If you’ve gone out for a bougie girl’s dinner or grabbed an espresso martini at a rooftop bar in Tampa Bay, chances are you’ve spent time in a space crafted by the Oxford Design Studio team.
The firm, led by Tate Casper and Jordan Winston, is behind gathering spots all across Tampa + the Burg — from Casa Cami and The Library to members-only club The Stovall House, and, of course, Oxford Exchange. Each gathering place is full of their customary flair: contemporary art, high quality materials, and clever detailing.
We chatted with Casper and Winston about some of their latest designs, sources of inspiration, and what’s next on tap.
Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Mad Dogs & Englishmen — which opened earlier this year — shares all of the studio’s usual tenants. Tons of art, wallpaper, and multi-dimensional spaces. But reinventing the staple Cigar City pub in a new (and much bigger) location was a fresh challenge for the team.
“It’s maybe not our biggest job that we’ve worked on in Tampa, but it was definitely our most nerve-wracking I think in some respects, just because the existing Mad Dogs was just so beloved,” Casper said. “So we really approached this design project with a lot of sensitivity and extra care.”
Before starting the design process, Casper, Winston, and Wilton Morley, one of the South Tampa pub’s original owners, ventured across the pond. The crew set out on a pub crawl — for research purposes, of course — evaluating 10 taverns. Talking through what they liked, what they didn’t like, and whether it matched Wilton’s vision.
One of their main discoveries: All were cozy. So one of the obstacles became, “How do you make a large building feel quaint?” Winston said.
The pair embarked on ensuring the 6,000-sqft restaurant felt charming. Namely, Winston said, by creating small barriers that allow you to peek at action from room to room, but make you feel cozy.
The other main challenge, of course, was carrying elements of the old Mad Dogs space into the new location. Beyond bringing in some of Morley’s black-and-white photographs from the first MacDill Avenue spot, Winston and Casper wanted to infuse some of the Mad Dogs chaos.
Like the old booth way in the back of the restaurant that Casper calls the “Moroccan moment” — outfitted with a Moroccan lamp and large-scale photograph.
“I don’t even think that it was with necessarily intention that he designed that little Moroccan moment, but we certainly as designers picked up on it,” Casper remembered. “And we were like we have to have this really mad Moroccan room that makes no sense to be in a British pub.”
Seasoned regulars might spot a vestige of the old space in the new private dining room, drenched in Moroccan flair and Iksel wallpaper meant to look like the interior of 17th Century military tents.
Kips Bay Show House
The pair’s other formidable challenge this year: Designing a room in the 2025 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach — a yearly fundraiser in which designers each take over a room in a luxe home. Oxford was the first Tampa design studio ever selected — and they wanted to capture where the firm is right now in the showcase.
The crew had eight weeks — peppered by winter holidays — to pull together a plan for the home’s exterior patio. They called upon all of their favorite textile companies and furniture manufacturers to “show this little snippet of where we are as a firm,” Casper said.
The end product: A covered porch packed with British textiles, draping, mixed scale and colors, and birds. Specifically bird cages. The pair grouped some cages from their collection into an eye-catching arrangement over a table.
“We rely on randomness sometimes to get where we need to go,” Winston added.
They nicknamed their pocket of the home the poolside perch — and tried to create a place where everyone wanted to hang. And they did. Older ladies collected themselves on the lounges. Designers plopped down to chat at the end of the day.
“I think that’s part of our ethos of our firm,” Winston said. “Yes, we want really beautiful interiors, but we want people to enjoy them, and use them, and sit in them. We want them to be approachable and really inviting.”
Inspiration and future plans
The London trip wasn’t a one-off, both owners say travel is one of their biggest sources of inspiration. The pair try to take a trip each year.
“We’re just always looking for new inspiration, whether it be in a hotel that we’re staying in, or a restaurant, or the vintage markets where we’re traveling and finding these one- of -a-kind pieces,” Winston shared. “I think that keeps us motivated [...] seeing things differently.”
After wrapping up several bigger installs, most recently SH 19 (Stovall House’s racquet club), the team is doing just that. Interestingly, they’re hoping to book another trip to London this year.
“There’s so much energy in London right now with design,” Casper explained. ”It’s always been in Paris and in Milan, and it just feels like there’s a lot going on in London right now.”
Project-wise, what’s next? While Casper and Winston wouldn’t divulge what’s currently in the pipeline — other than wrapping up some long-term residential projects. But they did share that they’d be interested in working on a boutique hotel. A project with a hotel that has “a commitment to high design, art, layers,” Casper explained.
“If someone’s really, truly passionate on design, I’m in on whatever it is.”
