Alexa Hampton began her design career early. “I started working for my father when I was 13,” she said earlier this week at a celebration for her new line of furniture for Hickory Chair. She had a good first employer: Her father was famed interior designer Mark Hampton, whose clients included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Estee Lauder, Brooke Astor, and George and Barbara Bush, and whose historic restoration projects included sections of the White House, Gracie Mansion, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today, Ms. Hampton is the president and featured designer of Mark Hampton Inc. – she took over the firm at the age of 27 when her father died in 1998 – and is a highly accomplished designer in her own right. She has appeared numerous times on the “100 Best Designers” lists of Architectural Digest and House Beautiful, and was selected as the interior designer of the Trowbridge House, the official guesthouse for former American presidents in Washington, D.C. She has her own line of textiles for Kravet Fabrics and is a regular cast member of PBS’s “This Old House”; she’s also a senior design consultant for the PBS series, “Find!”

And to the venerable, North Carolina-based furniture firm Hickory Chair, she brings something beyond her design skill: the sensibility of a young, apartment dwelling New Yorker. “Alexa is sensitive to the younger audience,” Hickory Chair’s president Jay Reardon said, emphasizing that this is an audience his company is eager to reach. After all, jaded Manhattanites used to the Mid-Century Modern reproductions that crowd every store in SoHo may blanch at the idea of bringing a brand called “Hickory Chair” into their homes.

Although Hickory Chair, established in 1911, is best known for its reproductions of 18th- and 19thcentury American antiques (some of its earliest reproductions have themselves become collectibles), the firm has recently branched into more modern territory through contracts with contemporary designers such as Thomas O’Brien and Mariette Himes Gomez of New York’s Gomez Associates. Its first such partnership, in fact, was with Ms. Hampton’s father, in 1988.

Ms. Hampton’s new collection for Hickory Chair, which will reach the market in April, emphasizes flexibility and versatility, a feature that Ms. Hampton and Mr. Reardon hope will appeal to design-savvy consumers interested in choosing a few select pieces to incorporate into their home decor, rather than a complete dining or bedroom set. The collection consists of 40 pieces, which are available in 36 different finishes and paints – meaning that the same table or bookshelf can be commissioned in classic-looking Santos rosewood or mahogany, folksy “chippywhite” paint, or sleek, Asian-inspired enamel lacquer.

Depending on the finish and upholstery, a large sofa in the collection is likely to be priced around $3,000; a small armchair around $1,400; a large armoire, $7,000 to $8,000; a tufted bed around $3,400; and a bedside table around $1,000. Hickory Chair has a “to-the-trade” showroom at the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington Avenue, and select pieces are sold at New York stores such as Scully and Scully and Aero; additional retailers are listed at www.hickorychair.com.