/PHILOSOPHY
Process makes the perfect projects
A big part of my journey is meeting clients who fully embrace the process of design. The process makes the perfect. This longest of phases is a whisper and a wail, a full throated siren call to the gleaming jagged rock that can easily shred our destiny into a million...
How to Hustle 101
Part of any business is the hustle. I believe great MBA schools should all have « How To Hustle » 101 all the way to 401. I believe some believe a hustler is born not bred. I believe our children have a leg up on us already. I believe in exploding the square and...
Like a Pig in Mud With a Long Life Ahead
Little did I know, while sitting pretty at the Ludlow in Lower East Side NYC last autumn, how many things I was taking for granted in this captured moment. The freedom of flying and ease of entering a foreign country, the comfort of an avocado toast served in a...
Let’s talk about space
Let’s talk about space. We North Americans have more than we need while our European counterparts fit three rooms in the size of one of our garages where we have parked...our stack of empty Tupperware. Half a lifetime ago as a young influenceable actor in New York...
I was the only person in color
I was the only person in color at Restoration Hardware. Until our new home is built I will be wearing our home’s colors. Yes I am going to the dark side and doing beige...but really, did you not get the safari memo? Touches of burnt mud, Masai ochre, Gobi sands, cream...
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an all green restaurant before.
Balls out design requires suspension of fear and doubt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an all green restaurant before and there may be a legitimate reason that floated in my mind to spook me every week on this job: green gives us a sickly pallor when misused. At the...
Process makes the perfect projects
A big part of my journey is meeting clients who fully embrace the process of design. The process makes the perfect. This longest of phases is a whisper and a wail, a full throated siren call to the gleaming jagged rock that can easily shred our destiny into a million...
This is inner me
This is inner me. The me I wish I was every day. The strong me. The brave me. The in-your-face me. I love that me and have used that me. All women have that me inside of them. That me in you is most oft awoken by loss, fear, pain. That me in you has been called...
Be my magician
A friend on a visit from Los Angeles asked me why I haven’t posted more pictures of our house. It isn’t finished was my reply. The fact I face daily may be that a designer’s house is probably never going to be finished. My point in time where I come close to...
There’s only one life. There’s only one you.
After a late breakfast at the revered Maxwell’s in Venice, my son Leo took Charlotte back to his place in Orion’s two seated car leaving me the opportunity to walk with him the long way home. Talking arm-in-arm was a treat beyond this mom’s happiest dreams. Walking...
That’s me trying to keep it together
That’s me trying to keep it together in the presence of greatness within the walls she created and layered to the level of her exquisite iconic perfection. When I heard my son Orion was coming home from back-to-back deployments in the Middle East and South Seas I...
Great design is about perspective
Great design is about perspective. The ability to see past the way things appear to be is a gift. If a teacher has said about your child that their head is the clouds, be proud. Daydreaming is unchecked, unforced and unbridled manifestation in the making. As a very...
I understand this is a triple toilet shot
I understand this is a triple toilet shot but it also happens to be one of the greatest achievements of this year for me. I was approached to redesign this concept aptly named “Dreamy Daycare” two years ago before our times got ..complicated. Never mind the once in a...
A hand that breathes life into stone
My twelve year old daughter casually handed me her latest drawing last night. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I know I screamed. First out of sheer excited awe followed by bubbling doubt then gnawing tenacity to get to the bottom of it. She then hands me what she drew...
Dragon Slayer
I know y’all pretty much down to a T. Those who listen, but even more those who read. The few who know me know that I post and archive. Specifically when I write a post sensitive in social commentary. This is the latter, so on you go at your own risk with no warning...
I am a proud daughter of the fierce single Roadside Shoe Tribe
As we were driving on a highway to scout our Surf Shack concept which is close to completion, my assistant Michele softly mused out loud “I always wonder who the families are that the single shoes strewn in the grass belong to.” There was a silence. I was moved. Here...