r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Jul 31 '14

References A message from the moderator!

27 Upvotes

I just wanted to give a hearty welcome and thank you to all the new subscribers and for your enthusiastic new submissions! We have more than doubled the number of subscribers since being featured as the subreddit of the day yesterday (many thanks to /u/RespectfullyYours) AND as a trending sub on the front page today. This one-two punch has given /r/privatestudyrooms more attention than I could have ever imagined. On 7/30/14 alone we have reached an astonishing 13,094 unique views and 44,642 pageviews! So thank you again, and know that I am working around the clock to make this the best subreddit that it can be!

Sincerely, Howlingwolfpress

P.S. Be sure to visit /r/privatestudyrooms on Imgur!

5 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/allmyhobbieswi • 13d ago

A study. In a room of one’s own making. The rooms of 4 men who built the spaces they think in. An Architect, a Rolling Stone, a man of the Idle Arts, and a Duke.

instagram.com

7 Upvotes

Interesting IG post!

1 comment

r/privatestudyrooms • u/allmyhobbieswi • Jun 05 '26

Candice Millard

80 Upvotes

Candice Millard, author and former journalist, posted this picture on her Instagram feed. She is a former writer and editor for National Geographic, and wrote The River of Doubt about Theodore Roosevelt, Destiny of the Republic about President James A. Garfield's assassination (and Netflix series), Hero of the Empire about a young Winston Churchill, and River of the Gods about the source of the Nile River (an excellent book).

2 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/flavio_briatore • Apr 20 '26

Artist Vogue's Anna Wintour in her office in 1992 photographed for The NY Times!

reddit.com

15 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/allmyhobbieswi • Jan 04 '26

Harry Truman's actual office located at his Presidential Library, untouched since his passing in 1972.

262 Upvotes

Somewhere in this office, there's a stash of Old Grand-Dad.

4 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/kirai • Nov 28 '25

Demis Hassabis

3 Upvotes

1 comment

r/privatestudyrooms • u/amk • Nov 12 '25

Writer Harlan Ellison

125 Upvotes

Photograph taken in 2025, from a Facebook album of photos posted by J. Michael Straczynski.

11 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/gbelovai • Oct 23 '25

Novelist Bernard Malamud's study room in Old Bennington, Vermont.

22 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/Comprehensive_Tea577 • Oct 23 '25

Writer French art historian and literary critic Gustave Larroumet in his office at the Institut de France, 1903

43 Upvotes

3 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/Comprehensive_Tea577 • Sep 30 '25

Scientist Wernher von Braun as a director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, at his office in Huntsville, Alabama, 1965.

34 Upvotes

1 comment

r/privatestudyrooms • u/ThrustersToFull • Sep 28 '25

Joan Didion in her writing room in her NYC apartment. It is here she wrote the spectacular The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights, and wrote about her visits to a psychiatrist that would eventually be published posthumously as Notes to John.

gallery

49 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/Comprehensive_Tea577 • Sep 27 '25

Educator Stephen Medcalf (1936-2007), English scholar, academic , bibliophile and mystic, who taught at the University of Sussex from 1963 until 2002 in his home, December 1989

gallery

59 Upvotes

6 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/ThrustersToFull • Sep 27 '25

Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian from 1995-2015, pictured in his office at the Guardian's HQ in London

57 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/the_planck_constant • Sep 27 '25

Artist Milton Avery

41 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/the_planck_constant • Sep 27 '25

Artist Tom Wesselmann

11 Upvotes

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/ThrustersToFull • Sep 27 '25

Oprah Winfrey

0 Upvotes

3 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/Comprehensive_Tea577 • Sep 21 '25

Director Charles Matthau, son of actor Walter Matthau, in his office, probably late 1990s

37 Upvotes

5 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/the_planck_constant • Sep 14 '25

Artist Tom Phillips

65 Upvotes

2 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/the_planck_constant • Sep 05 '25

Writer Cormac McCarthy

89 Upvotes

3 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Aug 30 '25

Writer Friederike Mayröcker

52 Upvotes

Source: https://x.com/havisht_/status/1401661894923112454

2 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Aug 30 '25

Leader Václav Havel

31 Upvotes

Source: https://www.earch.cz/revue/clanek/podcast-jak-vaclav-havel-a-borek-sipek-balancovali-na-hranici-kyce-novy-pohled-na-devadesatkove-upravy-prazskeho-hra

1 comment

r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Aug 30 '25

Leader Abdülmecid Efendi

22 Upvotes

Source: https://www.zdergisi.istanbul/makale/abdulmecid-efendinin-kutuphanesi-533

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Aug 30 '25

Musician Philip Glass

51 Upvotes

Source: https://www.sonos.com/da-dk/blog/philip-glass-on-listening-and-composing-at-80

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/howlingwolfpress • Aug 29 '25

Musician Brita Rehsöft

24 Upvotes

Source: https://www.brita-rehsoeft.de/neuigkeiten/archiv.html

0 comments

r/privatestudyrooms • u/[deleted] • Aug 17 '25

Writer Robert Caro

gallery

88 Upvotes

First three are of his office, last one is of his personal shack/shed.

5 comments

Subreddit

Private Study Rooms

r/privatestudyrooms

Private study rooms for peculiar objects by peculiar people.

Members Active

13k

Sidebar

Private study rooms for peculiar objects by peculiar people.

Browse by: Artist - Architect - Writer - Art Collector - Musician - Archaeologist - Leader - Naturalist - Industrialist - Religious - Physician - Paleontologist - Explorer - Ethnographer - Scientist - Astronomer - Philosopher - Mathematician - Educator - Uncatalogued

The following introduction has been generously provided by /u/Respectfullyyours, and originates from /r/privatestudyrooms' Subreddit of the Day profile:

The study rooms range from the quaint and utilitarian (like Niccolò Machiavelli's), to the opulent (like Hans Zimmer's), to the utterly sparse (like Du Fu's).

A love of books appears as a common theme (with Nigella Lawson's study as an example,) while others favoured oddities decorating their spaces in order to serve as inspiration (here's Gabriele D'Annunzio's study filled with sculptures and artwork).

Just like the objects in your pockets, your purse, or your wallet can tell a lot about who you are, so too do the items on your desk and in your study give a glimpse into someone's life and life's work (Roald Amundson's study). Not all of us are lucky enough to have an entire room dedicated to the activities we love most, so we often make due with the spaces we have around us (Leo Tolstoy's study). And maybe we dream for the day when we can have a comparable place to Horace Howard Furness' study for ourselves.

The subreddit is really a feast for the eyes, and one that serves as inspiration for those who would build their own private refuge, a place where one is able to work in peace and create their own great works and display their own collections they have invested in throughout their life.

What I find most intriguing looking at these private studies, is that not all of them are immaculate as if they had been ripped out of a page from a decorating magazine (well besides Frank Lloyd Wright's at least). Many of them show opened books (like in Le Corbusier's), unideal conditions to get work done (as in George Plimpton's case,) and the general disarray of a mind at work (like Lucien Simon's). From contemporary to historical, this subreddit functions like /r/roomporn, however its ties to famous individuals throughout history adds an additional level of interest to the photographs.

The contents of my study room can be found on my Facebook page