Mary Douglas Drysdale
Mary Douglas Drysdale is an American interior designer who started Drysdale Design Associates in 1980 in Washington, DC. She designs both homes and commercial spaces and often includes works by contemporary artists in her interiors. Before starting her own firm, she worked at Creative Architecture and Design in DC.
Her work has earned many honors. In 1989, her Fan of the Future drawings were a finalist in Emerson’s Fan Competition, and her own home renovation won Dossier magazine’s Home and Garden Award. The Morrison House Hotel project won Best Inn of the Year from the National Travel Association in 1991. She redesigned La Fonda Restaurant and Café des Artistes in Georgetown, and that year she received an Award of Excellence in Design and Millwork from the American Woodworking Institute.
Drysdale has shown her designs in designer show houses in Richmond, DC, and New York. House Beautiful named her as one of two young designers to watch in 1991, and Southern Accents named her a Leading Designer of the South. By the mid-1990s, her style blended traditional American classicism with a cleaner, more modern look. She won Traditional Home’s Award of Excellence in Design and Innovation in the Traditional Style in 1994. She was listed among House Beautiful’s Top 100 Designers from 1996 to 2002, and in 2001 she was named one of the Top 200 practicing Architects and Designers in America. That year she also attended the Applied Brilliance Conference.
In 2005, This Old House named her among the Top 40 professionals working with old houses. The New York Observer highlighted her as one of five hot designers in 2006, and Washingtonian Magazine named her one of Washington’s top designers in 2007. Spaces Magazine awarded her first place for Classical Kitchen Design in 2008. Her colorful kitchens have appeared on magazine covers, and Kohler invited her to design a kitchen for their permanent showroom in 1999. Maytag commissioned a kitchen for the 2001 Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Florida, which was featured in The Washington Post.
Her work has been published in national magazines like Architectural Digest, Veranda, Traditional Home, and Southern Accents, as well as international magazines. She has appeared on HGTV and has written about design, including a cultural column for Capital File Magazine in 2008–2009. Drysdale is a frequent public speaker at museums, design centers, and antique shows.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from George Washington University in 1974 and studied in Paris at several institutions during the 1970s. She also attended Parsons School of Design in New York for a master class in industrial design.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:18 (CET).