DeWayne Porter, 43; Designer Aimed to Create an African American Style

DeWayne Porter, an interior designer and set designer with a client list that included singers Aretha Franklin and Nancy Wilson as well as former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, has died. He was 43.

One of the first African American interior designers to be included in such fundraising events as Divine Design in Los Angeles and the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, Porter died May 26 at his home in Los Angeles, his father, Clifford Porter, said.

The exact cause was not known, but Porter had chronic liver disease, his father said.

Porter was known for classically based, elegant design with a vintage flavor. He sometimes decorated rooms with damask wallpaper, heavy drapes and neoclassical sculpture. Other times he used modern materials and abstract art.

He aimed to create an African American style, Porter said, but not with kente cloth and ethnic furnishings.

“We are a rich people, but it’s not often reflected in our homes,” Porter said in a 2000 interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel. “We are warm, colorful people, but our houses have drab white walls and fluorescent lights. Our homes should be our sanctuary.”

He made inroads into the predominantly white design profession throughout his career and was featured in several prominent home decor magazines.

Porter’s first clients included members of the Little Rock Baptist Church, which he attended in his native Detroit. One church member introduced him to Franklin, who hired him to decorate her waterfront apartment in the city.

As part of a 1996 fundraising event in Detroit, he was asked to decorate a room in a local mansion where he created what he called a “fantasy bedroom” that mixed classical and “cyberspace” themes. He dedicated it to Wilson.

“He used beautiful fabrics, warm colors. It was very elegant,” Wilson told The Times. “DeWayne had great taste.”

Wilson said she later hired Porter to decorate her condominium in Las Vegas.

He refurbished the Detroit mayor’s office for Archer in the mid-1990s, giving the room a modern look to replace what he considered a hodge-podge of styles.

Born Sept. 4, 1962, Porter was the only son of Clifford and Mary Ann. His parents also had one daughter before they divorced.

Porter had two stepsisters from his mother’s second marriage. He is survived by his parents, his siblings and several nieces and nephews.

Porter attended Lawrence Institute of Technology in Detroit, where he studied architecture for two years. He studied design at the Harrington Institute of Interior Design in Chicago and at the Pratt Institute in New York City.

Porter moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s and added theater set design to his range of projects.

He earned an NAACP Image Award for best set decoration in 2003 for the touring show “Love Makes Things Happen.”

Porter said that his proudest achievement came in 2005 when he was chosen to contribute to the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, where some 40,000 visitors saw his work.

He was chosen to decorate a back hallway and rear staircase in last year’s featured house, an Italianate estate designed by Wallace Neff in 1929.

Porter turned the space into what he referred to as “The Escape,” with cream-colored upholstery on a comfortable chair, flowing curtains, books, soft lighting and small, classical sculptures.

“He was disappointed about getting a hallway,” Porter’s longtime friend Clarence Brown said this week. “He wanted a more prominent space. But DeWayne said, ‘I’ll take it and make something of it.’ And that’s what he did.”

A memorial service is scheduled for tonight at 7 at the Gospel Memorial Church of God in Christ, 1480 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach.