its student body and the profession is to keep reaching out to high school students, especially those with fewer resources. He says, “There is so much talent that isn’t at these special art schools. I would urge NYSID and all design programs to keep looking at portfolios in schools that are less expected, and educating young people that design can be a viable career.”