About
“Good design helps my clients live better by stimulating a fuller engagement with their surroundings.”
For Paul Ochs, a good life embraces design and vice versa.
Paul founded OCHS Design in 1989 responding to passions held since his early childhood, a love for design and appreciation for good construction, always driven to make things, shape spaces and create evocative environments.
For Paul, design is about making the best possible choices, or series of creative choices, with as much information and compassion as possible. Understanding characteristics of certain materials and how to combine them well is information. Information leads to perceiving options. Compassion is necessary to appreciate the nuances of a specific place and circumstance, necessary to appreciate a client’s needs and desires, necessary to appreciate historical context, necessary to appreciate the natural world and needs of future generations.
And the best design reflects more than one person’s or one group’s high-level thoughts, it connects viscerally and universally and tickles the imagination for many. It’s more than a confluence of science and art – it’s perhaps more the magic or synergy that happens when they’re well combined.
OCHS Design's celebration of this union has been recognized by numerous media outlets, including:
Taschen
HGTV
Time Out New York
New York Magazine
New York Living
Roots
Paul grew up near Boston, the son of a real estate developer and a creative mother from a midwestern restaurant family. Raised as a naturalist and an aesthete, he attended private secondary school before heading to the University of Vermont.
At UVM, Paul enrolled in the first accredited Environmental Studies program in the country. He self-designed his major, gathering credits from six different universities to earn a degree in Environmental Planning & Design.
A Detour Through Europe
After graduating, an unexpected modeling career took Paul to Europe for an extended period. While abroad, he bought a camera and a bicycle and dove deep into a lifelong fascination with furniture and architecture, understanding both as cultural expressions of shifting circumstances.
From Knoll to New York
Back in Boston, Paul joined Knoll International, a leading manufacturer of contemporary furniture and modern classics. He was later recruited to New York City by Smallbone, a British furniture brand expanding into the US market at the time.
“I’m extremely grateful that for so many years I’ve essentially been a designer’s designer. By that I mean that I’ve had the tremendous good fortune to work for so many highly creative persons including Oscar recipients & nominees, many Grammy award winners, a member of the highly prestigious Society of Arts & Letters, well-known actors, successful artists, writers, literary agents, chefs, creative directors, CEOs, surgeons, litigators, educators and magazine editors.”
Building a Practice
At 27, Paul struck out on his own. In 1989 he founded the Woods Hole Furniture & Design Co., bringing custom millwork — primarily from his brother's cabinet shop on Cape Cod — to clients in New York City.
As his interest in decorative history and high-level craft deepened, the firm evolved into Woho Beaux Arts Incorporated, a more comprehensive practice spanning interior design, architectural design, and project management.
Three Decades of OCHS Design
For the next thirty years, Woho Beaux Arts — doing business as OCHS Design — operated as a boutique design and project management firm based in NYC, known for thorough renovations of high-end residential properties.
A notable side venture during the mid-90s: Paul co-owned two incarnations of a successful downtown restaurant — first Zitella, then Tompkins 131. Even with the family history in restaurants and a successful run, the allure of restaurant life in NYC couldn't deter Paul from his primary focus on producing highly crafted interiors.
California Chapter
In 2019, Paul relocated to northern California's Bay Area, where he continues a bi-coastal practice, most recently completing projects in Charleston SC, NYC, Cheviot Hills and Marin County.
Today, OCHS Design offers:
Interior design
Architectural design
Project management
Real estate consulting
Additionally, Paul occasionally supplies custom furniture pieces, custom hardware, custom light fixtures and one-of-a-kind decorative objects to other designers.
“What all of our clients seem to have in common is that they expect their homes to be uniquely their own, never like their neighbors, far from generic. While Ochs Design always succeeds in avoiding ‘sameness’, this is done without idiosyncratic gestures – instead finding solutions that are keenly observant and site sensitive. The approach is also mindful of financial investment – the overall space planning and more permanent surfaces must simultaneously serve our clients and future owners and occupants.”