Born on the outskirts of Philadelphia and raised in Bedford, New York, Zina absorbed the nuances of “life well lived” from the environments she grew up within, the affluence of those early years contributing greatly to her sense of style and her design prowess. Summers in the Adirondacks and in Canada brought a rustic simplicity to her tastes, and she came of age in the 1960s, gleaning a great deal of her education from the streets, so to speak, as she absorbed everything she was witnessing and translated it into tools she uses to create sensual experiences in design, dining and lifestyle.
Her sense of color, scale, and proportion resulted from a burning desire to understand how things fit together; she grew into an exceptional talent of making environments comfortable to the eye. Store window installations led to clients’ requesting her services for their personal spaces, which resulted in design projects around the world that include the renovation of a cow barn in the Hamptons to a fishing camp in Argentina.
As her business expanded, her sophisticated point of view is best described as primitive modernism. She has been published in House & Garden, The New York Times, Coastal Living, Country Living, and Hamptons Cottages & Gardens. Her work has also been showcased in a number of coffee table design books, and on the E! network.
A knack for entertaining has always informed Zina’s abilities to create welcoming havens, so moving toward lifestyle-related services was a natural segue for the designer. She currently assists a select roster of clients with their design projects, and is developing a line of salad dressings and chutneys based upon the reinvention of classics in a mindful way by sourcing the highest quality ingredients available.
Zina’s Design Doctor within Maine Country Home in Rockland makes it possible for those who do not desire fully developed design services to purchase hourly design advice as well as home design products & furniture for their environments.