Meet Kru-thi-ka Rao

  • After a career as a corporate lawyer in London, with formative professional appointments in India and Geneva, she followed her calling by redirecting her expertise to real estate and interior design.

    Over the past decade she has acquired, renovated, designed, and overseen a curated portfolio of residences across the UK and California, stewarding each project from concept and procurement through construction to final styling.

    Her work is centered on the client and their story.

    She develops clear, purposeful narratives for every commission, drawing on her extensive travel and deep appreciation for history and architecture to ensure spaces resonate with context and provenance.

    Her process begins with measured space planning and evolves through rigorous material selection, custom detailing, and layered styling — resulting in homes that feel both considered and lived-in — bringing the clients vision to fruition.

    Her unusual background of advanced legal training and substantive hands-on property experience, benefits the client in various ways.

    She provides composed, authoritative leadership across all design phases: sophisticated contract negotiation, rigorous risk management, precise budgeting, and efficient permitting executed in tandem with creative layouts, finish specification and detailing. This integration keeps projects on schedule and aligned with design intent.

    With a fastidious eye and calm and personable communication, she coordinates seamlessly with contractors, architects, and consultants, managing procurement, timelines, and quality control with disciplined organisation.

    Outside of client work she serves as a trustee for nonprofit boards and, when time permits, pursues thrifting and the collection of antiques and art—small discoveries that frequently inform and enrich her interiors.