Around January 2023, Annysa LaMantia got a call from representatives of Dominique Jones — more popularly known as Lil Baby — they wanted her to design the renovation for his new Atlanta home. The IU alumna later found herself standing in the home with Architectural Digest.
LaMantia peered over at the marble countertop dining room table as they filmed. Her eyes began to water as she slipped to a crowded area in the corner of the room. The dining room table in the rapper’s new home was a part of the first product collection that she had ever designed. She took a beat in the corner of the room to soak in the moment.
“Hey lady,” a cameraman said. “You’re in my shot.”
“Sorry,” she said.
It was a full day of cameramen and producers in the house, but she said it was worth it.
“Being in Architectural Digest is like getting a Grammy for interior design,” LaMantia said. “Every designer wants to be in the publication.”
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Before LaMantia was working with celebrities from coast to coast, her work started at Indiana University. One of her first interior design projects led her to a hospital, where she learned the importance of design.
“We were in a cancer ward,” she said. “Imagine receiving difficult information and the design of the room around you isn’t calming. It really opened my eyes to the connection between environment and mental health.”
There are a lot of safety and comfort concerns in most environments outside of interior design, LaMantia said. That includes things like the lighting of a street late at night when a woman is walking home. This led to her centering designs around clients’ comfort and personality.
The Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design curriculum was rigorous when she was studying interior design, LaMantia said. She said she spent 48 straight hours at the Herman B Wells Library for a project and even lost five hours of project notes permanently because a computer shut down and there was no online storage at the time.
Despite such setbacks, she graduated with her bachelor’s degree from IU in 2009.
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LaMantia launched her design firm — named after herself — in 2017. The Atlanta-based firm designs the interiors of homes as well as commercial properties. Clients typically reach out to her with a budget, time frame and a job description. A lot of things in interior design are relationship or connection based, LaMantia said.
Sometimes when a celebrity of prominence wants a design fulfilled, many designers will offer their services and it’s up to the celebrity to pick their designer. Jones had many options, but his party ended up reaching out to LaMantia.
“Some people called, and I knew it was serious,” LaMantia said. “I knew who they were.”
From LaMantia’s perspective, she had to be transparent up front with her potential clients about the reality of their goals. Jones’ plan had a nice budget, a long window of time and allowed her to be creative, LaMantia said.
Because she deemed the potential client’s plan possible, it was time to run “the play.”
The play, according to LaMantia, is the first phase of the design when an agreement is reached between her firm and a client. In this phase, she orders all the supplies she may need, she begins blueprinting and working with builders.
The second phase is a presentation to the client. Her firm designs photorealistic renderings of the plan before the builders begin to develop the design. Once both parties agree, the development begins, LaMantia said.
Redesigning the rapper’s home took an estimated 18 months and finished in June 2024, which was around the time the digest producers came to film. They had to finish the construction and make sure everything was polished before the digest came because they couldn’t show Architectural Digest an unfinished product, LaMantia said.
"I got my designer Annysa to come in and bring the house to life,” Lil Baby said in the Architectural Digest video. “Everything in the house is kind of designed to my liking."
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to include the correct spelling of Dominique Jones's first name.
