After nearly 19 years at House & Garden and 11 as editor, Hatta Byng has announced she’s stepping down from her position at the end of June. “It has been the privilege of my life to help shape the content of this much-loved magazine, to meet some extraordinary people along the way, and work with a super-talented and dedicated team,” Byng wrote to colleagues in an email. “It’s also been a truly exciting time for the brand as we have established our digital presence and become the go-to online resource for decorating inspiration, advice and know-how.” David Nicholls, the publication’s deputy editor since 2015, will step up as interim editor.

Byng attributes the reason for her departure to the company’s requirement to be in the London office four days a week—a difficult commute, as she lives more than four hours away in North Yorkshire, where her children are in school. “I need to have the flexibility in my working life to be there for them,” she wrote in the email.

Byng joined House & Garden in 2006 as senior features editor and was promoted to the top editor position in 2014—becoming the publication’s fifth editor in its long history. Originally launched in the U.S. in 1901 and acquired by Condé Nast in 1915, the magazine’s American edition went through many iterations before finally folding in 2007. The U.K. edition, meanwhile, debuted in 1947 and grew steadily into the successful brand it is today, with a readership of around 300,000.

Upon taking the helm, Byng worked to refresh the magazine, court younger readership and fuel growth by publishing a wide breadth of projects on different scales and budgets, as well as embracing social media through initiatives like the brand’s popular YouTube Design Notes video tour series. “The print magazine is still absolutely the cornerstone of what we do, but we use social media to amplify those stories, tell more stories and reach more people,” she told Dennis Scully on The Business of Home Podcast in December. “We now shoot probably more houses that go straight onto digital, because it’s a hungry beast that needs feeding.”

In January, Byng reflected on her 10th anniversary as editor and selected 10 of her favorite rooms published over her tenure, noting that each reflects the “sense of soulfulness” that has become synonymous with House & Garden’s interiors coverage.

Byng said in her email that she is looking forward to exploring new opportunities and is grateful for her two decades at House & Garden. “Since Covid through the last five years, we really have been having to provide comfort, and we must understand what our audience is going through in whichever way,” she said in her BOH podcast interview. “We feel a responsibility to provide an escapism and to be uplifting.”