THE FOUNDER
Rosana Martilotti
Founder & Creative Director, səˈrēn
Designer, author, and creator of The səˈrēn Method™.
BIO
About Rosana
Rosana Martilotti is the Founder and Creative Director of səˈrēn, a design-led wellness and lifestyle house devoted to the intersection of environment, ritual, sensory experience, nature, and intentional living.
Trained as an interior designer, Rosana holds both a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Florida State University.
Over more than two decades, her professional career has spanned hospitality, residential, commercial, civic, educational, and public environments. Throughout that work, her focus has remained consistent: understanding how space, atmosphere, materiality, and thoughtful design influence the way people feel, gather, and experience the world around them.
Her work eventually expanded beyond the design of physical environments into a deeper exploration of restoration, contemplative practice, and the rituals that shape everyday life. Immersive study and lived experience in South Korea—including time within Buddhist temple settings, tea practice, Korean architecture and spatial philosophy, and traditions of intentional living—became an important influence on the evolution of səˈrēn.
Alongside this study, Rosana deepened her knowledge of the botanical world. She studied the traditional medicinal properties and uses of flowers, herbs, and plants, as well as Ayurvedic approaches to botanical blending. She learned to combine flowers and botanicals for tea, participated in the harvesting and preparation of tea leaves, and studied botanical distillation for essential oils. This hands-on knowledge now informs the development of səˈrēn’s Apothecary, with Rosana personally creating the brand’s tea blends, botanical formulations, essential oils, and ritual products.
From the intersection of her design background, sensory awareness, contemplative study, botanical practice, ritual, and nature, Rosana developed The səˈrēn Method™—the proprietary framework that informs the brand’s retreats, spaces, products, publications, and experiences.
As Founder and Creative Director, she oversees the creative vision of səˈrēn across architecture and interiors, retreat experiences, botanical formulation, ritual, publishing, and the development of the future səˈrēn Healing House. Her approach is grounded in the belief that the environments, objects, and daily rituals that surround us can meaningfully influence how we experience ourselves and how we move through the world.
Rosana is also the author of The Quiet Work, now in print; the forthcoming Han-guk Geon-chuk, an exploration of Korean architecture, spatial philosophy, and intentional living; and The səˈrēn Method, which introduces the philosophy and practices behind the methodology she created.
Through səˈrēn, Rosana brings together more than two decades of design expertise with years of study, cultural immersion, botanical practice, and creative exploration to build something broader than a traditional wellness brand: a considered world of spaces, rituals, objects, and experiences designed around the art of living with greater presence.
A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
Why I Built səˈrēn
For most of my career, I was not thinking about stillness or how to create a more peaceful way of living.
I was an interior designer and business owner, deeply immersed in design, beauty, luxury, fashion, travel, and the excitement of what came next. I loved beautiful homes, beautiful objects, the newest car, the latest handbag, fashion shows, and the constant movement of a creative life. My work was about design, aesthetics, experience, and excellence—not about creating spaces for contemplation or inner peace.
And I loved much of that life. But over time, my relationship with it began to change. Illness forced me to slow down in a way I had never chosen for myself. In that pause, I began to question the constant pursuit of more—not because everything that came before had been wrong, but because I started to understand that achievement and beauty alone were not enough to sustain me.
I became interested in a different kind of beauty: one connected to presence, nature, ritual, simplicity, and the way our surroundings can support how we feel and live. That exploration eventually led me to tea, contemplative practice, and Korea, where many of these ideas deepened. səˈrēn grew from that evolution. It is not a rejection of beauty, ambition, or the life I lived before. It is an expansion of what those things mean to me now—a belief that beauty can do more than impress us; it can help us slow down, pay attention, and return to what matters.
Rosana
Founder & Creative Director
BOOKS & WRITTEN WORK
The Written Work
The Quiet Work
Now in print. A contemplative exploration of the subtle work we do in the quiet moments—and how shifting our environments, rituals, and attention reshapes the way we move through the day.
Han-guk Geon-chuk
Forthcoming. An exploration of Korean architecture, spatial philosophy, and intentional living.
The səˈrēn Method™
Forthcoming. The philosophy and practices behind the methodology Rosana created.
A NOTE FROM ROSANA
A Note from Rosana
Thank you for being here.
səˈrēn is a reflection of what I have lived, what I continue to learn, and the questions I am still asking. I hope something within these pages invites you to slow down, notice more deeply, and make a little more room for what matters. With warmth, Rosana.