Translated from the French(9)

“My father had flair. He loved design and was flamboyant in what he drove and how he dressed, so it’s no wonder that three of his eight children became interior designers,” muses Mary Jo Donohoe. To friends and clients she’s known as “MJ,” which has the lack of pretense for which her work is known. A designer for 30 years in the Washington, D.C., area where she grew up, Mary Jo draws on the historical roots of the nation’s capital while catering to the busy lives of her clients. “There’s always balance in what I do,” she says. She’s adept at transforming a rigidly Neoclassical-style house into a relaxed launching pad for book-club meetings and kids’ birthday parties. As her life has evolved from young wife to raising children to feathering an empty nest, so has her design work moved from stately to easy to confident.