The Studio Our Story Meet SFW Our Team

About the Studio

Studio SFW is a Manhattan-based architecture and interiors firm known for creatively inspired spaces that express warmth, personality, and style in equal measure.

Founded by three born-and-raised Southerners turned New Yorkers, our studio takes a lifestyle approach to each project, considering how you’ll be living in your home and how it will make you feel. Our aesthetic has been described as lived-in luxury, with a layered mix of vintage, new, and custom furnishings, but we like to put it more simply: Our work makes you happy.

In a Studio SFW residence, nothing is too precious, but everything is special. Rather than imposing restrictions on how you live in your home, our designs open new possibilities. We don’t want to overstate things, but clients have told us that our work has inspired change in their relationships and even their parenting. For us, there’s no greater compliment.

Collaborative by nature, we welcome clients seeking a design partner that can deftly balance intuition and rigor while making the entire process feel effortless. We invite big ideas. We embrace ambition.

Our work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Luxe, Cottages and Gardens, Elle Décor, and House Beautiful, among other publications.

Meet Studio SFW

Studio SFW was founded in 2020 by architect Rachael Stollar, interior designer Erin Fearins, and architect Ward Welch. The three met while colleagues at a highly regarded design practice. Their collaborations there revealed a shared sensibility, as well as a preference for design that was rigorous in approach but unpretentious in execution.

In 2021, the trio launched a lifestyle extension of their brand with House SFW, a thoughtfully curated emporium whose offerings span decor, apparel, furnishings, silverware, and barware. House SFW debuted in New York’s Hudson Valley and will be moving to Manhattan in 2025.

title

Rachael StollarArchitect, Managing Principal

Read Bio +
Rachael Stollar, an architect with deep experience renovating row houses and apartments, leads operations for Studio SFW. A longtime senior project manager and marketing director before co-founding the firm, she facilitates big-picture thinking while keeping a firm grasp on the day-to-day details that lead to success.
Growing up in West Virginia, Rachael was obsessed with antique shows about interior design. At one point, she announced to her parents that she wanted to be a designer, and her father suggested she be an architect instead. “The architect controls everything, including the design,” he told her. She embraced his advice and never looked back.
Rachael and her family live in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and the Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck.
Erin FearinsPrincipal Interior Designer

Read Bio +
Interior designer Erin Fearins guides the look and feel of each Studio SFW project. Her focus is on gaining a deep understanding of how a client wishes to inhabit their space and developing ideas inspired by this vision.
Erin grew up outside of Greenville, Tennessee, on a sprawling property adjacent to her grandfather‘s farm, where he raised Angus cattle and grew tobacco. Her father was a skilled cabinet and furniture maker, and she spent most days after school and summers helping out at his shop. Accompanying her dad on installations and deliveries ignited a lifelong fascination with design.
Erin and her family live in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Ward WelchArchitect, Director of Design

Read Bio +
Ward Welch is the lead architectural designer for Studio SFW, playing a role in each stage of development and construction. He’s driven by the idea that thoughtful design and beauty can impact a person’s life for the better.
Ward and his three siblings grew up on a farm in southern Virginia. His dad was a civil engineer who prized function over form, and as a kid Ward spent a lot of time daydreaming how to elevate the family home’s aesthetics. In seventh grade, he received a drafting table and, inspired in part by the work of New England-based architect Royal Barry Wills, he embarked on what became a permanent love affair with residential design.
Ward and his husband live in Midtown East, Manhattan.