Serving 3 communities in Ocean County
Interior Design Firm in Ocean County, New Jersey
Full-service, founder-led interior design for the northern barrier island — Bay Head, Mantoloking and Point Pleasant, where the view sets the brief and the salt air sets the specification.
Call (732) 933-4344 Request Consultation
Est. 1996 · ASID & IIDA Members · WBENC Woman-Owned · 500+ Clients · 3M+ Sq Ft Designed
A shore house has to survive August and February. We specify for both.
Interior Design in Ocean County
Ocean County's northern barrier island is a narrow strip with water on both sides, and the houses on it are built accordingly. Bay Head is shingle-style and disciplined — cedar-shingled cottages and larger summer houses along East and Main, hedges cut square, a look the borough has protected for more than a century. Mantoloking is thinner still, ocean to bay in a few hundred feet, much of it rebuilt on raised foundations since the storms. Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach run more year-round: Capes, ranches and a steady replacement of older lots with larger houses toward the Manasquan River and the inlet.
INSABELLADESIGN has been designing interiors since 1996, and we are based in Little Silver, a short drive up the coast. We are full service — space planning, custom kitchens and baths, millwork, lighting, furnishings, art and project management — with Beth Insabella Walsh leading every project. We are ASID and IIDA members and a WBENC-certified woman-owned business, with roughly three million square feet designed and more than 500 clients across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Florida.
Designing at the shore is a specification problem before it is a style problem. Salt air pits cheap hardware and eats standard hinges. Humidity moves solid wood and swells drawers cut too tight. Ultraviolet light coming through that much glass fades fabric and bleaches finishes in two seasons. So the choices get deliberate: marine-grade, solid brass or 316 stainless hardware, painted millwork with a finish schedule built for moisture, quartersawn white oak that stays flat, performance fabrics that still look like fabric, honed stone that will not record every wet glass, and outdoor-rated upholstery on covered porches. The house should read easy and be engineered hard.
What We Design Along the Ocean County Shore
The residential work here splits between new construction and reworking existing houses. On a new build we would rather be involved before framing, when the plan can still be moved — orienting the primary rooms to the water, sizing openings for the view without cooking the room, getting ceiling heights and stair placement right, and locating the kitchen so it can feed a full house in July. On an existing house it is usually the kitchen, the baths, bunk rooms, and the working end of a beach house that nobody photographs: outdoor showers, mudrooms and laundry that expect sand, and enough closed storage that the place can be shut down in October and opened in May without a scramble. Full furnishings, window treatments for glare and privacy, and art selection follow the same plan.
We also design commercial interiors, which along this stretch of coast means clubs, restaurants and boutique hospitality, marina and waterfront facilities, and the professional and medical offices that keep the year-round towns running. That work covers space planning and test fits, front-of-house and back-of-house layout, millwork and casework, lighting, finish schedules and furniture specification, and it carries the same durability logic as the residential side — every material chosen has to hold up to salt, sun and a season's worth of traffic.
Communities We Serve in Ocean County
- Bay Head, NJ — Old-money coastal design on the barrier peninsula
- Mantoloking, NJ — Estate design on New Jersey's most exclusive barrier island
- Point Pleasant, NJ — Coastal home design near the river and boardwalk
Why Ocean County Chooses INSABELLADESIGN
- Nearly 30 years of award-winning residential & commercial design (est. 1996)
- ASID & IIDA professional members · WBENC-certified, woman-owned firm
- Full service: detailed space planning and design documentation, custom kitchens & baths, millwork, furnishing, install
- Every project led personally by founder Beth Insabella Walsh
- Trusted by the architects, builders, and trades our clients rely on
- Sourced materials, custom fabrication, and finishes held to an exacting standard
Ocean County Interior Design — FAQs
Do you work on the barrier island in Bay Head, Mantoloking and Point Pleasant?
Yes. We are based in Little Silver, a short drive up the coast, and we work across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Florida. Beth Insabella Walsh leads every project personally, which matters on shore work where site visits and trade coordination are constant during a compressed build season.
How does salt air change what you specify?
Substantially. Hardware, hinges and fixtures move to solid brass, bronze or marine-grade stainless. Millwork gets a finish schedule built for humidity, and solid wood is chosen and detailed to allow movement. Fabrics are performance and UV-stable, and stone is typically honed rather than polished so the surface holds up to wet glasses and sunscreen.
Can you start on a new build before it is framed?
That is the ideal time. Interior design at the plan stage is when the money goes furthest, because window placement, ceiling heights, cabinetry runs, lighting locations and the flow from interior rooms out to porch and deck are all still on paper. We coordinate the interior package with your architect and builder from there.
Do you furnish a shore house end to end?
Yes. Full-service means we handle furniture and fabric selection, custom upholstery and case goods, rugs, window treatments, lighting, accessories and art, plus procurement, expediting and installation. For a second home that is often the point — you want to arrive to a finished house, not to a delivery schedule.