Business of Home Podcast

On this week’s episode of the show, host Dennis Scully speaks to Joe Lucas , interior designer and founder of the beloved showroom Harbinger. Lucas began his career working for Michael S. Smith, but quickly built his own business, which has evolved to include multi line showrooms in New York and Los Angeles. On either coast, Joe has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the design world....

In the early 2000s, Ryan Turf started on the sales floor of the company’s first store. Now he’s president, and has been leading an effort to carve out a unique voice for the brand that stands alongside—but distinct from—parent company Crate & Barrel. Under Turf’s leadership, the CB2 continues to make more and more adventurous design choices—including a range of capsule collections with unexpected...

Forty years ago, Moore & Giles was supplying the material to make shoes. But after the footwear industry disappeared abroad, the company reinvited itself and pivoted to the furniture business. Now, it’s a major force in the design industry, supplying leather to everyone from Universal to Steelcase to RH. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, president Sackett Wood tells host Dennis Scul...

You may not be familiar with the name CW Stockwell, but you know its most iconic pattern: Martinique, the banana leaf print that graces the walls of the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Martinique was first released in 1942 - over the next eighty years it has become one of the world’s most recognizable wallpapers, but the company itself fell into neglect. Last year entrepreneur Katy Polsby relaunched the bra...

There are dream clients, and then there’s the young family that interior designer Michael S. Smith helped settle in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue back in 2008. As the official decorator of the Obama White House, he not only had a front row seat to history, but became a part of it—an experience Smith recounts in a new book coming out this Fall. In this episode of The Business of Home podcast, he chat...

If you’ve fallen in love with an interior design book over the past twenty years, chances are Jill Cohen had something to do with it. A veteran publishing executive who started Conde Nast’s book program, she’s now an independent advisor who helps designers package their work—and themselves—for publication. Cohen’s client list reads like a hall of fame induction roster: she’s shepherded everyone fr...

In the late 90s, Ann Sutherland went from long-time interior designer to first-time entrepreneur. Alongside her husband, outdoor furniture magnate David Sutherland, she developed a line of solution-dyed acrylics that combined the resilience of outdoor fabrics with the high style of to-the-trade design. Her company, Perennials, grew in leaps and bounds, and the success of the company helped usher i...

The world of high-end design can feel very far apart from the big-tent appeal of home makeover shows, but interior designer Mikel Welch has managed to break through in both. His work has been featured in premier showhouses around the country, and he’s a regular on TV, with appearances on everything from TLC’s Trading Spaces to Good Morning America to a new show for Quibi with a premise that has to...

Michele Varian and Jay Norris are the founders of Guesst, a tech platform that allows brands, retailers and landlords to connect in new ways. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Michele is also the owner of a beloved New York design shop that she recently relocated from SoHo to Brooklyn to escape skyrocketing rents. As a broker in the commercial real estate world, Jay saw the rent crises unfold...

Stephane Silverman literally grew up in the fabric business—his parents brought the French textile company Boussac to America, and as a child, he would do his homework in their D&D Building showroom. A restless intellect and a critical thinker, Silverman has been experimenting with ways to modernize a distinctly old-school industry ever since he started Castel in 1999. In this episode of the Busin...

Ryan Hughes and Steven Leonard are the creative team behind Atlanta showroom R. Hughes. In a time when some in the industry are questioning the multiline model, Ryan and Steven have created a destination that does everything showrooms are supposed to do—showcase product in new ways, inspire designers, and draw visitors from near and far. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, they tell h...

This week’s guest is Brad Hargreaves , the founder of co-living company Common. Co-living is a relatively new phenomenon, sometimes oversimplified as “dorms for grownups.” But there’s a lot more to it than that, and in conversation with host Dennis Scully, Hargreaves explains the demographic changes and economic forces that have created a market for shared housing—at any age. In the first half of...

Dexter and Byron Peart are the founders of Goodee—an e-commerce site focused on design products and home goods with an ethical mission. The Pearts are twin brothers and lifelong entrepreneurs—they created the renowned fashion and accessories brand WANT Les Essentials before selling it in 2017. For their latest endeavor, they wanted to focus on selling products that are not only beautiful, but good...

It’s hard to think of two fields more closely intertwined than interior design and real estate—where one goes, so goes the other. On this week’s episode of the podcast, host Dennis Scully chats with two real estate experts to hear about how COVID-19 has affected the housing market, and what comes next. First, Leonard Steinberg , a veteran agent and the chief evangelist for tech-enabled brokerage C...

Andrew Cogan ’s history with Knoll stretches back thirty years—he’s been with the company through changes of ownership, recessions, and now a pandemic. On this episode of the Business of Home podcas, Cogan chats with host Dennis Scully about how his strategy to move into residential categories is paying off, Knoll’s commitment to social responsibility, and why—despite what people are saying—it’s t...

Over the course of almost forty years, the name Alexandra Champalimaud has become synonymous with exceptional hospitality design—her firm has worked on the finest hotels in  the world, from The Plaza in New York to the Bel-Air in Los Angeles to the recently completed Raffles in Singapore. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, host Dennis Scully speaks to Champalimaud as well as the CEO...

Calling Ken Fulk an “interior designer” doesn’t do him justice—Fulk’s San Francisco firm does everything from weekly floral arrangements to branding to planning extravagant events, complete with costumes, fireworks and mariachi bands.  For the right client, he’ll even design a wedding—famously, he created a theatrical fairy-tale experience for early Facebook president Sean Parker. On this episode...

It was already a tough time for magazines and digital publications—now, with advertisers on the run, and new challenges, like socially distanced photoshoots, it’s even tougher. But editors and publishers are finding ways to tackle the problems of the moment,  and with their fingers on the pulse of the industry, they know better than anyone what matters most right now. In conversations with Apartme...

You may not know Geoff Hawkes by name, but you know his furniture. For almost two decades, his manufacturing company, Rochdale Spears, has combined high-end craftsmanship with production at scale, making collections for retailers like RH, Anthropologie, and Williams Sonoma—as well as luxury hotels, and the company’s own line, Sonder Living. In this episode of the podcast, Hawkes speaks with host D...

Debbie Propst joined the furnishings giant Herman Miller as president of retail this January, after seven years at One Kings Lane—within a matter of weeks, her roadmap for the company hit an unexpected snag. But Debbie’s team has been pivoting to address the disruption of the coronavirus, fast-tracking digital efforts and looking for opportunities amidst the uncertainty. On this episode of the pod...

Andrew’s Kotchen ’s design and architecture firm, Workshop/APD, has always taken a creative and thoughtful approach to business—and a pandemic is no exception. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Kotchen speaks with host Dennis Scully about how the crisis has changed his preconceived notions about company culture, what lessons he learned from the 2008 recession, and what opportunities...

As COVID-19 continues to spread, stay-at-home orders, disrupted supply chains and a rattled marketplace all present unique challenges for the companies that produce our industry’s finest products. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, host Dennis Scully speaks to a range of leaders to hear how they’re tackling the difficulties of this unprecedented time: Jonathan Glatt of handmade furni...

It’s too soon to say precisely what the economic fallout from COVID-19 will be, but many in the design industry are preparing for a challenging time. This week on the Business of Home podcast, host Dennis Scully speaks with two people who made it through the 2008 downturn to get some perspective on what may lie ahead. First, interior designer Corey Damen Jenkins shares the story about how he start...

Kyle Bunting began his decorative hide rug business in 2001, and the product took the market by storm—soon his inventive creations were in showhouses, magazines and the best showrooms across the country. But recently Kyle made the decision to pull out of all representation and sell direct to designers. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, he chats with host Dennis Scully about the stor...

Raised in France, educated in England, and currently based in Los Angeles, interior designer Peter Dunham has had a charmed life and career—to chat with him is to take a rollicking tour from the grit and glamour of 1970s New York, to early career advice from David Hicks, to a showhouse kitchen that led to nabbing Jennifer Garner as a client. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, he spea...