Charles de Lisle is a decorator, not a designer

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Business of Home Podcast

Episode: Charles de Lisle is a Decorator, Not a Designer

Host: Dennis Scully (Business of Home)
Guest: Charles de Lisle (Interior Decorator)
Date: May 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, host Dennis Scully interviews Charles de Lisle, acclaimed Bay Area decorator and AD100 honoree. The conversation journeys from Charles’s New England tinkerer childhood to his unconventional career trajectory, deep dives on the Bay Area’s singular design culture, the nuanced differences between “decorator” and “designer,” and the future of the profession in an increasingly image-obsessed, tech-driven world. De Lisle shares his love for risk-taking clients, the influence of Michael Taylor, and why he prefers a hands-on, story-centered approach over formulaic design.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Influences and a Maker’s Upbringing

Timestamps: 02:49–06:54

• Charles grew up in rural Massachusetts in a family of makers—his grandfather a machinist and painter, his father a cabinetmaker.
  • “There was always this idea of…not a fear of getting something done…if it’s broken, you just fix it and figure out a way to make it work.” (03:24, de Lisle)
• Childhood spent building houses and forts in the woods, embracing a holistic creative process.
• Early fascination with architecture and interiors through family and coffee table magazines.
• Studied ceramics in college: “I found that it embodied all these things that I loved—you had to make the clay, engineer the clay… all very technical and complex and also strangely out of your control.” (05:12)
• Transitioned into metalwork, then product design and eventually, the interior design world.

2. Serendipitous Career Path: From Lamps to Interiors

Timestamps: 06:54–12:46

• Moved to San Francisco, attempted to enter the design field with little formal experience.
• Created a line of lamps; a chance meeting led to early commercial success and media attention.
  • “I made a hundred at once and wired them in my kitchen…it landed in a New York Times spread and then in an MTV video.” (08:51)
• Hired by a new interiors firm during the first Bay Area internet boom; learned rapidly on the job.
  • “Within a month, I had three of my own clients and was running these jobs with no assistance, no computer…” (09:49)
• After 11 years, left commercial interiors to start his own firm and refocus on residential work.

3. Bay Area Client Culture and Process

Timestamps: 12:46–15:51, 16:15–18:43

• Bay Area clients are often risk-takers, untethered from tradition and trend.
  • “They’re okay with…jump[ing] in, kind of think about the big picture…leave it open so organically…you can get somewhere you didn’t imagine when you started. That takes a little more of a leap of faith.” (11:29)
• The local culture has a history of radical change and creativity, from architecture to music to technology.
  • “There’s a strange 10 to 20 year cycle…San Francisco and the Bay Area kind of burns itself out and then starts something totally new.” (13:44)
• Importance of place: Proximity to legacy creatives like Michael Taylor shaped de Lisle’s understanding of interiors as “life events” rather than just functional, beautiful spaces.
  • “His interiors were about this kind of ability to have a moment that was about that experience…that’s what drives me to do all of this.” (17:31)

4. The Challenges of Privacy, Media, and Documenting Design

Timestamps: 18:43–23:02

• Much high-level Bay Area work is private, protected by NDAs and client discretion.
  • “So much of it is under NDAs, and I’m working for these, obviously, these big tech giants…we’re not seeing so much of that work.” (18:43, Scully)
• The role and value of publications has dramatically shifted; promotion is more self-driven and less about magazine editors.
• Documenting work for oneself remains important, even as the process becomes more labor-intensive:
  • “Photographing a project is definitely important to me because it’s your space to actually get a document…It’s a huge amount of work to prep and photograph.” (21:12)

5. Structuring and Running a Boutique Firm

Timestamps: 23:02–31:48

• De Lisle purposely keeps his firm small and agile to maintain personal involvement.
  • “I wanted to be a smaller company because I wanted to be more agile…I just like doing this. What kind of system is going to support that?” (23:51)
• On business reality: “No business that looks like it’s doing really well on the surface is actually doing really well…It’s just constantly in flux.” (24:20)
• The ideal designer temperament? Obsessive, creative, endlessly curious.
  • “To do this job is not for everybody, because the people who succeed at doing great interior design…they wake up in the morning and they’re thinking about drapery and when they go to bed at night, they’re thinking about drapery.” (25:54, quoting Diane Sakes)
• Billing model: hourly plus markup is preferred for residential work, allowing flexibility for a spectrum of client involvement.
  • “I realized that that model (commercial/flat fee) doesn’t really work for residential work…I think the classic model of hourly plus markup makes the most sense.” (27:49)
• The office’s scope is increasingly multidisciplinary—sometimes encompassing landscape, architecture, and graphic design—to create cohesive environments.

6. Decorator vs. Designer: Identity and Semantics

Timestamps: 34:03–40:38

• De Lisle prefers “decorator” to “designer” for its historical, holistic, and artistic associations.
  • “I kind of relate more to the term decorator because…[it’s] a different language…more about this essence of making art about the whole project…that’s really hard to do with a lot of structure.” (34:18)
• “Decorator” has been both pejorative and undervalued, partly due to stereotypes and shifts in professionalism/licensure.
  • “There was almost the gay male kind of stereotype that became the decorator…There was a move away, ‘No, no, no, I’m far more professional than that.'” (37:48, Scully)
• The contemporary design scene, with its influencer and trend obsession, can lack substance and the individualized artistry de Lisle values.

7. Taste, References, and the Pursuit of Beauty

Timestamps: 40:38–43:05

• De Lisle views design as a cumulative, reference-driven practice—but actively resists trendy, taste-based formulas.
  • “There’s a difference between a formula and this ever ongoing search for beauty…I’m not interested in taste…I look at all of them…and then I try to not think about it and let whatever internal voice I have help me make decisions…” (39:30)
• On process: Often stands on-site in different places, “feeling” how spaces should evolve, guided by intuition and body sense.

8. Technology and the Human Element

Timestamps: 43:05–50:06

• Skepticism about artificial intelligence in design:
  • “AI could put together a storyboard…it could do your budget…but it can’t stand in the room when you’re unloading the furniture. Or maybe it could.” (45:23)
• De Lisle prizes analog processes—sketching by hand, physically experiencing spaces, in-person site visits.
• Concerns that digital tools, AI, and auto-generated documentation may lead to disengagement and errors.
  • “The irony…is [AI is] actually creating more time and work to manage the fallout from what’s supposed to be helping us not have to do the work.” (49:25)

9. Advice for the Next Generation

Timestamps: 50:06–53:31

• Urges design students and newcomers to accumulate wide world experience—serve in restaurants, work in shops, not just follow a linear path.
  • “I think doing work specific to what we’re doing, I do think a world experience is super helpful…how do you get through something and complete it?” (51:27)
• Emphasizes the decorator’s true gift: assembling all those obsessions, accumulated life experience, and problem-solving for the benefit of the client—often invisibly.
  • “That’s part of the magic of what you give them. In the end, if it works, hopefully.” (52:50, Scully)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “His interiors were about this kind of ability to have a moment that was about that experience…beauty that separates you from your world a little bit and makes you take a breath or feel something. That, to me, is…what drives me to do all of this.”
  — Charles de Lisle on Michael Taylor (17:27)
• “There’s a difference between a formula and this ever ongoing search for beauty, right? I’m not interested in taste…I try to let whatever internal voice I have help me make decisions…”
  — Charles de Lisle (39:26)
• “No business that looks like it’s doing really well on the surface is actually doing really well…there really is no such thing as a smooth running business because it’s just constantly in flux.”
  — Charles de Lisle (24:20)
• “To do this job is not for everybody…the people who succeed at doing great interior design…wake up in the morning and they’re thinking about drapery and when they go to bed at night, they’re thinking about drapery.”
  — Charles de Lisle, quoting Diane Sakes (25:54)
• “AI could put together a storyboard…But it can’t stand in the room when you’re unloading the furniture. Or maybe it could.”
  — Charles de Lisle (45:23)

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Timed Highlights

| Segment | Topic Description | Timestamp | |------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Upbringing & Early Influence | Childhood in MA; “maker” family; intuitive problem-solving | 02:49–06:54| | Serendipitous Career Path | Lamp success, first jobs, learning by doing | 06:54–12:46| | Bay Area Clientele | Risk-takers, creative freedom, process-oriented approach | 12:46–15:51| | Michael Taylor’s Influence | Interiors as “life events”; emotional impact | 16:15–18:43| | Media & Documentation | Privacy, NDAs, changing value of publication | 18:43–23:02| | Running a Firm | Boutique scale, business reality, ideal client relationship, billing models | 23:02–31:48| | Decorator vs. Designer | History, semantics, stereotypes, substance | 34:03–40:38| | Taste & Aesthetics | References, intuition, resisting trend-driven work | 40:38–43:05| | Tech & the Human Touch | Skepticism about AI, hand drawing, the value of “feeling” a space | 43:05–50:06| | Advice for Students | Embrace broad experience, the unseen value of an obsessive approach | 50:06–53:31|

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Closing Thought

Charles de Lisle’s perspective is a refreshing blend of craftsmanship, intuition, and resistance to formula. By reframing “decorator” as a calling centered on immersive artistry and attentive, experiential work, he invites the industry—and its future—to honor the profound, sometimes ineffable magic that can’t be captured by trends, titles, or algorithms. As he says, quoting Diane Sakes:
“The people who succeed at doing great interior design…wake up in the morning and they’re thinking about drapery and when they go to bed at night, they’re thinking about drapery.” (25:54)

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Transcript

[A]

This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is interior decorator Charles Delisle. Born in rural Massachusetts to a family of makers and tinkerers, Charles grew up obsessed with how things work. After finding his way to the San Francisco Bay area, he got involved with the design scene, first launching a line of lamps, then helping to start a commercial firm. Eventually, Charles went out on his own and earned acclaim for his residential work, including placement on the AD100. I spoke with Charles about why he loves clients who are risk takers, how a chance encounter with a Michael Taylor room changed his life, and why he likes to be called a decorator, not a designer. This podcast is sponsored by Ernesta. With Ernesta's new coastal and family collections, you can find a custom size rug that works beautifully inside and out in durable wool and performance materials made to handle everything from UV rays to high traffic. Your clients will be able to start enjoying their summer to the fullest in as little as two weeks. As a trade member, you'll get unlimited samples, preferred pricing, and a dedicated consultant to support you from the first sample to the final install. Visit ernesta.com boh to learn more about the Ernesta trade program today. That's Earnesta.com Boh this podcast is sponsored by Kohler. Kohler has always embraced the belief that design is more than aesthetics. It's a powerful force to shape experiences. Kohler smart toilets are proof of the power of design and its ability to elevate how we live and feel. The Kohlervale smart toilet with its sculptural curved silhouette is like nothing you might imagine when picturing a toilet. And that's the point. Transform a bathroom into something extraordinary. Discover Vail and all Kohler smart toilets [e-mail] and now on with the show.

[B]

I want to understand early days how you became the tinkerer and the sort of hands on person you grew up in.

[A]

Rural Massachusetts, if I recall.

[B]

So tell me a little bit about that and what it was like.

[C]

I kind of grew up in a town of 1200 people in the woods in kind of the center northern part of Massachusetts, building stuff on my own. And I think that I also kind of grew up around my dad and my grandfather and my mother for that matter. Like everybody, we kind of all made things. My grandfather was a machinist and a wallpaper hanger and a painter. He did interior painting and my dad built a Cabinet shop to work with his dad to build furniture. So I kind of grew up in that world, and there was always this idea of not. Not a fear of getting something done. I don't know how else to explain it. And maybe it's just kind of a little bit of a New England kind of point of view of just like, if it's broken, you just fix it and figure out a way to make it work. Right, right. And then, you know, I also grew up in a house that, since my dad kind of built it as. As we lived in it, and my mother kind of, like, made do kind of, like working through that, like, and constantly, I think, having to kind of decorate it in a way to make it feel like it was a finished place to live. When I was little, I would. I had like, a knife and a hatchet, and I would go out and I spent a lot of times in the woods. And what I did was I built houses. Like, I wasn't. You know, I built forts, but the forts always turned into a house. There was always this. This kind of, you know, whole. It was a holistic way of looking at whatever I was doing. And. And so I just. I don't know. That's kind of where my brain was, I think, carried up. And that really hasn't changed at all.

[B]

And so how did. How did decorating and interiors show up in your world and point you in the direction of becoming everything that you have?

[C]

I mean, I've always been interested in architecture since I was young and started looking at architecture, Started, you know, digging into all the magazines my mom had on the coffee table. Definitely, you know, was that early arc digest fan and was really interested in building and would watch my dad build garages and little buildings or add ons to people's houses in the summer with his friend. And I would be the assistant. So I was very much involved in how do you put up the building, how do you pour the foundation, how do you even clear the land to put it on there and look at where you're doing that. In junior high, I started taking drafting courses that were high school courses. It kind of gradually faded. I ended up going to school and studied ceramics completely by accident. I just started working in the ceramics lab at the university I went to. Kind of fell in love with it and just started making things every night, but was taking all these graphic design classes and all the other things I was supposed to be taking. And then I ended up, like, majoring in it because I found that it embodied all these things that I Loved. You had to make the clay, engineer the clay. You needed to then make the work. And that required engineering and process. And then you had to, you know, fire it and glaze it, which also required engineering and also was all very technical and complex and also strangely out of your control. So I did that for a few years, and that kind of pushed me into doing metal work because I love building again. So I started making things, doing steel work, doing small shops for people, and that started leading me into architecture and design again. Back when I was about 29, 30 years old, I realized that maybe that was a direction I could look at as a career. It took me a little while from when I was growing up, but, yeah, I just. I realized that all these things I did my whole life made sense and made sense in the interior world, mostly because, again, I love the complexity of it. And I realized that, oh, I understand all these different pieces. So I started to try to figure out how to get myself into a job, and nobody would hire me because I didn't have any skills.

[B]

Well, so where were you showing up trying to get a job?

[C]

I was in San Francisco, and I had met someone through my dad, actually. Who? She was vice president of Knoll Furniture for the west coast at the time, and she was very connected. And we had lunch, and she was, like, super wary at first. Yeah, I met your dad, and he said, I should talk to you. I don't know why, but by the end of the lunch, he's like, you're actually super amazing, and I'm going to connect you to all these people and just call them. And I just started calling them naively, not even knowing anything about the world that I was calling. But a couple of people were super positive, and they were like, I think you got something here. You need to dial in on it. And so I did. So I started looking at it and realized, well, if no one's going to hire me, I'm just going to do it on my own. And I realized, like, I couldn't. In order to do an interior, I needed to have an interior. Right. There's this kind of problem of starting to be an interior designer that you can't show work that you don't have, but you need to show that work to get the job.

[B]

Sure. The catch 22 of the whole thing.

[C]

Yeah, it was super challenging. And so I decided I was going to just make some product and see how that worked. So I started designing some lamps and took about a year to produce one and put it in a box, made some Labels, and then went to New York and decided, well, I just want to find out what the best stores are, where I want it, and see what happens. And I took my lamp and shopped it around and picked out a couple stores. And one of them was this store named Troy, which at the time was. It was the cool new store. And Troy happened to be sitting at their front desk when I walked in, and I pulled out my little box and pulled out the lamp. He's like, these are great. He's like, I'll take 20, and in a month, I'll probably order 20 more. And I was just like, absolutely.

[B]

And you're like, great. I have, like, two that I've made, and.

[C]

Yeah. So I had to go back and start, like, a full production, and I made a hundred at once and wired them in my kitchen. So it got out there, it started selling, and then it, like, landed in a New York Times spread on, like, cool new lamps and the Sunday magazine. And then it got in a MTV video. Oh, wow. Yeah, it kind of. It made the routes like it was. It was super fun. And. And then this company in San Francisco bought 40 of them to go in a hotel on the coast of California. And in that process, I met them, and they asked me if I wanted to come work for them. And they had just started this small interiors firm. And I called them back and said, yeah, I don't know what that job is, but sure, let's, like, I'm on board. So it was really kind of just serendipity. My whole, whole world in my life, There was no plan. I was super fortunate because I landed with my old business partners, Jonathan and Marian, who. They were cousins, and they started this company together. And they immediately got very busy because it was that first kind of Internet boom where everybody in the Bay Area was starting to be successful. And we started getting calls from all these new entrepreneurs that wanted a new loft or a new apartment or redo the house. And they, within a month of me being there, couldn't handle the work. And they just started giving me jobs. I said, well, I've never done this before. And they were just like, you know what? Just ask us questions when you have them. And that's what we did. And within a month, I had three of my own clients and was running these jobs with no assistance, no computer. We were using paper grocery bags to put our samples in. And I learned very quickly because I had to. There was pressure, which I loved, and I did that for 11 years. I became partners with both of them. And we ran a really great company that started doing a lot of hospitality work. And then around 2008 to 2010, I was starting to realize that the commercial work wasn't my favorite because it was very kind of management based. And I really like connecting with people and being in a more like dreamy space of imagining things. And I. I really enjoyed the residential work more. So I decided to kind of leave the partnership and start my own company. And I had one client, so it allowed me to focus on that one job because I didn't need all of the. The energy floating around many jobs to distract me and focus on building a business. So things just started picking up and I landed clients who connected me to their friends. And those clients, I find, are always the people who are kind of more risk takers. And I think that's why I love the Bay Area in a way, because there's something about this place that has a spirit of change. And so I have a lot of younger clients who have changed the world by things that they've considered. And the way they consider those things was not based on kind of history necessarily. It was like, well, how can we change this radically? And because of that, they were okay with the process that I like to work in, which is to jump in, kind of think about like the big picture, dial in like 40% of it, but then leave it open. So organically, as you're working through the project, you learn and you can get maybe somewhere you didn't imagine when you started. So that takes a little bit more of a leap of faith. And that's not for everyone. It's a very specific type of client who's excited about the possibility versus wanting to know what is my house going to look like. And I just happened to land in the right place, I guess, with the right people who supported it.

[B]

Exactly. And I want to understand that better. And I'm so glad you mentioned about the Bay Area, because I'm trying to understand better what the decorating culture is and what those clients are like. They seem like they have a very different sensibility, to your point, than somebody who has seen a bunch of images on Instagram or Pinterest and kind of knows exactly what they want.

[C]

Yes and no. I mean, I think they're still looking at all the same things, but they're not interested in both, like being super on board with taste or trend. And they're also not interested in the traditional piece of it, the history part. But when they are engaging in either, they're fascinated by it. So there's something in this part of the world that is interesting. I think a lot of things have happened here. When you look at California, especially in this part of California, there's radical changes in music have happened here, in government, in even just the nature of the gold rush in architecture, in the city burning down. There's this strange 10 to 20 year cycle that San Francisco and the Bay Area kind of burns itself out and then starts something totally new. And you can look at almost every 10 year period in San Francisco and there's something kind of almost radical that, that bubbles up in it and there's a certain energy in that there. And I think it definitely happened. It happened in architecture. You know, there was a moment where there was this whole barrier style that took this shingle style, but then it morphed into this other weird, radical style that, you know, kind of Charles Moore started doing. It was very kind of like early pop kind of deconstructed things. There's an interior, you know, history here that is also strangely radical that made, created people like Michael Taylor. Right, like, right. That happened, I think, because he was in the Bay Area. There was, there was this space to create this like really weird California style that, that meets sense and that was really different. And so for me, I look up to all of those people, especially in the field that I'm in, because it's fascinating that this area produced that.

[A]

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[B]

You mentioned Michael Taylor and I know he had a big impact on you and he seems to be having a moment in part because RH recently purchased, I guess, some of the intellectual property and some of the historical pieces and wanting to bring that style back. His name and his work seem to be top of mind for a lot of people.

[C]

Well, I mean, I think it definitely, it tells a very specific story, but it was unique. And he also was a master of marketing that information. And so he also, you know, this, this whole game of what we do, it's not, it's not just one piece. Right. And I think that he was really good at selling something to a broader audience that in the 80s where they were ready for it, Right. There was a need for that kind of over the top, you know, extravagance. And I think it was happening in different ways. But, you know, there is a language there that isn't in the renaissance of his work right now. I think right now people are, again, because of technology and image based systems that we're in that are just obsessing about certain looks. I think the look is what is kind of getting captured right now because we're in one of those cycles. But I think that the kind of the true extravagance of what he was doing is he's not there. I had the good fortune of going in many of his projects when I was working before I started my own business just out in the world in San Francisco. And seeing some of these projects was pivotal for me because they were more life events than they were interiors. There was something in them that was visceral and for me, really were life changing because they showed me that an interior just isn't a functional place that has to be pretty or look good or be on trend or have taste. His interiors were about this kind of ability to have a moment that was about that experience. Truly. You experienced really what those rooms felt like, because it took all this stuff that was in my head about how I felt as myself, as an artist, and then made me realize, well, this is a palette in a toolbox. But it's also. There's a way of showing art in a different way that's human and it's interactive. And I think that that kind of beauty that separates you from your world a little bit and makes you take a breath or feel something that, to me is. That's what drives me to do all of this. And I saw that in those rooms. And I think that that's what's really frustrating to me now is because everything is so image based. But the photographs don't do those rooms justice. They never do.

[B]

Well, it's interesting because often when I talk to San Francisco designers, they say, oh, Dennis, I wish I could share more of the work with you, but so much of it is under NDAs, and I'm working for these, obviously, these big tech giants. And so often people don't want to share their intimate lives and the privacy issue. And I completely understand. But so often it means that we're not seeing so much of that work. Yeah.

[C]

And also it's also hard because I know my peers are also doing cool work that I don't get to see. And it's not shared information, but there are people who visit those places. And as has always been historically, there's work out there that you have to visit to see it. And some of it's private and some of it's public. And the irony is that a lot of the clients that are doing this work in the Bay Area have created the world that we're in that also has created. There's a world that you don't want to put yourself in. All of a sudden, the press has become a thing that's different than it used to be. Being in a magazine had a gravitas to it being published and having your house in a magazine had value. And now it's almost like there's so much information out there visually that it's hard to know what that value is. But there's also this other selfieism world that some people don't want to participate in. They don't want that to be seen as that. And so it's ironic that has been created, but, you know, it's. That's kind of the way the world works too. So it's.

[B]

Well, it's interesting because I mean, to your point, and we've been having a lot of conversation recently about it's such a different world today with all of that. Right. So the effort to get published, and I had so many designers reach out to me, just about all of the expense and effort that goes into the

[A]

publicist and the stylist and the photographers

[B]

and all of the. All of the expense and all to just hopefully make it look as if it was effortless and someone discovered just how fabulous you were and decided to publish your work. And that became a whole conversation. But also, as you say, and we don't talk about this enough, perhaps for the client, it's a very different sort of experience as well.

[C]

Well, I think that, I mean, photographing a project is definitely important to me because it's your space to actually get a document of what. What this whole thing was. I find that it always still keeps changing and the, you know, the interior keeps evolving after the photograph. But you have to. You have to commit at some point to do that. To do that is. It's like we were talking about. It's a. It's a huge amount of work to. To prep photograph. And it also means you have to ask your clients to give you that space to do that and. And then, you know, disrupt their life a little bit. Because doing photography is. Is a big. It's a big process. It as simple as just going in and shooting for a couple hours. It's a couple day adventure and requires a lot of work for me. I still push to photograph it for my own documentation and that is kind of my main objective. There was a time where magazines would come in and they would bring an editor, a photographer, a stylist. It was a really great experience because all that was covered and then you would get these beautiful photographs and you would get published and it was, yeah, it felt really different experience than it is now where now we have to photograph everything ourselves and then kind of pitch it because again, there's so much content out there that the value of that content has changed. Just a dollar value for the people who are publishing it. So yeah, the world has definitely changed. And I think that also somehow connects to the client's attachment to it as well. Right. It's all. It all is an ecosystem together and I think I'm just floating through it the best I can.

[B]

Well, as many people are. And as you say, you've been very fortunate in that there has been this interest in your work and interest in you. And I wonder, thinking about how you ended up structuring your firm. I would love to learn a little bit about how you decided to charge and how you decided to think about how big a firm you wanted to have and all of that. You came in to the industry in this sort of, not sort of. You came in through an unconventional path. And did you also start to think unconventionally about how to structure a firm?

[C]

So when I started my own business, I kind of was fortunate where I got some of that base information. So I wasn't starting from scratch, but I did want to build a company that was smaller. At that time we had about 12 to 13 employees. And I realized that I wanted to be a smaller company because I wanted to be more agile. I still wanted to be involved in the projects. For me, it wasn't about this big legacy machine. It was about I just like doing this right and what, what kind of system is going to support that? And so again, I didn't have a plan. I've just been taking it like one year at a time. I've worked with a lot of consultants, which is really great. Again, my curiosity, like I look at the business just like any other process or problem and I take it apart once in a while and figure out how to put it back together again. And to do that, I have hired really great people to help me. And yeah, so it's, it's been an adventure and an ongoing one. I think that I was actually just reading recently that like no business that looks like it's doing really well on the surface is actually doing really well. And that anyone who runs a business is the type of person who is okay with constantly having to put out fires, restructure. You know, it's the nature like of someone who owns a business. It's not just entrepreneurial. It's also, you know, a certain kind of character person who doesn't give up. Right. And that there really is no such thing as a smooth running business because it's just constantly in flux.

[B]

Well, and I know that you have shared with me that you, you think that there's a certain personality type that is best suited to this industry. Right. That, I mean you've mentioned the curiosity, but also a slightly obsessive compulsive, like somebody who really is just in this 110%.

[C]

Yeah. I think when I first started, I think I mentioned a story that writer Diane Sakes was the first person to write about my work when I was doing the lamps. I sent her a photo of the lamp and a little press release trying to be all professional. And she called me and said she loves the lamp, but there was no story there. And she told me two things in that conversation. One was that people love a story and it doesn't matter how good something is, you got to tell a great story. And the other thing is that to do this job is not for everybody because the people who succeed at doing great interior design, they wake up in the morning and they're thinking about drapery and when they go to bed at night they're thinking about drapery. And she said it's a certain person who, that's what they are excited about. And they're excited about it all the time because it is not glamorous. She was so great because it was literally, you know, I just started working with John and Marion and it was super excited that I finally got a job. And that was my first kind of like feedback loop because I was learning very quickly that it's a very challenging job and, and to do it you have to love it. And it's. Yeah, it's just the way it is. It's, it's maybe rewarding in so much of having the ability to create these beautiful things more than it is the day to day world. It's just a, it's a lot of work.

[B]

How did that, how did that influence how you ultimately figured out how to charge? Like many people sort of have decided, oh, I've got to charge hourly because I'm Just spending so much time or I've got to have some huge design fee going in to just cover what I know is going to be an insane amount of work. And how did you end up figuring that part of it out?

[C]

I think that it's still moving again because my clients are coming from this place of change and their world is all about change. Often I get clients that want to challenge the system and say, oh, well, I want to do it this way instead. It's going to be better. And I was like, well, no. And only because I've been. Now I can say I've been in it for 25 years. I've tried a couple different options. I think doing the commercial work taught me a lot because it was flat fee, it was based on phases, and it was very budget driven. And you had to track all your hours to make sure that you stayed afloat during that whole process. Right, right. You had to understand where you're projecting the work as well as what you're billing against yourself. And I realized that that model doesn't really work for residential work. And I think the classic model of hourly plus markup makes the most sense because it basically allows the client to sit in a space where they need to. Some clients are more hands off and they trust you and they're like, just go do it. And then other clients want to be involved in that process and they know that there's a certain cost involved with that. And then some clients want something that's simple and kind of just like plug and play. They're, you know, just tell me I want to approve everything and just install it. Some clients want to do it piecemeal and be part, again, part of that, that dialogue. So I think the hourly plus markup allows each individual client to work the way that is best for them. That billing system may not work for everyone, but we need to have. We need a consistent system on our side. Right, right. So what I realized after all, tried many different things is that this is the way it's been. It seems to work the best across the board. The other systems are harder and they require different management system that I don't want to build at this point because I'm pretty confident in how I work with that. I've always been super upfront with clients how that we're fully transparent. We show them our hours, we have dialogue about what those hours are, we note what the hours are for, we are very clear with our purchasing and our budget and it says exactly what they're paying at all times. At any time, they can review a budget, because every month we track everything and keep it up to date. And that was another thing I learned from doing commercial work is like, you have to be responsible for that piece. And so I feel like the way that we build makes sense. It is challenging sometimes because we do a lot of custom work, and that custom work requires a lot of hours.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

And so sometimes the invoicing can be not in proportion to what the project looks like. And so there's a lot of managing and understanding how to get that to work. But again, you know, I'm working on projects that the point is to make them super special in a way. Right. And because we often are in the role with the client of telling the story across all of the different people in the. The project. Like, we'll also be kind of, you know, managing landscape architecture the whole piece. Like, we kind of do the whole.

[B]

Yeah, you get super involved in landscapes. Right. And I mean.

[C]

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I just again, like, I like. I like telling a story. Right. And. And I. And I get in fearless. So I kind of jump into different areas. And again, I've been super fortunate where I had clients who are like, yeah, let's just do it. So I've started doing gardens and. And actual buildings and architecture. And so what I've learned is that we, as an office are evolving. And we're actually looking right now to hire probably an architect of record, a landscape designer, a graphic designer. The way I look at it, it's like we're trying to tell a really consistent story, and to do that somehow. It's really hard to do it when there's four different stylistic offices running a project. Right. Because those pieces don't always fit together.

[B]

Y.

[C]

The work that I do is about that fitted thing. It's about the cabinetry having this, like, very, like, tactile essence about how it feels when you use it, not how it looks, not if it's on trend or not. It's really about, like, how you move to that space. And that requires us to be very involved in the architecture. Sometimes it even involves where we need to be involved in the landscape, because the way it's attached to those rooms. So what's happened is we've evolved into this office that we kind of are doing all the pieces. I mean, we now have jobs where we're designing the whole circle of the house, which for me, kind of, again, comes back to the people that inspired me, because they kind of did that, these designers and decorators. That I looked up to in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Kind of they pushed the whole agenda of a story and that clear voice. You could see that work and that for me has always been something I'm driven to try to get to. Sometimes the teams that are put together are on board and we get there as teams. Sometimes it's just me and my crew just try to get it to happen. It's. Yeah, it's. I guess it's constantly evolving. That's what that all means. We'll see where it goes.

[A]

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[B]

It sounds as if it's led you back to thinking of yourself or referring to yourself as a decorator versus a designer. And I'm curious to hear more about what that means, what that signifies to you.

[C]

I kind of relate more to the term decorator because of my attachment to these people that have inspired me and seeing that they kind of do the whole project in a way that it's a different language maybe, and it's no different than calling yourself a designer. But I think the interior design world has, it's evolved in a way that it's become like a more business oriented, structural kind of idea of what an interior designer is. It's become something that is safe and organized and licensed. And all of these things are great things, right? Because there are some bad characters out there that did some bad work and created a reputation that is. I still think that the interior design industry is battling, but I think that the work that I do is so in the spirit of those decorators that I look at. And I think that it was a different sensibility that wasn't about that organizational business piece or the structural thing that looked great on a LinkedIn page. It's more about this essence of making art about the whole project. How can it be as beautiful as it can be? And I think that's really hard to do with a lot of structure. And I'm glad that I have a office that has structure to hold that. But we really are in that world of someone like Ron Mann, who I met early on when I moved to California. And I got to witness the way that he worked. And the way that he worked was just like you just gave him X amount of dollars for the whole project, you know, say $100,000. And then he just did it. Right. Because you were buying Ron, you weren't buying interior. And what you got was amazing. And I think that is a more old world way of doing this type of work. Right. It was a little more hands on there. You know, you would go to a workroom to do upholstery. It was kind of the, you know, it was just like a hole in the wall place that made drapes. And, you know, and. And those are still there, but now those are bigger businesses. Right. So the relationship with those people is different and the way that you work is different. And so I'm always trying to really be attached to all of these pieces. To my fault, probably, like, my team is always just like, we're focused way too much on this. But to me, that's the important piece, that attention to subtlety. I feel like. Like he's more like in the world of a decorator. Right. And often it is someone who's doing just furniture. It's. I don't know, I just, like. Yeah, it just makes more sense to me.

[B]

Well, I mean, it's just so interesting to me because. And I think you and I have talked about this in the past, but I think. I think the word decorator became almost a pejorative term, and many wanted to distance themselves from what they thought. Right. Was somebody with. With some flair and an eye for color. And there was even. And I think you raised this with me recently and others have as well. There was almost the gay male kind of stereotype that became the decorator or this sort of overly dramatic character.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Right. That came to be what people. And so there was a move away. Oh, no, no, no. I'm far more professional than that. And I've got this whole organization and often this. This educational qualification, whatever exotic exam I've sat for and all of that. But to your point, it used to just be about hiring the person versus this look necessarily that you were going to get.

[C]

Exactly. And I think that there's a lot to unpack in all of that.

[B]

Yes, go ahead.

[C]

This may not be the hour to do it, but. Yeah, I don't know if I could. I want to go down all those roads right now, but I do think that they're all valid. And I do think that there was also, you know, you can see Even in the 50s and the 60s, there was this kind of negativity towards like the suburban decorator, right? There was someone who would come in and just like paint and wallpaper and give you, give you what you needed kind of that look that was like kind of cookie cutter stamped in that era. And so for me that that is also the negative that's attached to it. But I also like, I feel like the interior design world has also change so commercialized and that, that there's some charm to that idea that is valid of the suburban decorator and the old school gay decorator and you know, just a decorator as someone who actually has a point of view and is, is interested in that endless education of the world, because I think that's what it is. There's a difference between a formula and this ever ongoing search for beauty, right? They're a little bit different. And I think that it's interesting now because there's this whole influencer world that's now in our world of interior design and decorating. And it's using the language through the photograph of Stylate, how you style something. But to me, what I see often is it's very taste driven, right? It's whether the taste is on trend or it's tasteful or it's reserved in a certain way because there's so much information out there or it's maximal in a certain way. But to me, like there's something missing underneath that, right? That there is. I'm not interested in taste. I think that's a really scary thing to look at actually or trend or any of these things. But I love all of them and I'm fascinated by all of them. And I look at all of them and I digest it in a way. And then I try to not think about it and let whatever internal voice I have help me make decisions to do whatever I'm doing in the space I'm doing that's right for that space.

[B]

What I'm always curious about or interested in with regards to taste is more about the refinement of somebody's eye or what they come to appreciate and then how that that informs their work. And to your point, you're very open to hopefully having a different experience each time, but you're certainly calling on a collective set of memories, experiences, rooms that had such a huge impact on you, all of that. And that's what I'm so interested to understand.

[A]

Better.

[C]

I think that this is a job that's about references. And I think the more that I do and the more that I go see, the more what I do evolves. And I definitely think looking at what I've been doing over the last 20 years, it's definitely. I see the evolution in the references more than anything else because I think it's like how you build things no matter what. I mean, nothing comes right out of. From scratch completely. And I think that that personality comes from who that person is and what their references are. And so I can definitely see in what I do a very specific set of connections to other things. But I, you know, I am also trying to let it come through in a certain voice in a way. And I. I'm. But I'm not worried about that being tasteful. And again, that's where I'm in my. I. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

In my own little world, because I'm lucky in a way that my clients are also not interested in that. Right. They're interested in having. Being fun or an adventure or, you know, not like everybody else's house or feel different, like all these different things. And I. And so, yeah, I think that that's where I'm like, more like. I don't know what category to put me in. I haven't figured that out. And that's okay.

[B]

Well, and I think, to your point, you joked about this earlier. Hey, listen, it might have been easier for me in my career if I had developed a formula or if I had developed a house style and was willing to put certain aspects of my work on repeat. As many designers that we know well do.

[C]

I wish I could. It would make my life a lot easier. I was actually. I'm reading right now, Russell Page, his book on the education of a gardener. And I'm working on this really fantastic garden in Southern California. That, again, it's not like a radical, crazy garden, but it's a fun opportunity for me to look at the programming and how it works with the house. And so I started reading some of this stuff, and I'm fascinated by how he's talking about what exactly we're talking about right now, where he grows up in a space where he didn't get an education on doing gardens. He just started obsessing about it and building gardens on his own. And then when he started doing it, he started really referencing mostly French gardens, some Italian gardens. And what he started realizing is in those gardens that he really loved, there were these things that weren't. They didn't make sense on paper. And he talks about how sometimes the staircase is not aligned with the door. It's like off center and it's completely irrelevant to what's going on in the garden, but it works. And how he finds importance in how it feels when you're walking from one terrace to the other to that staircase and how it gets you to the front door. And often I will go to a job site and I will just stand and stand here, stand over there, stand over here. And I'm not thinking about anything. I'm just feeling it to try to let my body almost digest. Like, is this the right place to put this door? And does this, does this make sense with this? And I don't know what that is, but that there is that. That to me isn't. Can't be put into that organizational structure. Right. And it can't be cookie cuttered. And to me, that's what at the end makes something that has a. It feels like you can feel that. That. Yeah. And I wonder in the world we're in right now if that will be captured from artificial intelligence. Right. Because this is a weird conversation that's out in the world. But part of me is just like, yeah, AI could put together a storyboard, it could write some text, it could do your budget, it could do all these stuff. Things. But it can't stand in the room when you're unloading the furniture. Or maybe it could.

[B]

Well, the robots. The robots aren't far away. Yeah. Okay, first of all, let the record show that Charles led us to the artificial intelligence conversation. I did not bring us here, but we're going to have it since you raised it, because. Yes, well, okay, you brought it up. So. Okay, A.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So a. The humanoid robots. Right. Musk is working on that. So you're gonna have those soon standing at the job site going, yep, this way, that move this over here. But what do you imagine? I imagine many of your clients are huge participants in everything that is happening.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely right.

[B]

And I don't know how much they share with you of their thoughts, hopes, fears. Have they shared with you that we need to get out of here soon, that we need to find another place?

[C]

I'm not kidding. That story yet.

[B]

Okay, good.

[C]

And I guess we don't talk about it all that much, my clients and I on the AI page. But I guess I just, you know, I'm seeing it creep into the world that we're in and I find that even if you could plug something into some chat and get an Answer in real time right now. And we have been using it to do like kind of basic tasks of like just recoloring things and understanding how things look in an elevation. But I personally have not been a person who's ever trusted drawings to begin with or renderings. Like we don't do digital renderings in our office because I feel like it takes away the imagination of what the space is actually going to be and it creates something that's too realistic. That being said that, you know, if these tools could help us do that, that's great. I'm trying to figure out how to retain, just for however long it's going to last, the ability myself to enjoy looking at things and learning things and going to places and seeing them in person and understanding why those staircases are off centered and that you can't get online. And even the difference between researching online and going through books to me is very different. I think that when I start going through books, I see things that I didn't expect where when I go through images online, I just see a lot of a similar character because it's being given to me in a certain way, which I believe it is. I don't know if it is or not. And then there's also work. I'm also very work with a pencil person. And I try to get my whole team to draw more because I don't know if it's fully true or not. But I believe that entering data in a keyboard is a different type of, of brain work that uses a different thought process versus the holding something and working out geometries with your hand. Because I think your brain is connected to your hand differently than it is when you're typing. So I'm always pushing everyone to draw more and use a pencil. And I'm also, even in note taking, I find like the notes are more accurate when they're taken, written down and jotted down because you could make like a quick little sketch and you can't do that when you're on your phone, you know, typing with two thumbs. Right. It's a different way of having a dialogue with the work. I'm thinking that AI is going to be a similar disconnect. So even in AI note taking, you walk away feeling like, oh yeah, it already took the notes from that meeting. I don't need to worry about it. So that goes in another pile of another email of another set of meeting notes. Notes, nobody knows what's in the notes. And then you show up and the sink is in the wrong place. Why because no one listened, no one was engaged in the conversation. No one took any notes. The notes, no one references. Right. This is almost every day in our world right now is we are trying to figure out how to manage that. Which is to me, the irony of this transition. It's like it's actually creating more time and work to manage the fallout from what's supposed to be helping us not have to do the work. So we're going to see where it goes. I don't know. I mean, it's definitely frustrating for me being more hands on and constantly having to remind people, like, well, if we just were paying attention and standing there having dialogue about it, we'd be done already. We wouldn't have to have another meeting with more notes that no one looked at.

[B]

Well, that's why I sort of feel like more mindfulness training and less AI training, more training to help people actually really focus in the moment that they're in, really observe in a much more meaningful way, hear what people are saying and also how they're saying it and really what's the dynamic of what's going on. Which leads me, as we wrap up the conversation, which leads me into thinking about the future of design, which is the design students coming into our industry. And I know that you kindly spend time talking to design students and I was trying to draft some remarks for the commencement at the New York School of Interior Design coming up in May and trying to think about what meaningful thing could we tell students coming into this world today? Whether it's about the fact that they should go work in a bunch of different places, perhaps before they pursue this the way you did and learned so many different things and so many different, seemingly unrelated jobs, but that were meaningfully helpful to you. But what do you think is meaningful to try and impart to students and to anyone who's really thinking about coming into this profession?

[C]

I think that there's space for all different types of people because the business is so varied now. There is room for someone who is more technical based or creative based or in different spots. But I think doing work specific to what we're doing, I do think a world experience is super helpful. Going out and working at a wood shop and working at a restaurant, you know, all of these things are skills about, like, people, communication, you know, how do you, how do you get through something and complete it? Like, you know, in working just out of school and it's a side office, which people do, it's hard to. It's hard to get those other, those other Kind of bits that you really need to succeed, because there it isn't just what's on the paper or in the design world, it's all of everything. I think to do what we do, you need to understand so many different things. The constant curiosity happens when you're out in the world and it doesn't matter where you are. It could be sitting right next to you, but you got to go out. And I think that's super important because that's what we're doing. We're helping people put that stuff together in their own world. So it's good to know what all those people worlds are.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, and that's, I think that's. I think the gift that decorators give to, to clients is, is all that accumulated knowledge that they, that they bring to, to solve all these many problems that often clients don't even realize you've solved for them. And that's part of the magic of what you give them. In the end, if it, if it works, hopefully.

[C]

I mean, yeah, I think that not everyone has a time to obsess over all these things.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So. And that's the way, you know, I get that from other people too, who are obsessed over what they do.

[B]

Yeah. Well, and I think, I think you're. You're helping to put a much more positive spin on being obsessive.

[C]

Exactly. It's okay.

[B]

Turns out it's helpful.

[C]

Yeah. It's all going to be all right.

[B]

It's all going to be all right. Yes, exactly. Charles, I want to thank you so much for making the time. This has been so fun to keep. Get to speak with you and I really appreciate it.

[C]

Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed it too. I appreciate it.

[A]

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to keep up with

[B]

the latest design industry news, visit us

[A]

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[B]

you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us

[A]

a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others to discover the show. This show was produced by Fred Nicholas and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.