Kelly Wearstler

>> The most difficult problems to solve would be time when things are in construction every day, just its money, the clients want to get in, their schedules, you have contractors and you have all the different subcontractors involved, they also have with their projects. And so really getting a handle on that and everyone has to work and unison together and

collaborate, have incredible communication, you know, we have a project now we're working

on with there is 500 consultants and different team members that work below them that are working on one project. And so you just have to have structure and the accountability and just great talents that know how to operate. >> Will that one ever get done? >> Yes, yes, yes. It's already behind schedule and it's actually a really cool project. >> Tell me about it. >> It's in Lake Tahoe, which is so gorgeous.

So I had been either until I went to see the project for the first time, but it's the only place I've been to where there's one species of plant and it's all a pine tree. Like there's nothing mixed in, it's so sculptural and really quite stunning and it's a project called Kalniva. And it was built as a hotel casino in 1926. It was a place that all of

Hollywood would go and hang out because it was one of the first casinos in California, Nevada.

“And that's why it's called Kalniva because it's on the border of California, Nevada.”

>> Yeah. >> And Judy Garland would go there, all the Hollywood producers, actors, directors. And then in 1960 Frank Sinatra bought it. >> Wow. >> And he built the Frank Sinatra Theater, which is a 400-person theater. And some of the history is quite fascinating. There's all these tunnels that are underneath the property that Frank could easily go into, you know, around the property without being

seen. Marilyn Monroe would hang out there. The Kennedy's, you know, was that whole kind of brought pack era. And they would perform there. So we're reimagining it. And of course, like really taken in all the history, preserving as much historic fabric as we can. And it is a really ambitious project. We're building shoelays. There's a membership club. There's a courting studio. There are six food and beverage outlets. There's a 40,000 square

foot wellness facility with rockets, boards, and retail. It goes on. There's how many rooms.

“>> There are 200 rooms. >> And are you doing everything?”

>> Everything. >> Wow. Yeah. >> In a project like that, where there are so many aspects to it, do you make an overall stylistic decision that impacts all of it? What do you think of them as each of the pieces can be its own thing? >> Each of the pieces can be their own thing. But it's like the ultimate

collaboration. It really is because there are many voices. So there is, you know, an incredible

chef. There's incredible doctor this part of the wellness. There's some musical talent producers that are involved from Olsen Kundig, who's the architect on this project, who's fantastic and all this great programming. So that kind of gives us the direction on. So we will have

“many conversations with the chef. What is the food and beverage? What do you want to do here?”

How do you want to operate? What do you want the vibe to be? But we want it to feel like you're in like Tahoe, like having a place that feels site-specific. It's like really important to me and my studio. >> Do you want to feel like you're stepping back in time when you get there? >> Yes. There will be a sense of nostalgia. But it's not going to feel, I mean, it'll feel reimagined. But there is, like, in my work, I find I use a lot of vintage and furniture from,

you know, the past. I love history. But there will also be some really cool contemporary artists that will bring their hand in sculpture and in furniture and different mill work. And so the red red is really the music in this project. >> If something has a historical significance, which this one does, where's the line between recreating what was there and bringing something new? Where the

is probably maybe 30% there more in the lodge. And so really uncovering it over the years,

“it was owned by different developers. And so kind of peeling back the drywall, looking at some”

of the original bones and creating the tensions between bringing something that's contemporary. And of some things contemporary, I wanted to have like really like rich woods that are tactile and have a lot of spirit and they feel vintage. And whether we bring in a contemporary artist and that material is maybe some sort of like raw sandblasted glass or there is some sort of metal that has been treated and that creates these beautiful tensions bringing in furniture and lighting

and creating these different dichotomies. >> Will there still be a casino? >> Yes. >> Will you be designing a casino? >> Yes, so there's a lot of first here for like the recording studio, the casino. So just learning all about the business, which is fascinating because I'm so

“curious and I love to learn. It's like infinite and like being a creative, that's the beauty of”

what we do. So being able to design these spaces and work with the different casino gambling consultants and just learn how all this operates and just all of the different security and processes is really fascinating. It's all table games. So it's very chic, it'll be something like you would see you know in Monaco. But it feels like Cal Niva and it has that spirit, that historic spirit and the nostalgia that was there. >> Do you ever manufacture pieces specifically for projects

as opposed to finding existing furniture? >> But we can mission a lot of artists to do things that are specific and proprietary to a project. And we could look for quite some time and not find the right piece. So we have many different artists that we've worked with in the past. And that's one of the most exciting parts of my job is going to the studio of an artist and working with them.

But I'm always looking around like in their materials library and just things laying around.

And I'll find something and say this is incredible and they're like oh I was like working on something a couple of years ago and I'm like I love this and I also love what you do and let's do something new and different together. So it's just one of the most exciting parts of creating and collaborating with many different artists and that's one of the reasons I started the side hustle this project. >> What is that? >> Side hustle is like a new gallery, it's a new model and it all

came from working with artists and we would commission them to do proprietary works for projects. And just over the years whether it was like in a book or it was a hotel project and people was had love that and it was like done specifically for this project and I love celebrating

artists. I love emerging artists of course I love the established but there's always you know

I like kind of the old and new. I like the raw and they were find and the emerging and the established. And so I have ten artists and the curatorial theme is called again differently and it's about failing doing something again but differently and the works crossover from rubber to performance art to a scent like I want to stimulate all the senses. It's something that I do in my hospitality projects and so there's a atmospheric playlist that Kenny Beats did warn me there is mirror, there's bronze

we worked with Sonya Gomez who's an amazing artist from Brazil and she works in tapestry and textiles and so she did her first works and bronze so everything is exclusive and it's kind of like a

“free spirit for artists. >> Are they functional pieces or are they art pieces?”

>> They're both. There's a place where artists maybe want to do something that they maybe don't have the means to do. They need to lean on my team and I for maybe the assembly or fabrication and so it's this like great collaborative effort so it's been like really exciting and you know going to the art studio they're global. It's like Brazil and Berlin and Amsterdam and LA and New York but it's a free spirit platform and it crosses over also automotive we

had a vintage amazing vintage car there and you know it's music and it's sculpture and it's designed as performance art and it's poetry you know there's no like set agenda. >> Yeah are most artists

that you go to interested in collaborating? >> Yes always because they go artists want to learn

so it's there and it's open by appointment only and you know I wanted to place where people could

“come and feel you know inspired and it's a very warm and friendly atmosphere you know a lot of”

the galleries now feel very cold and you're a little intimidated to go and I was like if I ever do something like this I wanted to feel really warm and inviting. >> Is there an online aspect of it as well or no? >> Yes yeah there's a digital platform and it's really great it has you know all the artists and it has their story and a lot of great storytelling and there's also it's called Hustle Culture and Hustle Culture is a place that you can go to to be inspired so there's a lot of like

moving images and then you can open the image and I'll tell you what it is you know and I love continuing to learn and then I would love to share that you know knowledge with everyone.

“>> Describe a maximalist interior versus a minimalist interior. >> A maximalist interior”

has so much energy and it is endless discovery and a minimalist environment makes you think and ponder and breathe in trying to take a moment. >> And what's your relationship to both of those? >> I've been in all of those scenarios and in between and I love collecting and as I've been going to you know going to options and flea markets and thrift stores my whole entire life and when I see these anomalies in the world like I want to buy them I want to take

them home kind of earlier in my career. I was you know really having a little more of a maximalist design theory and you know it's working with clients that really kind of help push me forward

“because I would have clients that I really want to really spare and it is kind of taken me to a new place”

like I'm kind of in between but if somebody wanted me to do something maximalist I would love it but I would also love to do something that is so pair down where it's just about the materiality it's about the model light that comes through the window and the volume of the space. >> What type of things do you collect? >> Everything. I love everything that is interesting and it could be a tray, it could be a chair, it could be a vintage tie, jewelry, it could be a light

fixture and it's all over the place and I'm just open to anything that's unique and interesting. >> Where are your favorite places to shop? >> You know all over I travel for work and I travel

with my family and I'm always seeking out like the places to go whether it's a thrift store

and I still love going into like the stinky thrift store and digging through just everything defined like I'm collecting vintage books I love vinyl I love vintage clothing and it's just all over the place so really seeking out those type of stores and then I love the contemporary so going to galleries and then just over the years I have great relationships with like many dealers around the world and constantly in communication with them and just have a great you know

kind of roster of amazing people have the same kind of curiosity and shopping problem that I have.

>> Do you use first dibs? >> Yeah first dibs is a good source but just getting through

there's like a lot of a lot of things on first dibs and so I really now feel you know I have the pleasure of working with a lot of people that I really like their taste level and I like what they find and what they curate and so I really focus on you know that group of people and there's many of those and I also love options I love going to options and just like now we're actually getting into options season which is so fun and you find things that you we weren't looking

for and like that's the best like that discovery is so exciting and I found these really cool vintage art deco guitar so there's eight of them and they're made with a plastic the color theory

is amazing and so like I wasn't looking for those but I was so like just the energy and the

excitement when I saw those like knew how to have those and those would be great for Calmeva. >> Are there any things you've ever bought or collected that you could not imagine parting with?

Dolores at car chairs they're made in the 80s and they're really really difficult to find

in the chairs like I love chairs I love things that are functional but also very sculptural. >> Describe what those chairs look like. >> They're faceted and they have a low back and

“they're exterior shell is wood. >> Would you say they look deco or no?”

>> No they look they look kind of like punk 80s and they're black and they have like this exterior wood shell and they're very beveled and they have two back legs that are open and so the silhouette is like really quite beautiful and then the interior is leather black leather and they're

all original and they're all original. Like I like finding things that are in the original

condition like what we find things that are that are vintage and have like a really nice patina on them we just really very gently restore them because we like that patina and things that have history and that feel like they've been around the block. >> If there's a classic item that's rare and for whatever reason you can't find one we do make one to use if it was the right thing for the project. >> No because there's something about something that has history that you just

cannot like reproduce. >> What do you think it is? >> It's the patina even if it's slight just like on the

leg or you know you can tell like it's had like another life it's had a story and you have friends

like that you know it's the same thing with furniture and different things that we curate you know work of art it's been in like so many rooms it's heard so many conversations you know you feel the energy you really do. >> As nutrition science advanced through the mid 20th century researchers began to understand that modern eating patterns limited variety processed foods and time constraints could leave small but meaningful gaps in daily micro nutrient intake. Today large population studies

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to the next. It's no wonder AG one is trusted by the world's top athletes and experts. What was once a futuristic concept daily nutritional support in a glass is now the result of a wide cycle. Learn more at rankedag one dot com slash petro do it today. How is vintage clothing related to your work? Vintage clothing I absolutely love and I collect and I use it so much for inspiration and detailing like even as simple as like a leather jacket

and how it's sewn and assembled and stitching and I'll use that on something that's upholstered and with my team at the studio like when we're designing something I'm like don't look at anything that represents that category like if you're going to design a chair look at architecture

“or if you're going to design you know a drinking glass perhaps look at earrings like that's how”

you're going to find something and create something new is when you discover inspiration in an odd place I love that idea and in my studio when we're starting projects like I do not want to see

really do I mean how can you reinvent something that is now and happening now and even when we design a space and why I love like many of our spaces like truly feel timeless because it's filled with soulful material and it's also filled with vintage and antique and found objects and design there's contemporary pieces that are there for sure because I love that tension but you really can't tell when the house was designed and that's like really important to me I want it to be

timeless yeah I read that you got to work with Milton Glaser yes tell me about that oh yeah so I went to college I've found mortal beach I went to school in Boston and I was there for four years and then I decided that was going to go to New York for maybe a year or two and I got an apprentice ship with Milton Glaser and he's like I thought that happened I sent him a note wow yeah I sent him

“a note and what did the note say that I loved his work I think I put together like I was always”

in to putting together these like really kind of like elaborate little books that kind of told

a story I put together and I would always make the envelope like it was always making things like

things and just felt special and like a little piece of art and I sent him a note and I got a call back and they wanted to meet so I remember taking the train went to New York and and I got the job for it was more of an apprenticeship for a year and it was amazing because and what I really loved about him is he was doing some interiors but he was also this iconic graphic designer and he created the I love New York you know symbol this iconic and he obviously worked in

the music business and he just did so many incredible things and he was like playful and just his use of typography and his use of color so I worked with him and it was in a townhouse and

there were four floors and he was always so fluid he was like you know and all the different floors

he lived in as well and he didn't live there so it was just full of us yeah it was just some many employees at that time when he said I would say there was probably 20 and it crossed over

“you know design I mean he was really like you know multi disciplinary designer and I remember”

his work he did a restaurant and then hadn't that was that had all these like figure old cards it was like a nose and and I and his like use of sculpture and it was just like you know quite playful and this was drawn to that so I worked with them for a year and it was amazing and I then decided like I wanted to I mean New York's a hard city when you have no money and like I you know I wasn't making that much money when I was working from Milton I was still

I was waiting tables still on the side so I could afford to pay my rent with my two other roommates and it was a great time but I just wanted to be close to the ocean and and be you know in warm weather but it was a really it was a great time can you remember a piece of wisdom Milton or anyone else imparted on you that changed how you saw the world I would say it came from my mom and it was really like early on she was just like nobody will take care of you

“other than yourself you have to be happy on your own you have to take care of yourself obviously you”

know fine love but you have to own yourself and she was always a big believer in like taking risks

she grew up in Ohio you know and just decided like of course she grew with our friends they stay there and she and my my dad like just moved to mortal beach is like interesting move at that time and so that was something that she was always you know telling my sister and I and it really stopped did they say why they chose to move to mortal beach because like the weather they would go and visit there and then they just loved it I mean you know it's like different it's a very

different place to grow up and it was just alive to them and they just felt free there and it was you know a beautiful place tell me about your parent's relationship they got married when they were 18 or 17 wow really young and they were like high school sweetheart's and they were together for about five years because when they moved to mortal beach a kind of like started to

a divorce and like weren't in a new place and then my dad kind of like just kind of like stepped out of like the family and it was like really a hard time and like so hurtful you know

“and I think about why I do what I do and like I always like I'm a people pleaser and I want to”

make people happy and creating like spaces and places for people to come to like because great design makes you want to stay yeah has your personal taste changed over the course of your life

yes oh my god my taste is 100% change like just growing up in South Carolina my mom was always

taking us to like the vintage store we would go to North Carolina we'd go to New York City together and we were always just auctions flea markets thrift stores constantly looking for interesting things and she had this little antique shop so she was always looking to curate items from there so my sister and I were always in tow so I was at that point in my life like from a very young age like educating my eye and just because I'm so curious like I'm just opening a books and and magazines

and like if we discover to have this love for graphic design and which is what I went to school for before I for studying architecture so going to all these places with my mom and really just discovering things picking up candlesticks and and opening up books and you know buying

scarves and and fashion and just seeing everything in one place and always being surprised so

“really knowing like from growing up in mortal beaches knowing that you have to kind of always”

seek out the beauty and things that are interesting do you still like the things that you might of like back then or no I still love things that are that have like soul yeah if you look at my early work and sometimes I'm like oh my god like what was I thinking like I would never use that color again like I don't know it just like feels like maybe it wasn't wouldn't be as bright so like I think obviously over time your taste level gets better but then like I was a risk taker I'm still

a risk taker but I have like your taste becomes more refined and you're exposed to more things and you're educating your eye and you're learning from your clients I'm learning from all these

incredible creatives that I work with and still I love chairs I love art and I love sculpture

“so that hasn't changed that all still is like so important and true to what I do is it possible”

that any of those things that you look back and think that wasn't very good was actually very good but it was just a different time yeah so like there that's it's so true like I would have done things again differently and I was like that was actually a bold move when I did that what I and I've asked myself like do that again yeah and I would do it again but it would be in a different situation and like so many things like early in your career is like based on budget

and it's based on having the limitations and we still get them now on all our projects like there are limitations that even cushions up to to be more creative but there are things that I go back and look at it past work and I was like that was like a bold move and you know and I'm a shy person like I'm really shy and people think oh you're you're like quiet or and your work is so much more you know makes a statement yeah tell me about your relationship to colors

color oh I got color is so emotional and I love color and white is a color black is a color and I like everything you know in between my home now is is all white all the walls are white and I'm actually redoing a room now that I'm going to experiment with color and we've actually lived in the house that we live in now for quite some time and it was many different rooms there were many different colors and that's when I went into my kind of pair-down mode

I was like maximalist there and then I just started removing things and I was like god it feels so good there's like space things can breathe but now I feel like I want like a little color but it's going to be muted but color is really personal to people and we take our time you know when we present color to clients you know whether it is in a textile or whether it's on a wall or it's on a floor you know we really like to experiment and do interesting things with color it's like so

designed by James Tolina and it is a home that has a lot of history actually a lot of Hollywood

history and it's a home that I never thought I would be living in it has so much spirit and soul

“like you just you can feel it it just feels so good and I remember the first time that we went to see”

the house and we actually lived up the street in another home a very different home it was a 1956 how level it and it was like 10 houses up from from this house and I remember my husband I just had Oliver and Elliott I just we just renovated this house and he was like I found another house and I was just like no way and he was like let's just go look at it and of course you know we drove up in the landscape being there's like there's like beautiful trees everywhere and it's just you know has this

amazing energy and that's really important to me the house has you know really kind of delicate architecture and it's intimate like the scales very intimate and we use every room in the house

“which is just great and nothing's precious we have friends and kids over it's a very active busy house”

I have team from my studio come over and it's very energetic and it's always changing like there's

always something changing art furniture getting moved in and it's like my laboratory is your house the only place that you've done and then read done or there are other places that you've done and then sometime years later gone back and changed them well we lost our house in the fire so this is something that we built our family home and we were there for we had this house for 16 years and so we're doing it again and we're doing it again but it's going to be different.

So the 16 year ago house burned. Yes and we we built that home and there are many

“beautiful things to the home and my family wants it to be exactly how it was”

because it was so meaningful to them and like just all the memories and being there and the smells and just the movement around the house and they want it to be exactly the same but you

never will like at the entrance of our home when you walked in there was this huge plaster

cornacopia that was about eight feet and it just kind of sat on the floor like a shell because I wanted everything just to kind of feel like there were things like I found on the beach it was all very tactile and earthy and but it was in this very minimal space it was an entrance that was all skinned in timber and then you just had this big shell like I'm never going to find that again but the footprint is the same we also had in the center of the house it was like a two story

volume that was open so the energy of upstairs and downstairs were very fluid and I plan to a huge tree in there so we're going to do that again so there'll be some moves that are similar but it's going to be it's going to be very different the process will be the same we're already like you know curating things together as a family and we're living a little differently so there'll be some new programming and things that you know we want to enjoy in a different way but there's

the dialogue though I actually drove by on the way here and there we had this incredible rock like two rocks that are in the front of our house was like the sculpture so that is going to be the same in that energy and that dialogue with the house and this rock is going to you know bring back the memories L M N T element electrolytes have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the

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and when I just started and have my my business in LA which had happened unexpectedly but I was working on our house and I was like let's do these stripes that are like all over the house but they change in the different rooms because she wanted color and she wanted energy and something was dynamic and it was a disaster it was so and she was at a town what had

“happened and then I ended up I honestly like ended up painting it back myself on color”

wow because she had a budget you know I want to make her home like so amazing you know I just

took a big risk and it did not pan out did she get to see it or she never got to see it

no I called her and I was like it just doesn't look good like we're going to go back she was like okay like she was like really cool that the project turned out amazing great so you learned kind of you know along the way and I was going to have to pay for it myself or do it myself and I ended up just doing it myself did that make you gun shy about trying outrageous things it made me yes it made me gun shy but I still like maybe still taking risks but maybe not doing it

in the entire house like that was where it was just like two bowl of the move

any rules that are unbreakable for example does a living room always have a couch

“no I think that no it doesn't have to and I think it's what what somebody does in this space it”

doesn't have to have a sofa and it could be just chairs it could just be benches you know it all really comes down to its purpose are clients good at explaining what they do in the spaces or no they are I mean there is like what people expect to do in this space and we try and and really get you know acirite questions to get information out of like what do you you know do you like to lay down do you like to set up do you like to you know have different

tables that you can move around do you want things that are more flexible do you want to be able to you know have you know great lighting like lighting is so important on projects and lighting we want everyone to look great all our clients look great and so lighting is like so important you've ever inspired by interiors you see in old movies always the love seeing things in old movies and love the you know 20s 30s 40s I mean that's the beauty of Los Angeles it's like this

free spirit of like all this amazing architecture that is just everywhere when you walk into a space

for the first time do you always have a vision of what it can be what does it take a while to

understand the possibilities it takes a while and I'm all about like keeping it flexible and you're going to discover things along the way and we do we have the tools now to create these great renderings and really show clients like what the possibilities are but you know at the end of the day someone so a client's going to say you know I I really want this room I actually want to do something else in this space and so I like keeping it you know very flexible and specific and just

again having the communication with the client to envision on you know what what the space could be

“would you build the same thing in like Kahou has it in Los Angeles as in New York?”

No like everything is site specific and I love the diversity of architecture I love the obviously the clients bring so much to the table the team that my studio is a different assembly of team like the outcome is very different like it's interesting to see what different team members bring to a project and it's the same thing you know with with the art architect and you know the the art advisor could be helping the clients curate incredible selection

of art and that's also such a big part of what the what the outcome will be so every project

I like to push myself I like to push my team and do something different every time if you go back to something you worked on a while ago and you come back to visit it

“does it feel like that's how I left it when I left it or no? No it feels like things have changed”

in terms of like furniture maybe will be in like a different place because we will have parties and and there's a lot of different things happening so yeah overall it definitely feels the same it has the same smell it has the same vibe you know maybe the books that I curated early on or different yeah you're relying on people that are working at the hotel that moment

that maybe have gone and gotten books for the library so I always want to keep it tight like it's

so important to me and we work really hard to do that. What was your first professional project? My first professional project was the Avalon hotel and that's a hotel and Beverly Hills that is an iconic 1950s hotel it was actually built as an apartment hotel Merlin and Rowe actually lived there is a young actress and it changed hands over the years and it was bought by a group of developers and my husband was one of the owners and I had been working with him

he's in real estate and I worked with him maybe for two years on these historic apartment buildings they were buying and we were renovating them and giving them you know new love and working on the common areas and so when he got this hotel I'm like I really want to do this project and he had investors and the investors like she hasn't done a hotel because it's a really is a different beast and so the investors were like well we'll have or do a model room because when you do a hotel

“you have to do a model room and make sure everything is perfect and all the parties are aligned it's”

functional it looks great and when you go to execute it's all been you know studied and they also said oh you also have to find an architect who's done a hotel before so I found Coney Eisenberg and Coney Eisenberg had done the Mondrian with Philippe Stark on sunset and I found

them and they were incredible and they taught me so much like they're so lovely and so that was the

first hotel kind of the big project that I felt really helped propel me a little into more of like the commercial world I was also doing residential and I was doing like some office and you know when I came to Los Angeles I was in Boston in New York I went to school there I'd only been to Los Angeles once before and like fell in love with it and when I moved here I got a job waiting tables which I'd done my whole life through high school and through college and I was like okay

this is the last time I wanted to do this even though I really enjoyed it this is the last time I wanted to get a job and I kind of got my my bearings what was the restaurant it was child Brasory and so I got a job there and I met a producer and he was said my wife and I bought this little bungalow in Venice and and he would they would be coming in all the time so we came very friendly and he said would you help us with it and like we wanted to really start with just one space

and so we worked on their living room and they loved it and then we ended up working on the dining room and then I ended up doing the whole entire house and and it was maybe you know like 2000 square feet it was you know it was really small it was so charming and cute and I was getting up every morning I was going to the flea market because they had a budget and I was get like five

“in the morning you have to get there very early I have my flashlight looking for all the treasures”

because that's great training for my mom and you know for my childhood and you know furnished the house and you know was really being thoughtful about kind of you know where to spend the money and and the house turned out great and then I got another job from somebody saying that home and so I started my own business like I didn't really I was going to work for an architectural or design firm when I came to Los Angeles and it just kind of happened where I was like okay I

now have a business would you go to the Rose Bowl is that typically yeah I was going to Rose Bowl I go to Pasadena City College I would go to Long Beach was another really good one and like every weekend there is a flea market in different places and then in between that like they're used to be so many cool shops and LA and they're just not here anymore unfortunately just driving down the street

there would be I always stop I was always stopping in to all the you know this lighting store

was loving just learning and seeing all these different shops so I was doing the residential projects

“and then I was getting also some like small commercial projects and I did Ben Stiller's office”

which is really fun and from there probably after say the avalan and you know mix of residential and hospitality I got a call from Burgdorf Goodman which was like I was like what I was so excited and I actually just had a book that came out called Modern Glamour and she was like we're huge fans and we have a restaurant that's on you know the top floor and we would love you know to consider you to do the restaurant and I was thinking like well I can't believe it because like

you think they would have somebody from New York do the design and so we did like a presentation we ended up getting that project which was like so exciting and it still looks I mean that was probably it's been 12 years it still looks the same like they've done a incredible job at maintaining it it looks perfect it was a really big success and then maybe like a year later Linda and the president called and they said you know we would love for you to have a shop

to sell some of your creations and I was thinking like I really hadn't designed like I'm not

I don't have product and I was thinking you know I'm always up for an incredible challenge and

so thinking you know I have designed things for our projects and came back to them and like like let's do it and we created about 20 products and they were small there were more like accessories and sculpture and bowls and it crossed over all these different materialities and open my first kind of like retail and kind of accessories objects product and how is that? It was great you know it was a challenge like I had no idea what like what you know what is your resale or what is like it was

like a full new business for me but they were a great partner you know a really supportive which was

amazing and because you need that like when you're making these big steps into different

feel you need like a great partner that you know you can lean on. How are you able to continue spending all of the different plates? Yeah yeah that's true I do spend a lot of plates you know I have I have a great team yeah I have an incredible like family that supports me and

“I have a lot of stamina and I always have my kind of workout is really important to me and it keeps”

me focused it's kind of my meditation you do in the morning when you go I do it I do it in the morning I get up super early I get up at five and I have like a few minutes of myself and then I work out for probably like an hour and a half and I'll do also like a sauna and things like that and

it's just my kind of active meditation and then I've always taken my kids to school like

super involved wake him up in the morning and you know spend time they're always like in my bathroom and and then I go to the studio I'm in my studio all day like every day and I love it I really love the mentorship and the creative energy that's there and it's really important to me to have everyone there because that's where the magic happens is being together and feeling one's energy and then one o'clock every day I leave and I go do another workout.

What's the afternoon workout after workout afternoon? My afternoon delight is a Pilotty session or I'll do a like kind of deep breathing and stretch or I'll do like a weight training. So it just depends on on what day it is and I feel so good and so revitalized after that and I just go in back to the studio and I just have so much energy and feel refreshed and you know and I really like to just be quiet like sometimes like I won't listen to music I just want to like be in the

moment and it's like this cleans for me. So much of today's life happens on the whip.

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“How much time do you spend traveling versus being home?”

It's probably more so now like I didn't travel a ton maybe 15 years ago, but now it's quite often because we have a lot of like global projects. We have project in Carshavel. We're going

to an amazing project in Stockholm and Sweden. It's a former culinary school that was built last

century next door. There's a former zoo, and so it's going to be a hotel membership club, and then the former zoo is going to be a music venue. It's really cool. Really exciting project. So the travel definitely and then I have partnerships like different partnerships with global partners where we do creative direction for and design product. So that's like really also really fun and exciting. One thing that I just designed that was really incredible is a piano.

“Tell me about that. So it's a company in the UK, they're in Cambridge and it's like a four”

generation family and they designed these really amazing pianos and most of them. They're like

more of a compact size because a piano takes up like 20% of a room. So in their all focused on incredible design and something that's different in unique. So we've actually placed a few of their pianos in our projects. So we have this great relationship and they were like we would love to design a piano with you and it's so exciting. Like I know who knew. Are there any projects that you haven't done yet like a dream project? You know I don't look into the future so much like I

like to kind of just like ride the wave and and just be open to possibility but there is one thing that would be so exciting that I would love to do and that would be to design the torch

“for the Los Angeles Olympics. And you know I love sports like my family like we're very sporty”

family and we watch it all the time and we're always going to you know sporting events and I love

stories of athletes like they're so inspiring and like where they came from and the grit and the fortitude and everything that they got to where they're the best of the best and they would be like the biggest honor and there's never been a female that is designed the torch so that would be something that would be a dream. Cool let's put that out into the universe and see what comes back when you're going to a place you haven't been before a new country, a new city and you want to

check out all of the hamcrafted stuff and the unusual specific stuff. How would you find the best resources in a place you haven't been before? Just research and word of mouth and just being open and curious and really understanding kind of when you go to a new city you want to seek out and see something like I love falling in love with things and when I see something new like just having that feeling and that emotion is so beautiful so really seeking out all the

anomalies that a city has to offer and I have a lot of like great you know friends and dealers and people in the art and design world that you know are like-minded and so calling and like what is the best restaurant and you know I just launched a sub-stack and it's called Worstler World and we actually cover a lot of travel and sharing a lot of the different locations that I go to and also it has a design lens obviously and it's fashion and it's art and it's anything that is creative and

beautiful and I love educating my community and sharing my knowledge and hearing from everyone and Instagram which I love which is a very like kind of quick little you know nibble of information

when did you first start posting on Instagram? Right when it came out and you know we were all

like kind of uncertain it was like actually it's really cool and interesting and I'm all about doing something different so when Instagram came out I was excited so we just jumped on the bandwagon and I had an in-house PR director at the time so we just started telling stories of our studio and different projects that I've been inspired by in my career and in different artists and now we really tell stories of different projects and we also try and give a little bit of inspiration

“and each one of the of the posts. Cool. What are your favorite hotels in New York?”

I stay at the Crosby generally which I really love and it's an intimate hotel and it's really comfortable and talk about acoustics like the rooms because they're all padded like the rooms are all upholstered. Cool. And it has like the floor to ceiling windows and I just love like the natural light and it goes across like the width of the room. I mean yeah I generally stay there. Favorite hotel in London. In London I mean I'd chill turn fire house because it's just so good.

Did it get rebuilt? They're working on it now. It's such a great hotel and the rooms are so comfortable and the bathrooms are. It has everything you need and there's like just like there's a sense of luxury like they're a little more paired down but like the detailing

“and the middle work and the doors and just it just such a fantastic job there. I would say”

a hotel that I just stayed in that I absolutely love was at home and Stockholm and it's comprised of these two town homes. There was one at the beginning when they first did the design and every room is different and it's so Swedish and you feel like you're going into your aunts home that has like the best taste and she's an amazing chef and there's cool music and there's a piano and the bars are these bars that you can go to and serve yourself and you go into

the kitchen and there's food out and then it's an open kitchen and and the rooms like I love

sometimes when I know the rooms are actually designed differently in a hotel. I always request to stay

and I move rooms because I want to experience and just you know this is like what I do and

“there were so many good takeaways there. I just I absolutely loved it. Where do you stay in Paris?”

Paris? I stay at the Bristol because it's so Parisian. I mean it's such the opposite of what at Hamas. You know it's like everything at at Hamas about you know everything is open and the back of house is front of house and at the Bristol the back house is back of house and everything you just see the staff there there for service and it's very Parisian and old school and the service is unbelievable and yeah it's a great hotel. How about Milan? Milan? I stay at the

Portrait Milano which is a fairly kind of a new hotel and it's in this former courtyard and the rooms are really so melodies they were designed by the Ferragamo family and the food and beverage

there is great and it's very luxurious but it's also very melodies and it's in like an amazing

part of town where you can just kind of walk around and shop it's in that that main area but hotels are really like I love designing residential projects they're very different than hospitality because you get so intimate and close with your your clients you know they become you know your friend and confident and and you're doing something together that is so personal to them and you're learning from one another a hotel though is like so sexy and in generous and you're working with such a

big team and there's so many voices and it's kind of coming together and honing in on what what the dialogue is and all the different nuances and all the programming and it all has to kind of come together with many different people and there's nothing better to like go visit like one of the hotels and you see the same people coming back and enjoying this space. In a place like Calneva where there may be some specific let's say wallpaper or carpet or

a poultry and it's not being made anymore might you manufacture it based on the old design to keep this style of what it was. Yeah so we'll for for example in the Calneva project like

like vintage wall coverings and they're from the 70s and they're really quite spectacular and so we're

“using those as the kind of jumping off point and some of them they actually have some dead stock where”

it's like I want to actually use that wall covering in a project and in a room that has four walls there might be four different wall coverings in there it actually makes it much cooler and more interesting and yes we 100% will take something that that we design this inspired by something that is vintage or historic and and we have a lot of different mills and people that we work with and we worked on this hotel in Austin and it's a proper hotel and we one of the food and

beverage outlets was Mediterranean and I was in Portugal and I went to a really interesting

tile store that had a lot of vintage tile and I do this when I go to cities I seek out kind of of these unusual workshops and kind of family owned businesses that seem like they have something unique and so I went in and they had all these really gorgeous tiles that were from you know anywhere from the 30s to the 80s and so maybe some of the tiles there was 30 there was like 50 so I created this huge wall in the restaurant that is like this mosaic of all these interesting tiles and it just

like looks it had so much soul because this was a new construction yeah and so it really just brings

all this like kind of authenticity and and soul to the project and it's quite dynamic.

“How did the materials you pick change the acoustics of Iran? Sound is such an important part”

of of a space and having you know what designer restaurant we want to make sure people can have great conversation and it's not really echoey so we'll use different you know acoustical panel that you actually don't even see and then you can skin over that a lot of times we actually put felt underneath the dining tables which help like we're doing a restaurant in Kalniva that has like a stone marble floor it's too pattern it's this really beautiful checkerboard and we have some

tile on the wall there's a big open kitchen with all this really beautiful ceramic tile and we're being very thoughtful about the upholstery that we're using and where we can put this acoustical material. So you said you would put felt under the table meaning the bottom of the table. The underside of the table. What a cool idea yeah that's great and a lot of if you next time you go to a restaurant you'll see like they do put this under they're not all but adding felt to

the underside really helps with the acoustics. It's a great kind of trick of the trade. Yeah I'm going to apply that one again. Let's say room is very long are the things you can do to make it feel less uncomfortably long. I love strange shape rooms I really do and you know we if we have a room that is quite long like we might add portals to create like an onphalod or a new rhythm in the space adding windows adding columns which then could create height in a space adding a space

within a space is also quite interesting use of mirror also expands of a space and the reflection of a window like there's so many different tricks and interesting things that you can do with material. Do you ever add steps? Yes we actually we had a project that we did and Manhattan and the windows were quite large but they actually sat up maybe 32 inches off the finished floor and so the clients really wanted to enjoy the view so we actually created a step platform where the sitting area was so

then they could enjoy the view and it just I'm really made the space so much more dynamic and interesting. So love playing with with volumes and creating spaces that really compliment each other but also have this interesting tension because you want to in spaces you want to have a sense of discovery

“where you're not giving it away and that's why when you go to an environment where it all”

feels the same it's kind of one note it's like almost like a song it's just kind of the same you want to surprise your audience and have a sense of discovery and an interesting journey. What about things that maybe were once in style and have gone out of style like a sulking living room is that something that you would decide to put in or is it something you would find and decide to keep? It would be both like I would love to find a house that had a sunken

living room because I just love that it kind of historic vibe but we have planned like a home that we did

the visibility on the inside of the pool house right out to like unattracted view to the pool

and all the landscaping that was outside so we actually did a sunken lounge space and it was really quite nice and but we also too have been putting in sunken bars and restaurants and bars because there's something nice if you have a small space and you have a sunken bar you are actually making the space feel larger because the bar is more like almost like a dining height. How many steps down would the one or two? You know it depends it could be you know it could be

three steps down it just depends on how much and would you access it from all directions?

On sides it's like so nice because then you're at a lower level and it doesn't cut the room off.

Tell me about ceilings. Ceilings are such an important part of the space and a lot of people forget them and whether it has lighting, whether there are some mechanical systems like

“we're really liked to hide everything and then sometimes if you want to store it project”

and you have to see them sometimes you're on the ceiling sometimes you're on the wall is using something that is historic that feels like it's speaking to the architecture of the building and I love timber on a ceiling. I love putting plaster unexpected. One thing I love doing is say we plaster a wall and like a really beautiful like golden rod color. I love to bring it up on the ceiling and it just really adds to like the space and makes it feel really warm and kind of

warm like where do you and don't you skylights? Skylights are never off limits in any realm like they're

open to closets bathrooms to any space. I mean they're so beautiful like I would not say like I just I'm open to skylights. Are there anything's like skylights that you can do

“in multi-story buildings to get natural light to come through the building?”

Yeah I mean you can create like we've done where we've created like a shaft like at a staircase where you have like some incredible specimen which is really nice and also creating like windows and the Kalneva project we're doing now we have like a three-story stairwell that has floor to ceiling windows on one side and we took the rhythm of the millions and we created this really great pattern of this grid that just is all encompassing and now it just feels like a

very organized space that has such a attitude and then all this natural light coming in and then we're actually using a horizontal screen so that we'll play with the light that's coming in and creating all this great dynamic diagonal lighting that will come in on certain times of the day. If you're restoring the home from let's say the 1950s and now we live much more in the kitchen than we used to maybe in the 1950s might you rethink the spaces or grow the kitchen

or would you stick to the old footprint? I would stick to the old footprint in some respects and maybe make it a little larger. Sometimes people make the mistakes as you buy a home or the architectures refined and the scales refined and then people come in and make these big moves

“and it throws the scale off like scale is such an important part of design and so I like to”

really stay within the proportion and if you have like delicate original windows that are from classic architecture and you're going to put new doors in like they speak the same language and it's like oddly like seat heights have tended to get much taller and it really kind of like truncates a room like things that are just more grounded like seat heights on vintage furniture are very low there may be like a seat height on a soap is like you know 15 inches and now it's like

23 so plates also another thing you go you know plates that you buy at the flea market a dinner plate is like 10 inches and now they're like 14 so the scales like getting blown out of proportion so important to honor the original scale. Do you find that the clients who come to you exist within certain archetypes? No my clients are all over the place you know they come from different backgrounds they do different types of jobs like I wouldn't necessarily say they're all

creative they want something that is different and they've generally are somewhat of a of a

nothing about. How do rooms change when people are in them? Imagine a dining room and you have chairs and you have a table and it just makes a room come alive. When I design a space and I'm curating

like I always say like imagine like all the elements in the room or people and they're all very

different but they have like this great connection and these great conversations with one another. It's interesting you brought up dining room for a long time I didn't like dining rooms but I think it's for that reason it feels like when there aren't people in it it's like dead space.

“It's so true I know. It's depressing. That's why when we design homes for clients like they're”

generally now not these like confined rooms like they're kind of open to another space because people use them differently sometimes people work at them sometimes they eat you know one meal a day sometimes they just use them for entertaining so we try to make them where there are these like open rooms where you can because it's square footage it should be a space that you can enjoy so having them have other purposes maybe there's a bar in there maybe there's some sort of

access to outside that you can enjoy you know out in the exterior garden and a dining room is I totally agree it's like this kind of awkward room that you kind of sometimes just like pass by but they come alive with people I mean any space comes alive with people and I like again love watching people interact on spaces. I haven't thought about it before but I think it's the empty chairs

“because the table itself probably isn't depressing it's all of the empty chairs. That's why”

sometimes it's good to not use the same chair because it's just like repetition that looks the little just boring and so doing things with like different chairs and bringing a different tension and in different periods of chairs in the space they get feel more dynamic and actually a little more interesting. I visited a different design studio the other day they had a big table that was like a dining table bigger than a dining table and it had stools with different colored seats and

they were all pushed under the table so you could still stand anywhere at the table but if you want to sit down you could pull out a stool and that wasn't depressing at all. Yeah it's true and you can have like in our kitchen at home we have a it's like a large table and it has two benches

and it's always organized that's the other thing is there's like chairs like in different ways and

it does it's true it doesn't feel empty you're so right. How much do you curate what happens outside of the windows? So a lot of times we know we work with these great landscape architect sometimes it's perfect like a house is actually built around some incredible specimen or you have the ocean or you have like a city view and you have a brick building and it's like how are you going to incorporate that brick building into into that space and so what's outside the window is is really

important how the light comes in how the light affects color and we did a space in this New York townhouse and the building next door is like a red brick so you know with that color it's going to kind of permeate in the window so doing something this warm we did on the inside but then we actually contrast it with a very cool color rug and it just created this interesting tension. How much can you tell about how space is going to feel before you live in it? How

are rendering different than the experience of living in it? It is different for sure and it goes back to even seeing a photo of a you know dealer sends me a photo of some furniture and then I go visit them in Paris and I was just like oh my god it did not come across it's incredible and so I really like to encourage a client of myself and my team and when we are working on projects is going to the site because that really also influences like decisions that are made sometimes

“decisions are made on the fly like this is not working I think we have to pivot here and do”

something different so keeping it really fluid but a space you can get a general idea from a rendering and now actually with AI we're putting together little short films on how you can actually walk through the house but also how you know you can really get a sense of feeling and that's with

amazing about new technology which I'm always about evolving and doing new things and we've been

so then they can be part of the process and make decisions that they feel they're connected to and that they can see themselves living with. Tell me about natural materials versus high-tech materials. Well I love anything natural for me like I really love materials that are honest and if it is steel and I love steel it's like an honest material I don't particularly like things that they're a little like maybe too shiny and new because I like everything to feel like

it has like a bit of soul you know even if it's like a mirror I love it where it has like some kind of cast materiality feeling to it it just has a nice richness. Tell me the most beautiful

places you've ever been. The most beautiful places have been mother nature because it's always surprising

you and it's always kind of evolving I mean it's really magic I mean it could be going to a stone yard which is like one of my favorite things to do or quarry and just seeing just the scale and all the uniqueness in the world. Most beautiful homes you've been in. Most beautiful homes I would say Doris Duke's home in Honolulu like that is just insane. Is it still like she lived in it? Yes yes and I went like five years ago I've been a couple times but it was really like

the innovation that was there and the curation and the materiality and like just what she did

“to bring all of that inspiration from Morocco and even like I remember the glass partitions go”

down into the you know subterranean which is like for that time when that house was built is like really quite spectacular but her closet and the bedrooms and the lounge areas and she was such an amazing entertainer and just the site and the dialogue with the home and the positioning or the ocean

you know it's always in my memory and it's very decadent it's a very decadent home there's a lot of color

and then I would say I was just in Venice in Italy and I went to and I've been many times but to the Peggy Gugunheim Museum and that is just unbelievable. I mean that was her home for for many years and just the collection of art in the rooms and the spaces and the garden and obviously sits on you know the canal it's like extraordinary. So would you say what makes a place great really has more to do with taste than anything else? Taste is really a complicated word

“it's such a personal word and you could learn taste but I think it's also innate it is opening”

yourself up for for learning and being curious. Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young. Then dreams come true. Beautiful that's a good one. Like I honestly

never thought like in a million years like I would be doing like like when you're in school

in your waiting tables like my first job I was 13 years old and it came from going to all these places with my mom and I was like I want money like I want to buy a shit and my mom didn't have you know much money and so I remember because we lived in mortal beach she was like okay well you guys can babysit so we and this is like insane like the that we did this but she was like okay you can babysit so we made these like little these little business cards and then we went and like dropped them off

and like all the hotels and like we would get calls and like a guy would like pick us up at home and take us I mean it's everything was fine nothing happened but like is that not it's like a different time like you think like that's so crazy but we started doing that and that was actually really fun that was like kind of my first and the kids were cute but I was like I do not want kids if like that was only time I was ever really around them obviously it changed and then I ended up

“getting a job like the next summer I like I think it was like 14 I think it was actually”

babysitting around 12 but then when I was 13 14 I got a job at this little cafe that was right on the beach and I would make like smoothies and milkshakes and hamburgers and I was like counting money at the end of the day and I had was like really responsible and you know I was there on time

working and like having my own money that I could do anything I wanted to so having that kind of like

“that kind of hustle early on is like never left me yeah and now I have a gallery called”

side hustle like who would ever think you know the dreams they do they come true

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