Interior designer Young Lee Huh, a 1987 Cranbrook Kingswood graduate, returns to Kingswood Library in Bloomfield Hills on Monday, Sept. 14, to discuss her debut book.

Huh has appeared on Architectural Digest's AD100 list every year from 2023 through 2026 and has spent at least five consecutive years on Elle Decor's A-List, according to her studio's website. Now she's coming home to talk about A Mood, A Thought, A Feeling: Interiors, published by Rizzoli on March 17. The 256-page hardcover, priced at $55, features a foreword by clients Zooey Deschanel and Property Brothers co-host Jonathan Scott. Copies will be available for purchase at the event through Oak Park independent bookseller The Book Beat.

The free event begins at 6 p.m. Registration is required and space is limited. The Cranbrook Schools website has the sign-up link.

From Kingswood to New York

A Detroit native, Huh started at Kingswood in seventh grade. She earned an English degree from Smith College and a law degree from Fordham Law School, practicing law before pivoting to design. She enrolled at Parsons, took on a design internship and founded Young Huh Interior Design in New York in 2007.

The pivot paid off. Vogue named her one of five interior designers on the rise. A breakthrough came at the 2019 Kips Bay Decorator Show House, where she transformed an attic into a bohemian artist's retreat, according to Galerie magazine. That project attracted clients including Idina Menzel and Deschanel.

Cranbrook roots

Huh credits Kingswood teachers with shaping her eye. She remembers ceramics teacher Susie Symon, weaving teacher Lynn Hazard and Dr. Fred Roth, who introduced her to drama. She recalls discovering Raymond Carver in John Hazard's class.

"At Kingswood, you could see how integrated every element of design was," Huh said on the Cranbrook Schools website. "The blending of Finnish modernism and Arts and Crafts architecture, the wall treatments, rugs, furniture, even the silver went together and made a single design statement."

Her book organizes interiors around that same instinct for mood. It is divided into three sections: "A Mood," exploring decoration through feelings like joy and coziness; "A Thought," featuring three completed homes; and "A Feeling," documenting Huh's own historic country house in upstate New York through the seasons.

The event is described as open to the Cranbrook community. Registration is available at the Cranbrook Schools website.