Casa Casual crafts distinctive interiors informed by art, history, craftsmanship, and provenance. Rooted in Puerto Rican heritage, our multidisciplinary practice draws on art history, graphic design, and interior architecture to develop spaces with a grounded sense of place.

About Casa Casual Interiors

Casa Casual Interiors: Interior Design in Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia—

Casa Casual is a boutique interior design studio founded by its principal designer, Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón. Serving clients in Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, the studio specializes in highly personalized luxury residential interiors, as well as restaurant and boutique hospitality design. Casa Casual works with clients who value art, architecture, history, craftsmanship, and provenance, creating interiors shaped by the people who inhabit them and the places they belong. Our Puerto Rican roots and background in art history, graphic design, and interior architecture inform a design philosophy centered on context: understanding a space deeply, then developing an interior that feels distinctive, coherent, and entirely its own.

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Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón, Founder and Principal Designer of Casa Casual

Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón’s approach to interior design emerged through an interdisciplinary study of art history, graphic design, and architecture. Raised in Puerto Rico, she developed an early understanding of the relationship between climate, cultural history, objects, and domestic life. Her practice considers the interior as a cultural framework—one in which architecture, memory, and materiality converge to shape how a place is inhabited.

Those disciplines influence different parts of her work: art history informs how she reads objects and visual references; graphic design informs composition and hierarchy; interior architecture informs how she understands proportion, materials, circulation, and the physical logic of a space.

Together, they give Gretchen a way of approaching interiors that begins with observation. She looks closely at the client, property, and setting, then uses that understanding to establish a clear design direction.

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Why Trust Is Central to the Casa Casual Design Process
There is a particular kind of trust a client extends to a designer: inviting someone into a deeply personal space and relying on them to understand how it should look, feel, and function.
Casa Casual is built around that responsibility. The process begins by understanding the client, the property, and what they want their surroundings to become before developing a clear design direction.
That approach makes trust part of the design process itself.
Casa Casual's Interior Design Philosophy
Good Design Begins With Understanding
Casa Casual believes the most compelling interiors grow from a close understanding of the people, property, location, and way the space is meant to be lived in.
That context helps establish the design direction: what should feel quieter or more expressive, where contrast is needed, how rooms should relate, and what will make the interior feel cohesive.
Materials, furnishings, lighting, art, vintage pieces, and spatial decisions are developed from that foundation. The visual result changes from project to project because every client, property, and setting is different.
What Does Luxury Residential Interior Design Mean at Casa Casual?
At Casa Casual, luxury is highly personal — not a recognizable look, but a thoughtful response to the character of the space and the way a client wants to live within it.
Luxury can come from quality, proportion, craftsmanship, restraint, and the confidence of a design that feels resolved.
A sophisticated home should feel specific to its owner and setting, not standardized around a recognizable high-end aesthetic.
How Does Casa Casual Approach Historic and Character-Rich Homes?
Architecture is never treated as a backdrop to decorate over.
Casa Casual evaluates the character and physical logic of a property before determining how it should evolve. In historic and architecturally distinctive homes, that often means understanding which qualities give the building its identity and where contemporary intervention can make it function better.
The goal is contemporary function, materials, furnishings, and lighting that can be introduced in ways that make the home work beautifully today while respecting what makes the property distinctive.
How Art, Antiques, and Vintage Pieces Shape Casa Casual Interiors
Meaningful objects are part of the story of a space.
Pieces a client already loves can help set the tone for an interior, sense of history, and overall direction.
Casa Casual considers how those pieces should relate to new selections so the finished interior feels layered, intentional, and accumulated thoughtfully over time.
How Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón's Puerto Rican Roots Influence Her Interior Design Approach
Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón brings both personal roots and professional design experience in Puerto Rico to Casa Casual.
Casa Casual was founded in Puerto Rico, where Gretchen led interior design projects for homes and restaurants across San Juan. In 2015, she expanded Casa Casual to the Washington, D.C. metro area while continuing to serve clients in Puerto Rico.
That experience gives her direct familiarity with a design context shaped by climate, architecture, cultural history, visual culture, materials, and strong relationships between indoor and outdoor life.
Those influences provide context rather than a prescribed Puerto Rican aesthetic. The broader lesson carries into Casa Casual's work elsewhere: understand where a property is and how people experience it, then let that understanding help shape the interior.
Why Clients Work With Casa Casual
Casa Casual clients are looking for more than an attractive finished space. They want a designer who listens carefully, recognizes what makes their property and perspective distinctive, and turns many ideas into an interior that feels clear, cohesive, comfortable, and personal.
Gretchen Rivera-Lebrón brings that sensitivity to every project, informed by her background in art history, graphic design, and interior architecture. Her Puerto Rico work is featured in Interior Design in Latin America, a 2026 bilingual teNeues book spotlighting 28 design studios across 20 countries. Two of Gretchen’s projects are featured: a 1930s Hato Rey residence and a coffee shop in historic Old San Juan.
Gretchen is also a trusted source to the news media, with her design expertise and insights featured in Architectural Digest, MarthaStewart.com, Real Simple, Newsweek, Better Homes & Gardens, Apartment Therapy, and Southern Living.
Casa Casual works with homeowners who view interiors as an expression of identity, culture, history, and personal taste.
They may own a historic home, a sophisticated primary residence, a second home, a vacation residence, or a pied-à-terre.
They are typically clients who value architecture, art, craftsmanship, provenance, and thoughtful decision-making — and who want the finished home to feel individual rather than designed around a predetermined look.
Casa Casual is particularly well suited to clients who want a designer to listen closely, bring a strong point of view, and create a cohesive direction from many different ideas and possibilities.