Born in Tallinn on 17 September 1927, Leila Pärtelpoeg specialised in the design of historical furniture. She studied architecture at the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute from 1946 and graduated from the Estonian State Art Institute in 1954.

Shortly afterwards, she worked for a year at the Ministry of Culture as an inspector of art monuments. At the same time, Pärtelpoeg became active in her actual profession: In the advertising and design office of the Estonian branch of the Chamber of Commerce of the Soviet Union, she worked with Salme Liiver and Maimu Plees (Estonian designer) on interior design projects until 1961. From 1961 to 1978 she worked in the design office KIPR of the Ministry of Trade and taught interior architecture and furniture design at the Estonian Art Institute. She was an associate professor there from 1973. Her position at the Art Institute ended in 1982. Before she was granted professorial status, she was in contact with architects from Finland and worked on the furniture history of the Hermitage in Leningrad and on historical furniture of East Germany.

In 1993, after Estonia’s independence, the interior designer received a grant from the Nordic Council of Ministers of Historical Interiors in Denmark and Finland.

Since 1984, the interior designer has been honoured with several awards. Her first recognition was that of the Estonian SSR as an honoured architect. Collectively with other participants, she was awarded the Estonian Cultural Foundation Annual Prize for Architecture for the project of the historic interiors of the Riigikogu Chamber (Estonian Council of State/Parliament).

Pärtelpoeg has two daughters with the sportsman and skier Ilmar Pärtelpoeg: a jeweller named Mai Pärtelpoeg and Kadri Tarbe, who took her mother as a role model and also became an interior architect. Pärtelpoeg herself was also active in sports and became the Estonian SSR slalom champion at the SSR Alpine Skiing Championships and won other medals in tennis.