Anne Morton Hepfer ’91

THE MISS PORTER’S SCHOOL MAGAZINE

FALL 2021

Creating Distinctive Spaces

Anne Morton Hepfer ’91 is a Toronto-based interior designer and entrepreneur who has been creating beautiful spaces for homeowners across North America since she launched Anne Hepfer Designs in 2003. Her award-winning interiors have been featured in House Beautiful, Canadian House & Home, Homes & Gardens, The Wall Street Journal and more. Whether she’s selecting furnishings for a Florida residence or weighing the effects of wind and waves on an Ontario boathouse, she keeps a singular focus on the people and families she’s designing for. “Every project is like having a child,” said Ms. Hepfer, who earned a degree in interior architecture and design from Parsons School of Design. “It’s creating something three-dimensional from scratch and seeing it through to completion,” she said. “But more than that, it’s building meaning into my clients’ homes by gaining a deep understanding of who they are, how they live and how they want to feel in the spaces they’re waking up, living in and going to bed in every single day.”

An early awakening

Ms. Hepfer can trace her passion for design back to her years at Miss Porter’s School, where Art History Teacher Alice Delana “told stories about art and wove them into history, religion and culture, and she would always come back full circle to make every class riveting.” She also has fond memories of studying studio art with Penny Prentice. “I did a lot of sketching and painting,” she recalled of her years at Miss Porter’s. “I tapped into color at a very early age. The way I see color and light and contrast started back then.”

She also interned at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington one winter, and she recommends such real-world exposure to students today. “It starts as early as high school—having internships, having lots of experiences and not being afraid to ask questions and dig into true passions,” she said. “Finding one’s passions and fueling them in life is probably a key factor in what makes somebody successful later on.”

Along with helping her find her own passions, Miss Porter’s School “gave me perspectives into something I hadn’t really done before and made me want to do more,” she said. “Art is something that you can just build on and build on. It was such a great gift over those years. I didn’t know who I would be or what my career would look like, but looking back, it all makes sense.”

A creative career

After graduating from Miss Porter’s, Ms. Hepfer studied human and organizational development and art history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She then moved to San Francisco to work in advertising and public relations, with a goal of joining her father’s firm, Jack Morton Worldwide. But the sale of the company prompted her to reevaluate her career path and apply to Parsons instead. She went on from Parsons to manage highend residential projects for Daniel Romualdez Architects in New York, and then struck out on her own in 2003, the same year she married Toronto native Christian Hepfer. The couple moved to Ontario, where she slowly grew her firm to a staff of 10 while raising two sets of twins, Jack and Charlie, 15, and Amelia and Alexander, 12.

“Deep down, I think being an entrepreneur was always a dream for me,” she said. “I spent a lot of time processing what it would be like to run my own show rather than working for somebody else.”

“Art is something that you can just build on and build on. It was such a great gift over those years.”

The year of COVID-19

When COVID-19 struck, the Hepfer family retreated to their home on Lake Joseph, two hours north of Toronto. There, the children went to school remotely while she managed her projects via Microsoft Teams. “COVID slowed things down significantly,” she said. “We had to stagger trades, and everything got delayed. We had big issues getting product quickly enough because many places we import from had outbreaks.”

However, the pandemic brought its own gift: the space and time to work on her first book, which is scheduled for release in August 2022. Titled “MOOD,” it will feature more than 400 images of Hepfer-designed spaces, meditative reflections, family recipes and candid travel shots. “I hope this book will speak to our current appetite for color, connection, change and comfort,” Ms. Hepfer said, “while becoming a trusted source of guidance and inspiration for years to come.”