Inspiring Conversations with Rock Zehler of Rock Zehler

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rock Zehler.

Hi Rock, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Rock Zehler (they/them), and I am an independent interior designer based in Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown neighborhood, not Pasadena, even though people sometimes connect me to Pasadena because of my work on the Showcase House there. The honest answer to how I got here is that I am a solo entrepreneur myself: I believe in a life driven by the pursuit of understanding yourself through creative interventions in your own personal space, and that is the design work I care about most. I moved to Los Angeles because the city fit my aesthetic and disposition, and every collaboration since has proven that out.

I worked with TV producer, actress, and content creator Marcy Guevara-Prete as she took sole ownership of the plus-size retail brand The Plus Bus, installing and styling for her Atwater Village store, Perfect 10+. Both brick and mortars have since closed, but Marcy now channels that same reinvention energy into Mami Dearest, her Substack newsletter on midlife reinvention with over 5,000 subscribers.

Prior to that in Atwater Village, I worked with photographer Dan Monick on his small press and storefront, CASHMACHINE LA, across two different locations on Glendale Blvd.

I also regularly collaborate with photographer and fine artist Natalja Kent, another solo entrepreneur, on art commissions and residential interior photography through her studio, Natalka Studio. Natalja also runs Subject/Object Manifest, her cultural heritage and institutional photography practice, with clients including LACMA, MoMA, and The New York Times Magazine.

I partnered with builder and designer Jamaica Cole under our joint project Secret Spaces LA for the 2026 Pasadena Showcase House of Design, where we built a dressing room and closet of one’s own, complete with a hidden pocket door to a secret space. Jamaica also recently co-designed and built When Two Become One, a retail space for RIRIKU and Intentionally Blank in Los Angeles.

Right now, I am featured in a brand new YouTube series called Home Hacks, hosted by my collaborator Ryan Keely and produced by Marcy Guevara-Prete. I designed Ryan’s apartment a few years ago, and Home Hacks is a continuation of that same collaboration.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a straight line. Building an independent design business means being responsible for the design, the client relationships, and the marketing, while also building and maintaining a trusted network: an electrician, upholsterers and drapery specialists, commissioned artists, a builder, tradespeople across LA, all people I can rely on to execute at the level my clients expect. The hardest part has been building that infrastructure and that reputation without a bigger firm’s name behind me, one relationship and one project at a time.

What has gotten me through it is the clients themselves. Some of them pursued me and saw the solo entrepreneur spirit in me before I saw it in myself; they recognized something that would click between us before I did, and I am genuinely grateful for that kind of trust.

The other piece is adaptability. Los Angeles, and the design world, have changed so much, and I’ve had to stay willing to change with it: to be flexible about what a project looks like, how I work, and who I work with. That is something I try to bring directly into every interior design project, not just how I run my business.

As you know, we’re big fans of Rock Zehler. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I specialize in designing for solo entrepreneurs: people building a business or a life on their own terms, at any age or stage of life. What sets me apart is that I am an independent designer, but I have built a trusted team around every project: a great electrical team, skilled upholsterers and drapery specialists, commissioned artists like Natalja Kent, a builder in Jamaica Cole under our joint project Secret Spaces LA, and a strong network across the LA trade. I lead every project personally from concept through installation, and I know who to bring in to execute it right.

I intentionally blend design eras rather than committing to one signature look. For the 2026 Pasadena Showcase House of Design, I took a postmodern lens to 70s glam and Art Deco. For a Beverly Hills surgeon’s West Hollywood apartment, I am bringing French antique provincial energy into a grey new build. My collaboration with Ryan Keely on her recent redesign, featured in her YouTube series Home Hacks, actually started with sourcing a jet black bamboo shelving unit, which grew from there into a full blend of modern color drenching with vintage and postmodern elements.

That kind of blending is actually rooted in Los Angeles design history. This city has never had just one style: Spanish Colonial Revival sits next to Case Study Modernism, Streamline Moderne sits next to Hollywood Regency, and postmodernism grew directly out of all of it clashing together. Working across eras within one room is not a departure from LA interior design, it is a continuation of exactly what has always made it distinct.

What I am most proud of, brand wise, is that dressing room for the Pasadena Showcase House, along with having my ideas about design history published in Artforum and my design work featured in the LA Times and CA Home & Design. I’m currently taking on new residential and commercial interior design clients in the Los Angeles area, especially solo entrepreneurs looking for a space that truly reflects how they live and work.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is really getting to know my clients and their lives, not just their square footage. Every interior design project starts with understanding how someone actually lives, works, and wants to feel in a space, and that’s where the real work begins for me.

Freedom and creativity matter just as much. Being an independent interior designer means I get to follow a room wherever it actually needs to go, blending eras and styles instead of being boxed into one look, the same approach I brought to the 2026 Pasadena Showcase House of Design and every project since. That creative freedom is a huge part of why I do this work at all.

And honestly, living in Los Angeles matters too. This is a city that genuinely values solo entrepreneurship and free thinking, and the solo entrepreneurs I work with as clients are proof of that every day. It is a place where my clients and I both belong.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rockzehler.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockzehler/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewhSFbZyscE

Image Credits
David Zimmerman
Dan Monick
Amari Dixon
Natalja Kent