Before they met, Austin Carrier and Alex Mutter-Rottmayer led somewhat parallel lives. Both grew up surrounded by creative expression with parents and other family members immersed in the design world, from Carrier’s restaurateur mother who designed her own interiors to Mutter-Rottmayer’s artist father who owned a design-build firm. Today, the Sonoma-based “crazy in love” design duo—known as the Hommeboys—are giving wine country a refresh with their sophisticated, but never stodgy, sense of style.
Describe your aesthetic. Austin Carrier: We want to bring a more contemporary spin on California cool while still nodding to wine country’s traditions. Alex Mutter-Rottmayer: We give a native, warm tone to everything. We also like to do a twist here and there—some pop and rock. Austin grew up in Memphis, so we try to mix it up a little bit from the norm.
How do you work together on projects? AC: We’re just one big brain. Our best work is when we present a half-formed idea to the other person. We get excited and go back and forth and ask, “What if we add this detail?”
You’ve just launched your first furniture collection, Haus of Hommeboys. Tell us about it. AMR: For one of our projects, we wanted a special desk and couldn’t find anything that was working. We said, “Screw it, we’ll design it.” We were doing all the plaster work on the house, and then we thought, “Why don’t we do it with plaster?”
AC: It got us excited, so we created two other pieces—a credenza and a side table. We’ll expand on that and in a few months launch another collection, which is a nod to hand-hewn furniture. It’s got that old-world notching technique that you see a lot in African art.
