In Matthew Kritis’ home, a papier-mâché beagle sits at the base of a glass vitrine stacked with Beaton, Dior and Caravaggio books. His obsession with beagles has become a running joke among his friends: If they find anything beagle-related in an antique shop, they have to buy it—no matter the price, size or style. “It’s really hard to find beagle objects,” he says. “Most antiques have foxhounds, so I thought I was safe.”
The real Poppy—the freckled, 11-year-old pocket beagle, dubbed Chief of Snacks—once wore a vintage diamond and Colombian emerald necklace on Matthew’s holiday card. “She’s part of the brand,” he says.
Naples has seen no shortage of showroom openings in recent seasons. This one comes from someone who has spent years on the ground shaping the city’s style. Matthew has been the eye behind Marissa Collections’ annual fine jewelry book, the stylist designers call to stage a luxury home, and the hand behind several high-gloss events, from Bucket List Bash to Naples Winter Wine Festival, where he oversees the lot room.
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Photography by Brian Tietz
naples showroom masion prvte matthew kritis
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Photography by Brian Tietz
naples showroom masion prvte display case beagle
Matthew’s Naples home distills his instincts, leveraging singular, high-impact pieces to carry a room. He starts with personal touchstones, like the papier-mâché dog in front of a corner vitrine—one of many beagle-themed curiosities, nodding to his pocket beagle, Poppy.
While his titles have changed over the years, the work has been the same: composing environments that feel intentional but not staged—making things look right. Maison PRVTE, his new showroom off Fifth Avenue South across from Cambier Park, brings that practice into public view.
What Matthew does in a space starts with reading the room. Walking in, he can clock what needs to shift and where the eye should land. He builds outward from a focal point, pulling color, texture and proportion into alignment. A vase of yellow flowers might ripple into citrus-toned coffee table books and textured golden print on the wall, creating continuity. He doesn’t keep adding. He picks a few things that carry weight, then leaves the rest of the space restrained.
Being a stylist means different things depending on who’s calling. Interior designers bring him in at the end of a project to add the final layer, sourcing and styling the objects that give a finished space dimension. He’s there on set, when designers are having projects photographed, relying on his editorial background to help shape how the space will read on camera—mapping sight lines, adjusting hierarchy and building moments that translate visually and spatially. “You could survey many interior designers, and most of them would say they cannot do the styling,” he says. “It’s a different skill set. We’re not looking at the project the same way. They’re building the foundation, and I’m coming in with a different point of view—it adds that storytelling element.”
Photography by Brian Tietz
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Finds like the kintsugi plates are chosen for their scarred beauty.
Private clients come to Matthew for seasonal refreshes, event decor and tasteful holiday installations. “I’ve done trees with just bone china porcelain flowers,” he says. “Simple and beautiful. It’s still something to celebrate, but it’s not garish.” He spends time with the homeowners, learning who they are and what they want to convey. He’ll often encourage them to look for mementos—not souvenirs, he’s quick to differentiate—when they travel, to bring a sense of their own life into the space.
In his own home, the framed John Robshaw print above a vintage chair by Brazilian designer Fernanda Brunoro, and glass artist James Vella’s foxed mirror in the hallway, were all collected over years of hunting for the best pieces and makers.
Matthew approaches his styling work through a fashion lens. Trained in textile design at Kansas State and later at Central Saint Martins, he learned to think in materials, palettes and cohesion. At Chico’s, where he worked as a conceptual designer, he translated abstract ideas into collections. “My VP would send me to New York to look for buttons, and I’d spend an entire week just shopping for buttons,” he says. “It was amazing.” Corporate constraints eventually wore on him, but the experience of building visual narratives through photography stuck. Over the years, he’s worked at Gulfshore Life as a fashion director and held creative director roles with fashion institution Marissa Collections and Judith Liegeois Designs.
As COVID restrictions lifted and designers were swamped with projects to shoot, they needed someone who could step in and guide the process. Matthew saw that need and filled it.
Photography by Brian Tietz
maison prvte best design showroom display shelf up close
Through it all, his instinct for shopping has persisted. “I don’t know restraint—that’s something I have to work on,” he jokes. He moves among online auctions, antique markets and showrooms—from Paris’ Marché aux Puces to small artisan studios—often forming relationships that give him early access to new work. Pieces circulate among his home, a warehouse and now the showroom.
Maison PRVTE reflects that same instinct. The space—just under 1,000 square feet, with near-black millwork and herringbone wood floors—doesn’t announce itself as a traditional store. Pale stone vessels and ceramic objects sit against a dark backdrop; books are stacked alongside the inventory. Nearly 85% of what’s inside is one-of-a-kind: artisan pieces, vintage finds and contemporary works brought in as single quantities.
Photography by Brian Tietz
naples showroom masion prvte display shelf up close
What lands on the shelves at Maison PRVTE often begins at home, with pieces moving among his rooms, interior styling projects and now the showroom. The space, which opened earlier this year across from Cambier Park, is stocked like a cabinet of curiosities and doubles as a social room for the design-minded.
His taste is specific and largely indifferent to commercial logic. Recent finds include a wooden jackrabbit by New Mexico folk artist Hector Rascon and antique Prussian crystal candlesticks. “My business manager will be mad at me,” he says. “But that’s how it goes.” He wasn’t expecting much when he put out a hand-carved wooden swan, its crafted simplicity freezing it in time. It sold almost in the first week they were open, followed by nearly everything else in the initial run. “I just love animals, so I was happy to have this menagerie in the showroom.”
While the showroom reads darker and denser than his home—which is anchored by pale marble floors and a more restrained placement—the instinct is the same. At home, objects are edited down to precise gestures: a tightly packed vitrine, a single sheepskin rug, animals placed one at a time. Each object carries a story. Near the entry, a late 19th-century bronze horse and rider sits in view—passed down from his grandmother, who sparked his love of antiquing. That one won’t cycle through, he says: “There are just some pieces that I could never part with.”