A personal reflection: what's the secret to loving where you live? For top designer and Meridian native Barclay Fryery, it's as simple as looking in the mirror.

When you invite Barclay Fryery into your home, be prepared for a whirlwind ride. From walls of bold color to custom-crafted furnishings, his goal is to push his clients to the limits of their style-and stop when it fits them just right.

The 45-year-old interior designer has spent his career traveling the world, broadening with each new destination the taste he learned in his native Meridian. Now based in Greenwich, Connecticut, he ranks among the best-known designers in America, making House Beautiful's annual top-125 list for the past five years.

"When you come from a simple place and you do great things, it's still a little overwhelming that people honor your work," the designer says.

At the heart of his success is a simple philosophy: people ought to love the space they live in, and the space ought to complement them, too. "In fashion, it doesn't matter what you wear, it's how you wear it," Fryery says. "Sometimes your fashion can walk in the room before you do."

He applies the same principle to interior design. "You should look like you belong in a room," he says. "You can't have a princess room and have no confidence in it."

The roots of his design philosophy stretch back as far as childhood, when he often tidied the house for company and made a habit of rearranging the living room furniture.

In the days before he found inspiration in the fashion of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and the art of Monet and Matisse, Fryery noted the simple style his mother plucked from the pages of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and discovered the wonders of silver-leaf wallpaper and classic French decor inside some of Meridian's finest homes.

He was also influenced by the clean-cut khakis and herringbone blazers that seemed to define Oxford, where he got his first gigs decorating friends' dorm rooms and graduated from Ole Miss in 1982. He launched his professional career at age 27, taking on an adaptation of his given name, Timothy Mark Barclay Fryery.

Since the late 1990s, his interiors have been featured in magazines like Elle Decor, Maison Francaise, and House & Garden. Television programs from "Style Court" on E! to "The Early Show" on CBS have called him in for expert design commentary, and in 2003 he bested three other decorators on the USA Network's reality series "House Wars."

In his adopted hometown, Fryery's home was featured in March on the cover of Greenwich Magazine. He also authored for eight years a weekly lifestyle column for The Greenwich Post newspaper that continues today on the designer's own Web site, askbarclay.com.

Today he's marketing a new book to publishers based on his design philosophies, entitled Indulge: 7 Ways to a Fabulous Home.

"Your home is simply a deliberate expression of who you are and who you want to be," he writes in a summary of the book. "The sum of your tastes, attitudes, and priorities, a statement of your personal brand of FABULOUSNESS."

The notion of a home as its owner's personal statement is central to the way Fryery considers his work.

"My design is not cookie-cutter," he says. "I believe interior design should be based on the architecture, the region, and the personalities of the woman, man, and children who live there."

For one recent client, New York anchor Lara Spencer of TV's "The Insider," Fryery sought to fill her entire 20-room house with aristocratic flair to suit her penchant for antiques. Fryery designed original chairs for the master bedroom based upon those found at Althorp, the ancestral home of Princess Diana. He paired plaids and solids in red, green, and gold throughout the home.

The project was commissioned as Lara and her family moved up from a smaller home, requiring new furnishings to fill the larger space. With his design in mind, Fryery gave Lara a shopping list and then set out to arrange each room in a way she wouldn't expect.

"She had great things but would have styled them in a normal way," he says, describing his goal as achieving "preppy but groovy."

Even when filling an entire house, the designer aims to work swiftly. On the day crews delivered the family's things to their new house, Fryery had a team of 20 people waiting and ready.

"We styled the entire thing in one day," he says. "And in a week's time, everything was expertly hung and placed. We set out fresh flowers, and then she saw it."

To the interpreted taste of his clients, Fryery adds his own quirks and convictions. Among them is a rule against floral prints or other busy fabrics.

"I believe the woman should have no competition in the room," he says. "If you come in wearing a leopard-print dress, there should be nothing to compete."

Though he does use touches of plaids, textures, and animal prints, Fryery prefers to work mainly with bold solid colors. For walls, he draws only from the traditional palette of Farrow & Ball paint craftsmen in London, and solid-colored fabrics are his preference for upholstery.

"I use powerful colors," he says. "And then you can put the flowers in vases or in your hair. But I'm very firm about not sitting on flowers."

He's hesitant, too, about embracing style trends unless they carry a foundational standard of quality that will make them endure.

"Neutral colors and classic colors are always in style," he says. "If someone says the new color is orange, paint your room green."

Fryery also adds his personal touch to clients' rooms by incorporating original furnishings he designs himself, from sofas and chairs to room-sized rugs banded in color. Often, the lines of his signature "X" crisscross a rug, painted floor, or chair back.

In bedrooms, if clients are game, he opts for dark colors on the walls to invite sleep and quiet rest, like the charcoal gray that envelops his own retreat. "I think your room should be your oasis away from the world," he says.

Fryery's touches also include the treasures of his global travel: lanterns from Morocco, carved wooden tables from Kenya, Louis XVI candelabra from the south of France.

"My job now is to travel the world and to figure out what style my client can live with within their range," he says. "Then I want them to travel the world and discover the places those things came from."

Passing on that ubiquitous term "eclectic," Fryery describes his goal as creating the "well-traveled home." It's about blending styles, eras, and origins in a unique way and balancing tradition with touches of surprise.

Travel remains such a vital part of his own inspiration, it's something the designer prescribes for every client who wants to discover the style that's lying latent inside them.

"I love where I'm from," Fryery says. "But the more you travel, the more your design and fashion tastes change and become your own."

Going outside one's borders--whether near or far--is essential for bringing home new ideas and capturing the confidence to carry them out. "Don't just copy what everyone else does--that's so easy," Fryery says. "Even if you're in Como, Mississippi, go to Memphis for the weekend. Stay at the Peabody and come back and decorate in your own style."

For those who want to truly make their homes their own, Fryery's advice is simply to be bold and seek freedom from others' expectations. "Imitation is the height of flattery," he says. "But we should all have the mindset that we are to set trends--never follow them."

Upcoming projects for Fryery include a six-episode pilot deal as a designer on a new prime-time unscripted series for CBS. "Moochers," produced by relationship guru Dr. Phil McGraw and his son Jay, is to debut in May with a premise of setting up separate homes for hangers-on who've worn out their welcome staying with family or friends.

Fryery, whose parents Frances and Lee Fryery still reside in Meridian, also dreams of one day opening an interior-design shop in his native state.

the professional relationship

BARCLAY'S TIPS ON WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN WORKING WITH AN INTERIOR DESIGNER

INTERPRETATION

"Find someone who knows how to interpret your style--someone you really click with. You should never have anyone come in and just do what you tell them to do. You can tell your designer what your likes and dislikes are, and then be quiet. A great designer will give you something you never, ever thought you wanted--and when you've got it, you'll love it."

INSPIRATION

"Look at rooms in magazines to see what other people are doing. Don't pooh-pooh a whole picture because you don't like one element in the room. Have a chest where you keep tear-sheets of everything--fashion, art, architecture, and design. Keep that wish-list pile, and when you bring a designer to your home, you can say, 'I like that but not that.' From there, a good designer can get into your head."

INVESTMENT

"A good designer costs money--but I always say, 'Pay once, cry once.' Design should be everlasting, in a style that transcends all periods. Talented designers can do that. Our job is to make it where all you ever have to do is repaint."

everyday indulgence

"Indulgence doesn't have to be big ... It can be as small as a perfect pillow and as inexpensive as a lampshade."--Barclay Fryery

Five tips to take from Barclay's design philosophy:

* When you travel to a new place, take note of the sights, objects, colors, and textures that catch your eye. Use them in your own home, and don't be afraid to blend styles from different places for a "well-traveled" look.

* To discover what really pleases you, take a look inside your own wardrobe and see what your favorite clothes have to say. Are you bold or conservative? Trendy or classic? Formal or cozy?

* When you judge an object in your home or at a store, consider whether it's something you really love or a "pointless garnish" that just gets in the way.

* Streamline your style by culling decorative items, cleaning out your closet, and organizing what's left. Make a habit of giving something away to charity each time you buy something new.

* Don't feel guilty about spending time and money on the spaces you inhabit most. The aura of your environment will affect the way you work, play, rest, and renew.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHICHI UBINA

Interior designer: Barclay Fryery, Greenwich, Connecticut, 203/862-9662, www.askbarclay.com.