ABOUT
Space is alive. It remembers.
I believe the spaces we inhabit shape how we feel, how we gather, how we heal, and who we become.
I’m Cherub “Chopp” Stewart, founder and principal designer of Florida Water Interiors, a design studio creating emotionally resonant interiors rooted in memory, sensory experience, and transformation.
Named after Florida Water, the fragrant botanical elixir long used to cleanse, renew, and shift energy, Florida Water Interiors was born from the understanding that design is far more than aesthetics.
It is atmosphere.
It is emotional architecture.
It is the creation of environments that support the life you are building.
For more than 20 years, my work as an educator, teaching artist, community builder, and designer has centered one essential question:
How should a space make us feel?
That question guides everything I create.
I design residential, commercial, and hospitality environments that are layered, emotionally resonant, and deeply personal. Spaces that feel as beautiful as they are functional, and as supportive as they are unforgettable.
Whether designing a home, creative workspace, cultural institution, hospitality environment, or gathering place, I approach every project through the lens of sensory experience, movement, memory, and meaning.
Color becomes energy.
Scent becomes atmosphere.
Flow becomes ease.
Materials become grounding.
Every decision is intentional.
Clients often come to me because they know something in their environment needs to shift, even if they cannot yet name exactly what.
My work is helping uncover that, then transforming space in ways that make the invisible tangible.
This philosophy has evolved into Space Holds Memory™, a framework exploring how environments shape memory, belonging, behavior, and wellbeing. Through design, speaking engagements, trainings, and facilitated experiences, I invite people to consider the profound relationship between who we are and the spaces we inhabit.
Community & Social Impact
My commitment to creating meaningful environments extends beyond private interiors. Through Studio EARTHSIDE, my social impact initiative, I develop projects and gatherings rooted in placemaking, food justice, environmental stewardship, and collective wellbeing.
From public installations and community meals to outdoor living rooms, memory work, and cultural gatherings, this work explores how thoughtfully designed environments can foster connection, belonging, healing, and care.
While Florida Water Interiors focuses on transforming residential, commercial, and hospitality spaces, Studio EARTHSIDE explores these same questions at the scale of community.
The work of Florida Water Interiors has been featured in The New York Times, Apartment Therapy, and Architectural Digest, and includes intimate residential interiors, commercial and hospitality spaces, culturally rooted environments, and spaces designed to inspire connection, creativity, and belonging. Florida Water Interiors is a certified MWBE business serving residential, commercial, hospitality, nonprofit, and institutional clients.
As a woman of Indigenous descent, stewardship is central to my practice. I believe beautiful spaces should be created with care for people, for story, and for the wider world. This shapes how I source, how I design, and how I honor the histories and hands behind the objects that enter a space.
At the heart of my work is a simple belief: