Hot Hub Talent Dennis Duffy Brings Out Best in Local Interiors

Hot Hub Talent Dennis Duffy Brings Out Best in Local Interiors
Dennis Duffy takes much the same approach to his interior design work as his most famous client, Red Sox star Manny Ramirez, takes to his sweet swing.

Clean, no-nonsense and, of course, dynamic.

Duffy worked with Ramirez and his wife on their posh condominium at the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common and their love-inspired home in Florida. The jobs hastened Duffy's ascension to coveted status as one of the most sought-after designers in the city. The blue-eyed talent just landed several commercial jobs (including work for One Charles, the condo project on Charles Street South) and recently unveiled a line of furniture that bears his name. Duffy's so busy he can't take new clients until the fall.

"He's glamorous and he's talented and he's handsome. He could be a diva, but he's not," said Rick Garofalo, president of Repertoire, where Duffy first worked in Boston in the late 1990s.

Most of Duffy's work is in private homes, and many clients are repeats. One, a high-tech investor, hired him to renovate her contemporary Sherborn home. Happy with the results - "It looks like my house, but better," said the client, who did not want to give her name - the woman had Duffy do her five-bedroom Florida home and then "odds and ends" in her Four Seasons condominium.