Anna O’Hara’s Passion of Design

By Bella Portaro Kueber

Anna O'Hara Heuke stands in her beautifully designed dining room. 

Meet Anna O’Hara Heuke, a Louisville-based interior designer who took the leap of faith and turned her career into her own business — Anna O’Hara Interiors. With coffee, support from her friends and family, and a dream to guide her, Anna is taking homes and businesses and making them beautiful, one room at a time.

This dream remained undefined for many years in Anna’s life. “I remember having a build-up within me that I had to unleash. My mom would help me by taking me to get a canvas or flowers to plant in the yard, anything creative and active that could ease the desire to create. It was always there, and I didn’t know how to define it till I was a senior in high school and I helped a friend decorate her room and then it hit me. I wanted to be a designer and I’ve never looked back.”

Anna created this painting which sits on top of her dresser. Photos by Melissa Donald 

Anna studied at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, but says that she learned the most from working in the field, which she began a little over 10 years ago. “The evolution of experience has placed me where I am today, and every project added to my repertoire. Curating beautiful and purposeful environments is what I was meant to do. It is an instinct that I’ve had all of my life, I just didn’t realize that the pull I felt to be creative meant I’d help others find harmony in their environments.”

Anna focuses on how she can make a client's home feel comfortable and engaging. 

Anna helps clients define their style by asking them to show her three photographs of spaces or things they like because “those images are highly personal images that they identify with. You want clients to be able to walk into their space and take their shoes off and breathe within it because they’re able to be comfortable within an atmosphere they desire and identify with most.”