MOLLIE BEAN GREW UP WATCHING HER FATHER, CHARLESTON architect Chris McCarthy, translate ideas into spaces. It was an early education in how a room could hold a feeling, and it shaped the way she sees everything. After 13 years of managing high-end architecture projects in New York, she came home to Daniel Island and founded MB Within in 2017. Nearly a decade later, her studio has become one of the most sought-after design firms in the South, with projects stretching from Downtown Charleston to New York and internationally.
The work MB Within produces isn’t what most people picture when they think of Charleston interior design. There are no predictable shiplap walls, no coastal clichés, no rooms that could belong to any home in the Lowcountry. The studio’s portfolio runs from private residences on Breach Inlet to restaurants and commercial spaces, and the thread connecting all of it is a commitment to interiors that feel specific, layered and enduring.
“We are not interested in creating interiors that feel predictable or overly replicated,” Bean says. “We are drawn to clients who have a strong sense of personal style, who value originality, and who want a home that feels deeply specific to them.”
Before MB Within touches a floor plan or opens a sample book, Bean wants to understand how her client lives in their home. How do they entertain? What makes them feel at ease in a room? How do they want the space to feel, not just look? She is equally candid that the relationship must be the right fit. A full-service design project runs for months, many times years, and involves significant budgets, and it requires a level of mutual trust that cannot be simulated.
Part of that trust starts with money. Bean has worksheets that walk clients through current pricing for furniture, freight, labor and materials, all of which have climbed considerably since before the pandemic. She would rather have that conversation at the table in week one than in a tense email six months in. For Bean, the best projects happen with well-informed clients who respect the process and are willing to go somewhere unexpected.
Travel has been one of the most consistent forces shaping the studio’s point of view. Bean has spent years moving through the world, absorbing elements such as the curve of a chair glimpsed in a hotel lobby, the patina on an old brass fixture, the texture of a hand-plastered wall. Seeing the world through that lens, she says, changes what you bring back to the table. Those details find their way back into her work, reinterpreted rather than replicated, filtered through the needs of a specific client and a specific space.
This year, the firm has some exciting interiors in the works, including two major hospitality projects. Tidewater, a 9,000-square-foot private social club on Charleston’s Upper Peninsula, is one of the most ambitious commercial projects the studio has completed, featuring a restaurant, lounge, bar, pickleball courts and six golf simulators designed for a highly discerning membership. Down the street, Cheeky restaurant is opening on Meeting Street overlooking the new American Gardens Park beside the Gibbes Museum. Bean describes Cheeky as a chance to be bolder with color and creative risk-taking, building on the elevated design language the studio established at Marble & Fin. The second location of Marble & Fin, a two-level seafood restaurant in Savannah, also just opened, with just as much style as the Charleston original.
On the residential side, Bean’s work spans new construction in Kiawah and Daniel Island, historic restorations in Downtown Charleston, and a striking new build on Breach Inlet, where Bean was delighted to find her clients were willing to take risks. When someone trusts her enough to push past the obvious choice, the work gets better.
The studio also designs custom furniture and lighting when the market cannot offer exactly what a space requires. Sometimes a piece simply does not exist yet, so they build it. The inspiration might arrive from anywhere: the proportions of a sconce in a Roman trattoria, the weave of a textile in a Moroccan market. “A lot of our inspiration comes from the world around us: travel, hospitality, art, architecture, antiques, textiles, stone, metalwork, and even small details we notice in unexpected places,” Bean says.
MB Within serves Charleston and its surrounding communities, including Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, Daniel Island, Kiawah Island, Mount Pleasant and Seabrook, as well as clients in New York and beyond. *
Robin Howard is a freelance writer in Charleston. See more of her work at robinhowardwrites.com.
