Remy Renzullo (3:27)

Yeah, no, there are. There are. There are six plus me. So we're seven in total.

Dennis Scully (3:32)

Okay.

Remy Renzullo (3:32)

Which is a nice mix. There are three people who work out of London full time, two who work out of New York full time, and one in Italy full time. Okay. And as I say, I sort of rotate between those, and it's a really, really nice size. I think it took for a long time. It was me and one person, and it was almost like hiring that next person was really stressful. And that, like, took a lot of courage, I guess I want to say, you know, I. I have a fear of overhead, as most business owners do. And then somehow from 2 to 6 happened, it seemed like in the blink of an eye. My aspiration has never been to have a studio of 25 people and be on dozens of projects at one time. 2026 is my 10th anniversary in business, which is. I'm not something. I'm shouting from the rooftops, necessarily, but I'm sort of a milestone person. And so these things mean a bit to me. And it's definitely. I think. I mean, the year is still very fresh, but it's definitely led to a certain amount of introspection thinking about the last 10 years and where I am. You know, I decided very, very impetuously that I wanted to start decorating. I have no formal training. I still have no formal training training. I had no educational experience. You know, I knew nothing. And I think probably my. My first few clients were. Were very well aware of that.

Dennis Scully (4:54)

Well, which is part of what I want to get into. Exactly. Because, I mean, people gave you a chance despite, as you say, being full well aware that you didn't have, let's just say, a traditional design education or any design education whatsoever.

Remy Renzullo (5:07)

No, no, nothing. Nothing.

Dennis Scully (5:09)

Right.

Remy Renzullo (5:09)

As I say, I have. I. I'm the least qualified person in my office,

Dennis Scully (5:14)

which is. Which is again, and I was having with some designers the other day, which is part of what I love about our industry, is that the barriers to entry are relatively low. And obviously you have a tremendous eye

Dennis Scully (5:31)

and a taste level.

Dennis Scully (5:32)

And I want to talk about how you developed all of that and came to that because it's not as if there isn't a foundation upon which you've built. So let's jump back and tell me the early days for you. So the listeners can understand where you grew up and some of the influences because there's interesting stuff in there.

Remy Renzullo (5:53)

So I was born and raised in a very, very small part of Litchfield County, Connecticut, which in and of itself is a very rural area. I was actually born at home. I grew up in this very, very wonderful kind of bizarre house that my mother had created. And that was hugely formative on my aesthetic. I think that's really because I grew up in this house that was, you know, it was by no means perfect. It was not the grandest of the houses in the world, but it had tremendous atmosphere. And I think that left a massive imprint on me. We had every manner of bizarre object in my house. I mean we had lots and lots of, we had lots and lots of wonderful things, like great 18th century European furniture, some of which my mum had bought, some of which had been family things, et cetera. Lots of wonderful furniture that my father had made, who's a furniture maker. And then all manner of different eccentric items, lots and lots, lots of taxidermied birds. At one point rocks, nests, every hornet's nests suspended from the ceiling. My mom had a great collection of Palissy ware ceramics that adorned our kitchen wall. We had stuffed crows hanging from the rafters. I mean, it was extraordinary.

Dennis Scully (7:10)

Yes.

Remy Renzullo (7:10)

It's not like I grew up in suburban America. You know, I grew up in Little County, Connecticut in the 90s, which was an epicenter of creativity and tast and all of these things. And my friends are from very different backgrounds, but in uniting they had a really, really eccentric wide circle of friends, most of whom were artists or creative in some capacity. So I definitely grew up in this environment of eccentricity and kind of blue blooded liberalism. And so that left a big imprint. And then I spent a lot of, spent all of my summer in my childhood in Maine in a very, very, again even more rural than Litchfield County, Connecticut area. And then at the same time as all of this, my parents got a house in New Mexico outside of Santa Fe. And so it was this kind of sort of axis, I'd say, of kind of Litchfield County, Maine and New Mexico being exposed to a really, really radically different culture at a young age and being acutely aware at 9 years old I wasn't necessarily actively thinking about this, but it left a huge imprint on me later in life.

Dennis Scully (8:17)

So all of that comes together and

Dennis Scully (8:20)

sets you originally on a path to

Dennis Scully (8:23)

do what were you hankering to do coming out of all of that and what were you articulating to your family that you thought was interesting to you.

Remy Renzullo (8:34)

There was sort of no pressure to conform to any one thing or the other. I mean, I think it was very much. We were encouraged to do what we wanted to do. Both of my sisters are academics in one form or another and have always been. So they've gone a slightly different path than I have. And I guess that's what I mean is that it was not sort of like, oh, because we're kooky and artistic, you have to be. Or because there's a certain strand of social justice that you have to do that also. I mean, it was really kind of. And so I guess when I think back, I really wanted to be a diplomat when I was younger. I've had a huge, huge lot of history my entire life and other cultures. The idea of a diplomat sounded really glamorous, but also really, really interesting. And lots of travel involved and lots of exposure to the world. I. I've always, always kind of hankered for a wider world than the one in which I had grown up in to a certain extent. I think that started to change when I went away to boarding school and I went to. I really, really desperately wanted to go to this school that my grandfather had gone to. And a lot of the men, historically, my mother's family had gone to a school called St. Paul's which is in New Hampshire. And that unfortunately, they decided they didn't want me. And so.

Dennis Scully (9:47)

Their loss, Remy, their loss.

Remy Renzullo (9:50)

Like, I was a little too eccentric, even at 14. And so instead I went to this very, very, very sort of liberal arts geared boarding school called Putney, which is a very. It's a sort of pillar of progressive education in the Northeast. And so I think that environment was so creative. And I think I realized that actually what I really wanted to do was something creative. And I think because I had kind of grown up in this very interior, centric family, you know, my mother had been a decorator, My father designed and made furniture. So there was all of this sort of interiors nonsense around me. And I think because of that, I sort of felt like I want to forge my own path in some way. And I decided I wanted to become a fashion designer. And I got really, really interested in that. And then I went to Parsons and studied fashion design. And although I dropped out after two years because. For a variety of reasons, but largely because I thought it was a school, I felt so completely unintellectually stimulated in that environment.

Dennis Scully (10:51)

Really? How so?

Remy Renzullo (10:53)

Well, I was sort of astounded by. How can I say this in a Polite way by the lack of importance put on education.

Dennis Scully (11:04)

Well, is that because they wanted to set you free to draw and design and create, or was it, I think

Remy Renzullo (11:10)

if I was going to be overly critical of it as a school, is that it puts you feel free. It was almost a vocational school in a way. And so it was. And at this. And I was sort of kind of at this point realizing that I think, you know, if I wanted to stay in higher education, that I probably needed to go to a different school. But actually what I really wanted to do was to not be in school anymore and just to work. And so I had been interning for this young fashion designer who was a friend of mine called Wes Gordon, who now is the creative director of Kalina Herrera, doing an amazing job there. And at the time he had his own line and he had, I think four or five employees. And he offered me a job. He knew that I wanted to leave Parsons. And so I just, you know, basically said, all right, I'm done. I had watched successive classes graduate from Parsons, people struggling to find jobs in the fashion industry. And so I thought, well, if I can do that, you know, if this is in front of me, why am I going to spend another.

Dennis Scully (12:02)

Here's a job being given to me, right?

Remy Renzullo (12:05)

So I went to work for Wes and I worked with him for four and a half years. And there were aspects of it that I really, really enjoyed. But I think I realized midway through that I really didn't want to stay in the fashion industry. That what I love, I love the design process. I loved the technical side of it also. I love developing textile. I loved all of that. I loved the research process. But, you know, when you're, you know, in a high end womenswear brand, you're going to have to produce so many collections per year. It's so, I mean, you know, all of these things, you know, this was, this is it. This was more than 10 years ago. And I think the fashion industry has probably changed a lot since then. But I think this was stuff that was being talked about at the time as, you know, just the ridiculous pace of it, the expectation, all of this. You know, I kind of looked down the road at what my best case, career trajectory could be. And I just thought, I don't know that this will ever make me happy and that I'm going to enjoy doing this.

Dennis Scully (12:57)

You could already see yourself being burned out by this career. You hadn't even started.

Remy Renzullo (13:02)

No, exactly. Right, exactly. And so when I was sort of realizing that I kind of wanted to get out of it, I started thinking a little bit and asking people. And I had a friend of mine come over for lunch one day when I had a day off. And it was a friend of mine who was quite prominent in fashion and a bit in interiors as well. And it's someone called Lauren Santo Domingo. And Lauren I've known a while and she's been something of a. Kind of always given me really good guidance on things. And Lauren basically came over to my, you know, 24 years old, 25 years old apartment and said, I don't understand why you're working at fashion. What are you doing?

Dennis Scully (13:38)

Well, because. Tell us what the apartment looked like. Tell me what your. How you had tricked out your apartment at the time.

Remy Renzullo (13:42)

It was a wonderful old Greek. It was a Greek revival brick brownstone in Chelsea on West 20th Street. And there's a row of houses called Cushman Row. And Alfonso Cushman basically developed Chelsea and the west side of Manhattan. And it was his house. And then he had six daughters or five daughters. I can't remember how many houses there were now. And he built each daughter a house. And so it's this really beautiful landmarked little section on West 20th across from the seminary. And so I was living with my boyfriend at the time and we got this place together. And you know, I was, as I say, I think I moved in there when I was 22. And so it was, you know, I didn't have endless resources. I didn't have, you know, I wasn't. It was ramping. And I wasn't going to go out and decorate it in some very, very extravagant way, but I just sort of filled it with, you know, I come from a family of compulsive shopaholics and there's a lot of, a lot of junk floating around and some stuff which is not junk. And so I sort of filled it with cast offs from my, my grandmother, from my parents. My dad made a couple things for me for it. And, you know, we just sort of trolled auctions and flea markets and, you know, whatever, just found stuff. But I definitely did it the way that I wanted it to look. So Lauren comes for lunch and sort of midway through lunch, she just says to me, she says, you know, I don't really understand why you're even. Why you're still working passion, you know, like, there are thousands of people out there who want to work in this industry way more than you do, where, you know, it's one of the most cutthroat, competitive environments. You don't really want to be a part of this. So why even bother anymore? Interiors, there's almost nobody young, interesting at the moment who has the kind of references that you do, who understands this type of. Who's sort of doing this thing in the way that you are. Clearly, Remy, it's right in front of you. This is what you're supposed to be doing. What are you not understanding? And I think, as I say, I think because it was this thing that I grew up around, it was really. I really had this block. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And then it sort of just. It sunk in a little bit more. And I thought about Lauren's words a little bit more, and I suddenly realized, like, you know, maybe she's right.

Dennis Scully (15:55)

How did you react to her at the time? I mean, how did that first process for you when she said all of that? And you're like, oh, thanks very much. That's great. No, no, no, no.

Remy Renzullo (16:02)

I. I'm really.

Dennis Scully (16:03)

I'm fine.

Remy Renzullo (16:04)

I think that I was circumspect enough to realize that she probably had a point. And as I say, you know, it's the kind of thing, like, even if it's advice you don't necessarily want, if it comes from someone you really respect inherently, you'll pay attention to it. And I do think. And as I said, I think at this point, I was so uninterested in continuing to work in fashion that virtually, I thought, well, to create a field which I need virtually no qualification to work in. So here we go. I can do this. One thing led to another, and she said, listen, well, why don't you come and help me with this house I'm doing in Colombia?

Dennis Scully (16:38)

And.

Remy Renzullo (16:39)

And, you know, that way, you know, should. I don't really want. It's not. I don't want to do it with a decorate, you know, I'm sort of doing it myself. But I love your taste. I love your opinion. And this is, you know, you can kind of learn sort of the ropes, basically. And I thought, you know what? Okay, fine, maybe I'm going to do this. And it's funny, you know, I called my parents, and I adore both of my parents in many, many ways, but both of them basically said, why on earth would you ever do this?

Dennis Scully (17:02)

And you're like, my whole family heritage is this. And why. And you're questioning this why?

Remy Renzullo (17:08)

Exactly. You know, my father said. And, you know, of course, at the time, I was deeply offended by it, but he was actually Right. He said, well, what do you even know about furniture?

Dennis Scully (17:17)

Only what you've taught me, dad.

Remy Renzullo (17:22)

So it's funny, you know, as I say, I mean, my parents are very supportive in some ways, but they really both were adamant that I not do this. But being me, once I set my mind to something, I do it. And so I just sort of gave it a go. And so, you know, I helped Lauren about this house, and she was really, really, really invaluable. Early on, she introduced me to a number of different people. So my first kind of clients largely came through her. You know, looking back on, As I said, 10 years on, looking back on it, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I knew how I wanted things to look. And I just, you know, I just tried to teach myself. I just said, you. Well, I've got to do this, so I've got to figure this out. And I just tried to kind of learn as much as I could. And, you know, I have to say that, you know, my first few clients were immensely, immensely generous and really, really understanding of the fact that I had a huge amount of passion. I worked really, really, really hard. And if I. And I to this day, I still do that. If God forbid, I ever, you know, fuck something up, that I will fix it at my own cost. But I really, you know, I. I really tried to dedicate myself to learning as much as I could, and it was not easy at first. I think, you know, it's the beauty, I guess, of being 25 is that I was much more cavalier and impetuous than I. And I think I sort of thought, like, well, you know, I'm young enough that I don't really have children. I don't have. I have nothing that depends on me in life. So if I'm not going to do

Dennis Scully (18:47)

this, what's to lose?

Remy Renzullo (18:48)

Exactly, exactly.

Dennis Scully (18:49)

And did you know anything about how

Dennis Scully (18:51)

to charge or how to bill for

Dennis Scully (18:53)

your time or how to even think of your time?

Remy Renzullo (18:56)

I mean, I, you know, I was introduced to someone quite early on who had worked for a number of designers and wasn't sort of. Wasn't really doing it anymore. And she came to help me, but she came to work for me part time. And she was really, really helpful in that. You know, she said, well, you can sort of do things like this, this. Just even understanding how to, you know, how to write an invoice, how to all of these things. And so that's sort of. It's sort of how it began. And I learned a huge amount along the way I still am. But I've always been really, really, really neurotic about the way things are made, about craftsmanship. And as I say, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm the child of a furniture, of an incredibly talented furniture maker that, and I did spend five years working in a really high end fashion design environment where, you know, if you have a dress and the hem of it is, you know, half an inch off, the entire thing is ruined. And that sort of microscopic attention to detail was hugely, hugely beneficial when I went into interiors. And so, yes, I had never worked for an interior designer. I didn't really know. I didn't know what height you put a light switch at. I didn't know, you know, all of this stuff that's basic and God knows why. It didn't occur to me to maybe go and take a class in this. But that's just not who I am. And really, what school. Yeah, exactly. Would have really helped me, probably save me a huge amount of money in the long run. But I knew how things are supposed to be made. These kind of inadvertent or unintentional lessons of my childhood really, really played a huge part in it that I didn't know literally how to put a room together, but I knew how a room should look. And so I still, you know, I'll look back at some of my early work and of course there are tons of things that I find wrong with it, but overall, I still love what I did. It still feels like me.

Dennis Scully (20:41)

You still see yourself in it?

Remy Renzullo (20:42)

Yeah, 100%. I'm still really proud of some of my early projects. There are still some, I still think some of the most beautiful rooms I ever did, I did in the first couple of years of my career.

Dennis Scully (20:56)

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Dennis Scully (21:38)

And had you, had you put a formal structure around a business at this time in the early stages when you were doing all these projects or he's Remy's like, oh, Dennis, no, no, no, no.

Remy Renzullo (21:51)

You know, I, I had not a clue in the entire world, how to run a business, how to balance a checkbook. I. These fundamental things, lots of basic business structural things. I couldn't tell you. I don't come from an entrepreneurial family or an entrepreneurial background at all. And that was definitely difficult. I didn't have somebody early on that I could turn to and say, is this how I'm supposed to do this? Or is this how I'm supposed to do that? Whatever. I really made a lot of mistakes, but I learned from them. And I've always found that if we're very honest and upfront with people, and you really. People see how hard you're trying to work and how you're trying to improve things, people are generally very forgiving and very understanding. And I think now, on the reverse side of it, with people who work for me, as long as I can see not everyone, I never expect everything to be done perfectly. But as long as I can see that there's a level of interest, a level of dedication, and the desire to do better, that's enough for me.

Dennis Scully (22:53)

I think in all of my many conversations with great designers, I certainly think that many great designers are also, whether they like to call themselves great sellers or great showmen or. Right. I mean, they're people who are. Who are confident in their point of view and can get people passionate about what they see enough to bring them along, even if their invoice doesn't look like it's the most professional thing they've ever seen.

Remy Renzullo (23:21)

Absolutely. And I think whether it was always genuine or manufactured, confidence is never something that I really struggled with when I was starting my business.

Dennis Scully (23:29)

I sense that. I sense that.

Remy Renzullo (23:30)

Yes, I. I think I. And I. I still say this to my. To my office all the time before we go into meetings that, you know, I have to feel I believe in something 100%, because if I don't, then how can I convince someone else to it? And so I think. I think people were really, really responded to my enthusiasm and my confidence in that respect. I think the biggest challenge for me was that I knew how I wanted a room to look, and I could sell somebody on how I wanted a room to look. I couldn't necessarily create the room or execute it in the way that I wanted to at first. And I think that's something I'm really, really proud of now, is that because of how much I've learned and because I have an incredible team around me, I sort of feel now that anything I can dream up, we can create. And that's the most gratifying feeling for me about this job now.

Dennis Scully (24:17)

So when you couldn't execute it in the early days as well as you would have liked, what did you have

Dennis Scully (24:21)

to do in order make that possible?

Remy Renzullo (24:24)

It's a good question. I mean, I think I tried to do it as best as I could with the skill set that I had at the time, but I hold myself to an impossibly high standard and so I'm not interested in mediocrity. And so I definitely think that, you know, I think there are a lot of people who I did rooms for houses for and I wasn't necessarily happy with everything and they were thrilled with it. But I sort of believe that the second that one feels complacent or smug, it's time to get a new job and time to move on to something else. Because I don't feel that I've scratched, even barely scratched the surface of the level of skill and knowledge that I want to acquire.

Dennis Scully (24:59)

So when did that. You were speaking earlier in our conversation about that first hire and how much thought that took. And I'm so curious as to what you even imagined that person needed to

Dennis Scully (25:11)

be and to be able to do.

Dennis Scully (25:12)

And when did that happen for you?

Remy Renzullo (25:15)

As I say, almost instantly. Okay. I mean, it was, as I said, within a couple months. I was introduced to this woman who had worked for a couple other designers and I hired her in a part time kind of consulting capacity because at this point I didn't know that I had the wherewithal to have a full time employee. I didn't know I needed one. And I think I really, really naively misunderstood how much was going to be involved, how much work this all takes. And I think in a funny way, it took me a really long time to realize how much actually goes into creating a beautiful interior. And I think that's almost the downside of having grown up in a very beautiful, very interesting environment is that I slightly took for granted that this is just here. Everyone has this. And so I realized very quickly, like, holy shit, the volume of email, of correspondence. So I didn't have a clue. And so you know, this. So I hired this person to kind of work for me part time. And I think probably about six to nine months into it, I think I really realized, like, no, no full time, this has got to be a full time hire. And I think I've got enough work to support this. And you know, I was working out of my house, didn't have an office, so I just sort of felt like this has got to be some Money well spent. Because otherwise, I mean, this is going to end quicker than it began. And so that was that. And then it's interesting because, you know, then Covid, of course, happened kind of after a couple, you know, I had this sort of moment where I started and it was sort of very quickly it became serious and I had some amazing projects, amazing clients, and kind of big league sort of stuff. And I, and I think I definitely, definitely grew too quickly. And I don't even mean sort of size of business, but just I was saying yes to too many things. I was just, you know, I was overly ambitious with what I could handle.

Dennis Scully (27:06)

But it's so hard beginning, right, to not say yes to everything. And you feel like.

Remy Renzullo (27:10)

Exactly. And you think I still to this day feel that the, you know, God forbid I say no to someone. No. I mean, then it's.

Dennis Scully (27:15)

It.

Remy Renzullo (27:15)

There's never going to be another job on the horizon and I'm going to be thrown in debtor's prison. I mean, you know, it's just like, yeah, no, but I mean, it's, it's. It's really, really scary.

Dennis Scully (27:25)

Yeah.

Remy Renzullo (27:25)

And so I said, yeah, sure, yes, I'll do. You know, and I was like, holy shit. Like, I have, you know, it's me and one person and I, you know, and I've got. I trying to do this and I don't know how to do this. And you know, oh my God, like, we can'. Keep up with the invoicing and my accountants aren't getting the information they need and sales taxes being filed late. I mean, all these things that nobody tells you about. And so it was just like, holy shit. And then I took a huge project overseas and probably the worst, as I'm already overwhelmed in America. I think, great, I got to do this enormous 12,000 square foot house in London.

Dennis Scully (28:02)

I need to go abroad and go across the pond and start working there too. Why not?

Remy Renzullo (28:08)

Anyway, and so just things started to really get. Suddenly it was like, oh my God, how can I crazy. And I'm at this point, I'm 27, right. Like, you know, I mean, it's just insanity and I'm just trying to kind of keep up with all of it. And then Covid happens and then it's. This project isn't happening anymore. And, oh, actually we're putting this on hold, you know, and it's like. And actually it was such a. It proved. I mean, I made it through it and it proved to be an incredible reset for me because there are a lot of projects that Ended for one reason or another because of COVID I moved out of New York like a lot of people did. I moved back into my father's sort of family home in Connecticut. And then we started to kind of come out of COVID And I feel that that's. From then until now has been this, like, amazing. Has been this really, really extraordinary period of sustainable growth in my business and my company and understanding how to put together a fantastic team and really understanding how to design a house. And so I think that the thing I'm sort of most proud of is that I managed to kind of come through a really difficult time of not understanding how to run a business or how to put it together. And now I'm fully in command of the business side of things. And I've learned a lot about that, but that we just have a. It's a really sustainable, well organized, well run company and we do amazing work.

Dennis Scully (29:29)

So when does Castle Howard come along for you? And how does that happen? And that seems to just put you on a whole other trajectory. Right?

Remy Renzullo (29:38)

It came about. It came about during COVID It was. It was Thanksgiving, 2020. I was at home. I had just literally a week before I moved out of my apartment in New York, and I get a text from an old friend of mine I haven't seen in ages called Blanche Howard, basically saying, listen, my parents are need to do some work on their house, and I was sharing my. I was sharing my mom some of your work, and they're really keen to meet with you. What's the best email to kind of reach you on? Would you be interested at this point? The Howards have always had, since before they moved up and ran to run Castle Howard from before then. They have a lovely, lovely house outside of Bath, which was their sort of house before Castle Howard. And it's a wonderful sort of old rectory. And I sort of assumed that it was something to do with your hatred.

Dennis Scully (30:28)

So you thought that was the house that she.

Remy Renzullo (30:29)

Exactly.

Dennis Scully (30:30)

No.

Remy Renzullo (30:30)

Because even in my delusions of grandeur, I never imagined for a second that it would be Castle Howard.

Dennis Scully (30:36)

So you're calling to have me take care of Castle Howard, Right?

Remy Renzullo (30:39)

Exactly.

Dennis Scully (30:39)

Sure. Yeah.

Remy Renzullo (30:41)

And so, you know, I said, yeah, of course. I'd love to talk to your parents about some decoration work, et cetera, et cetera. I said, great. Okay. Anyway, so, yeah, so about three days after Thanksgiving, I'm at my desk in my study and I get an email and says, victoria Howard, and says, dear Amate, you know Victoria, Blanche's mother, she's Told me she showed me some of your work. I'd love to talk to you about doing some decorating work. Would you be available to come to Castle Hour?

Dennis Scully (31:05)

It's a small place that we have in the countryside and we'd love for you to come and check. Yeah, yeah.

Remy Renzullo (31:12)

So I sort of, you know, picked myself up off the floor and wrote an email and replied and said yes, absolutely, I would love that. And so In January of 2021, I got a train in the midst of the second lockdown in England up to Yorkshire in the middle of a blizzard. And so in such environment I arrived to Castle Howard. And so I've taken on this extraordinary hour and a half long tour through one room after the next. And I'm not exaggerating but I mean it's like something out of bright, out of dust sheets on furniture and you know, shutters closed up. And I mean it was like. I'd like to think that it was sort of total synergy at first. We had this amazing dialogue and rapport from the beginning and you know, to the Howard's credit they had had every, they turned to every interior decorator under the sun in England from Robert Kine to David Millenaric to, you know, I mean the list goes on and on and on. And they decided to give.

Dennis Scully (32:17)

And they chose you.

Remy Renzullo (32:19)

They decided to give a 29 year old America a shot.

Dennis Scully (32:23)

Why? Why do you think? I mean looking back, what was going on in their minds, do you think that.

Remy Renzullo (32:28)

I think that it was important to them that it was somebody who was young and really full of enthusiasm and that, you know, this is a daunting, vast project which will in theory go on for a very, very, very long time. You know, that we've completed kind of the first phase of it, but by no means is it finished. Really important to them. And I also think that I'm really a big believer in the importance of first impressions with people. And I think that we just, we, we just got along. And I think that and, and I think as well that you know, they had had a lot, as I said, they had a lot of people come up to look at this with, you know, way more qualified than I was. But you know, people who said, well okay, great, I'm going to come up here with my team of 12 and we're going to, you know, and, and what they didn't want was that they wanted somebody who was going to say, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna to really take this on. I'm going to kind of Live in and absorb this place. And I think it was, you know, they were absolutely right and they said that, you know, are you willing to spend a lot of time here? Which I know sounds like who wouldn't? But, you know, obviously.

Dennis Scully (33:29)

Oh, all right, all right.

Remy Renzullo (33:31)

There are obviously a lot of, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people, a lot of people in this industry who would love to say yes and just can't because of other commitments, other, you know, whatever.

Dennis Scully (33:38)

They couldn't, they couldn't come and spend that kind of time.

Remy Renzullo (33:40)

Yeah. And maybe don't want to either, you know, I mean, who knows knows. But for me, it was like very early on we spoke in kind of slightly abstract but larger kind of terms about things of the importance of working really iteratively that it's not like putting together a deck of room schemes, it's absorbing this place in some cases. It was like one of the first things that I was tasked with were making some new lampshades for a sitting room. Here you are in Castle Howard. There's a wing of the house. It's a burnt out shell. There's 9 million things to do. And we had, you know, and we spent a week sitting talking about lapses. But in a way, when you have so much to do, the only way you can begin is to start in a really, really small way. And so, and so, you know, as I say, it wasn't as if I was hired and said, okay, your remit is all of this. It was like, we're going to give you a little bit to work on. Let's see how we do, let's see if we get. And what was really, really, really important to Harvards was let's see how we get along and let's see if where our taste is aligned. Because it's one thing to sit and talk about something together and think that you'll match. It's another thing once you actually start going. And to both of our sort of pleasant surprises, it was a total match made in. I mean, they are extraordinary clients and they're my second family now. In the last five years, I've spent more time in Castleheart than I spent in any other one place. I also think that it was almost like the kind of master's degree that I never had that, you know, I had this exposure to some of, you know, the advantage of being there. Right. Is that you get access to some of the most extraordinary craftsmen in the entire world. Because who doesn't want to contribute to the restoration at Castle Harrod. But also the immense, you know, importance of the place means that it demands a level of perfection and expertise that when I started I didn't have, but that I very quickly had to get. And so it was, as I say, I learned more from that project than any other. And so in that respect, I'm not only proud of the work that I did, but I'm really proud of who I became from doing that project.

Dennis Scully (35:49)

So tell me about that. Who have you become as a result of doing that project?

Remy Renzullo (35:54)

I think I've really learned what I love to work on. And as I said, I feel now that I can create the sort of rooms that I used to only be able to imagine. I think what I realize is that where I excel are in these long term big projects where there's a certain amount of historical restoration and knowledge involved, but also a lot of imagination as well and a lot of creativity and the ability to work really iteratively, to work really collaboratively. I mean, all of these things that working something like Castle Howard, you're very acutely aware that you are one of a much, much larger team. There's no room for the kind of cult of one, so to speak. And I'm working on some projects now which are not the same size per se, but I think I found a little bit of a kind of metier in less of a particular period or environment, but of a sort of a scale project and also of being able to work with a certain type of client and one who has a lot of taste, has a lot of knowledge and wants someone wants to work with someone who will be really collaborative. You know, I don't really have clients who say, okay, I hear I'm going to write a check. I want to have sign off all of the schemes once and then go and do it. I mean, I don't really have clients like that and I'm actually. And a lot of people say to me, well, how nice would it be? But actually I don't think. I love, I love this close relationship I have with my clients and working really closely with them.

Dennis Scully (37:31)

And do you feel as though your work is likely to continue along this

Dennis Scully (37:36)

path of its part restorative restoration work?

Dennis Scully (37:43)

It's always filled with antiques.

Dennis Scully (37:45)

I get the sense that people aren't

Dennis Scully (37:47)

going to necessarily be saying, oh, just bought this new place in la. I can't wait for you to come and, and trick it out with the latest collections.

Remy Renzullo (37:55)

No, it's interesting. I think, as I say, I think the way I have developed my process around working will not change. And I think that so much of it, it was so informed by my job at castleheart, because so much of it began with having to research things and having to learn. And so that's still an immensely important component that I think that beginning a project by researching, understanding what's there, understanding what was there, and that means very different things in very different environments, as opposed to just saying, I'm going to, you know, and I'm not. I don't mean this in a disparaging way at all, but I'm not going to sit and put together a mood board for a project that's not really who I am. There's a sort of rigorous research process that is involved in it. And it's interesting, you know, I'm about to finish this at the end of the summer, a project I've worked on for five years, which is a quite modern house up a mountain in Wyoming. And I didn't do the architecture in conjunction with a local architecture firm, but I was pretty involved in the architectural component of it. But it's a house that's very informed by the wyoming sort of 19th century stone barn vernacular of Wyoming, with a lot of modernist Japanese influences. So it could not be aesthetically, on paper, more different than Castle Howard. And it's clients of mine who have a fantastic collection of contemporary art design, furniture, these types of things. So as I say, on paper, it could not be more of the polar opposite it. And yet the way in which I. We have decorated it, the way in which we've approached doing it, it's still the same process as Castle Howard. It's just applied in a very different way. And I think that when people ask me what my taste is or what my aesthetic is, which I find to be an incredibly inane question for the most part, you know, what I always say is that I try to create interiors. I try to create environments that look like they've always been there. And that means something very, very different in an English baroque stately home than it does in a contemporary house in Wyoming. But the way in which I go about doing and achieving that is effectively

Dennis Scully (40:05)

the same process, which makes total sense. And so it's less about your taste and more about your understanding and approach and recognizing what's there and what you're paying attention to.

Remy Renzullo (40:17)

I want someone to walk into a house that I've done or a room that I've done and to not understand that I've been there, because they can't imagine the room any way differently than how it is, it's not about. I don't. I mean, I sort of bristle at the notion that someone walks into a room and can tell that I've done it. And I think that how I can achieve that or how I've achieved that to a certain extent is that there's such a huge focus on what goes into it as opposed to the decoration of it, if that makes sense. And that's where, you know, to come full circle. It's where I fully come back to my childhood and the environment that I grew up in that it was, you know, my mother didn't sit there and put together a mood board or a presentation board of how her interiors were going to look. She went out, she filled a house with things that she loved and beautiful things that because of who she was as a person, they all fit together because it was representative of her personality. And so that's why, you know, if there is a way to tell that I've done a house versus I haven't, that's how a house, a modern house I've done in Wyoming can have the same feeling that Castle Howard can because it's the same approach.

Dennis Scully (41:27)

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Dennis Scully (42:24)

Now, did the Castle Howard project lead to the need for the office in London or were you starting to imagine doing so much other work in the UK and Europe?

Remy Renzullo (42:34)

I think yes and no. I think that definitely it necessitated kind of having a bit of a footprint per se, but I think it was also just, I think it was just part of, of just a business expanding is the need to have more infrastructure around it. Last year I hired a COO who happens to be my oldest best friend. And that has been the single biggest transformation. Probably why I'm sitting here with some sense of calm having this conversation with You And I don't think I could have done it in an effective way a few years ago. I think it took me having to learn so much about what it is to run a business and be a business owner before I could hire someone, Someone to now do a lot of that for me. But I've always tried to grow the business in a very sustainable, slow way. I don't want to take on more people than I need or more people that I can sustain. And at the same time, I also recognized from trying to do everything myself at one point how important it is to have a really good team around me.

Dennis Scully (43:35)

And is your COO eager to develop that website of yours and get that going, Remy? Because right now it's just.

Remy Renzullo (43:42)

Just there we have a very funny conversation about that. At first, yes. And she has now come to recognize that it's never going to happen. It is something that I feel fundamentally strong. I do not want a website. You know, this is a really, really obnoxious thing to say. But, you know, Jacques Lange doesn't have a website. So, you know, if he can get by without one, then I going to certainly try to also, you know, I think there are lots of amazingly talented people in this business that I look up to who don't have websites. And so I, you know, I don't. I don't see the point of it for myself.

Dennis Scully (44:17)

Because you don't want to market yourself in that way.

Remy Renzullo (44:19)

No, I mean, I do this work for my clients. And so I don't know what I gain from having a website that the rest of the world can see. The work that I'm doing, I don't know that that really matters. If someone wants to hire me, they generally come upon my work somewhat organically or they have been in a house that I've done, they might know somebody who hired me or someone recommends me, then they can get. And they get, you know, they reach out, they get a beautiful portfolio from my office, but I don't personally feel the need to have my work on a website for the entire world to see.

Dennis Scully (44:47)

And your friend who came on as the coo, so at first I'm imagining she's having a terrible time wrapping her

Dennis Scully (44:52)

head around this whole thing.

Dennis Scully (44:53)

Yes, yes.

Remy Renzullo (44:54)

I mean, I think, I think, you know, because I think it's a normal reaction. I think it's a normal thing. And I think 99% of people I speak to push me to do this. And just for who I am and for what this business is about, I don't want one. I Just, it doesn't speak to kind of who I feel I am.

Dennis Scully (45:09)

And do you feel also to that point. And I completely understand and respect where you're coming from.

Dennis Scully (45:13)

From.

Dennis Scully (45:14)

Do you think that it. It also filters out the kind of people who are going to come to you in a way?

Remy Renzullo (45:21)

You know, I think possibly. I mean, I think. Okay, I think. I don't know. I don't know about that. I think that, listen, I'm not for everybody, and I think that that's clearly apparent. And I. So, you know, I don't think I appeal to a broad spectrum of people, and I don't think that will ever change. So I don't know. As I say, I don't know what I gained from a website. I think that for somebody to want to entrust me with their house, there has to sort of be a little bit of a personal connection there in some form or another.

Dennis Scully (45:52)

Yeah, no, no, I understand. It's fascinating to me in a way, and I'm totally teasing you about because. But we're living in a time where many in the industry are frantic about AI is knocking on the door of the industry, right? And everyone is thinking, oh, we're replaced. We're going to this, that and the other. Right? And also the way that people are marketing themselves and presenting themselves, and they're in this Instagram loop that seems to suggest that they need to be character actors and sharing not just their projects, but what they're having for lunch and how they prepared it, and do they like onions or do they prefer garlic? All of that. And so. So you, on the other hand, are saying, you know what? I don't even. I got a webpage and, like, don't bother me, and if you want to come find me, come find me.

Remy Renzullo (46:43)

Yeah, basically. And I think a lot of that is. And I'm probably somewhat pretentious about it, but I think a lot of that is a reaction to everything that you have just said. That I think part of why I stopped working in fashion is that I found the kind of cult of celebrity around designers beyond exhausting and tedious. I think it's important to celebrate people for their talent, for their craft, but for the pure notion of being famous or recognizable I think is completely ridiculous. Interior designers, you're a background figure, right? I'm not here to market myself. I'm here to create something beautiful. And so, to the extent that. Not exclusively, but I mean, I do very, very, very little sort of press about myself that doesn't have to do with very, very Closely tied to a project that I've done or anything like that. You know, someone asks me to do my list of 10 favorite things. I mean, no. I mean, who the hell cares? No, but I. Because I think, But I think the problem is that I think that, you know, and not just my generation, there's even much beyond, even above mine, but there's this sort of, this kind of notion of personal fame, which I find exhausting. And I also, and I don't think that, I don't think that that makes one's business more remunerative. I don't think that gets you a client. I think, I don't think that my client. I think my clients would prefer that I was as anonymous as possible, quite frankly. And, you know, I listen, I love Instagram. I'm completely addicted to it. I will fully admit that I love, you know, I'm a visual and you've

Dennis Scully (48:14)

got this huge following. I mean, they obviously want to hear more, they want to see more.

Remy Renzullo (48:17)

And some of my friends, to really get a, to really piss me off, always joke that I'm an influencer, which makes me insane. But. No, but I mean, you know, I think Instagram is fun. I love the spontaneity of it. I don't take it too seriously. You know, Instagram, it's an interesting one because it allows me, particularly before I really did a lot of work, it allowed me to communicate a taste and an aesthetic, and it allowed me to communicate what I like and what I was interested in. Way more to this day even than a website ever could.

Dennis Scully (48:49)

Well, and interestingly, as you articulate, and I think you're absolutely right, that many clients would love their designers to be

Dennis Scully (48:56)

more discreet and more anonymous.

Dennis Scully (48:58)

And I do think, and so many of the great decorators have said to me, dennis, this is a service industry and never lose sight of that.

Remy Renzullo (49:08)

Exactly. I mean, you know, I see some people, you know, posting their sort of incredibly extravagant holidays and watches and cars and all of this stuff. And I just think, I mean, it's like, what I mean, I don't know. For me, I agree, and maybe I'm really, really old fashioned, but this is a service industry. I am here to do something. I am hired to create something for somebody else. They're not hiring me to be famous. They're not hiring me to be glamorous. They're hiring me to work hard and give them a beautiful house. And so, you know, it's like, I think it can so easily send the wrong message. And it's like, who Is this really for. Because it's not for your clients, surely. And I've always been really, I don't know, I've always tried to be cognizant of that. I mean, I feel uncomfortable sometimes. You know, sometimes I'll be on, I rarely take a holiday that's a true holiday. But I mean, sometimes I'll be somewhere beautiful and post a photo of it and I feel guilty because I think, God, my clients are gonna think, why the hell is he there posting a photo of that church? He's supposed to be in the office designing my fucking sofa.

Dennis Scully (50:07)

Well, I do often wonder that. Yes, no, And I'm, and I'm so curious about that.

Remy Renzullo (50:13)

Yeah. Some of my, you know, some of my greatest work has come out of what, you know, out of what I have seen in the world around me that, you know, I, I, because I, I was in some, one particular random church in Vicenza and saw the way the marble pattern was and all of a sudden I could visualize my client's bathroom that I have been trying for months to come up with an idea for. I mean, that's right. You know, as, as I would go by my fundamental point earlier, that we have to expose ourselves to the world around us in order to do our job well. But I do not need to be. Not that I am anyway, but I do not need to be posting photos of myself in St. Barts on some 200 foot yacht at New Year's. Not that I'm doing that anyway, but even if I were, I would not be posting on Instagram about it.

Dennis Scully (50:57)

Well, I mean, listen, it's an interesting and thoughtful choice that you're making and I respect and very much appreciate it. And it frankly, is refreshing because it runs very contrary. And again, in part because so many designers aren't certain where the next set of jobs are coming from, and the pipeline always has to be full. And I think everyone is trying to market themselves in any number of ways because they feel this is what's necessary today. And it sounds as though you feel as if enough business is coming to you at present that you feel, feel confident about the future workflow. Do you give thought to artificial intelligence and what you see happening there? And do friends of yours talk to you about how it's showing up in their world?

Remy Renzullo (51:49)

It's hard. I mean, yes. Listen, I read the news every day, so I try to stay up on these things. I can understand its relevance in this industry to a certain extent. Yes. I have a rule in my office. There's no chatgpt. There's no AI. There's none of this. People need to know how to write an email, even a difficult one. You need to be able to draw something or figure out a way to communicate it that isn't punching a bunch of stuff into a computer. Maybe I'm really archaic, and that's a really, really terrible business strategy. I don't know. But I believe this has to be an industry that is what will be one of the last to be fully replaced by something like AI. Because, listen, I'm hired now, I suppose, for a certain level of technical expertise, but I'm really hired because of my aesthetic and my eye, and how can that. That cannot be replaced. And I think that also in a business where inherently it has to be so tactile and there is so much emotion involved, I'd like to think that we can. That this will remain still, that the humanity will remain in this business.

Dennis Scully (53:00)

And I hope that you're right, and I hope that our industry is the last.

Remy Renzullo (53:04)

And I don't know. As I said, I don't know. But I think that. I think it's important to continually demonstrate to clients, I think, why you're hiring a decorator and not a computer. And also, and I think fundamentally, and I think something I've touched on briefly, which is so hugely important to me, is the notion is craft. And I think at the end of the day, part of why I love my job, part of why I love to create the interiors I create, is that it keeps a huge level of. Of artisanal craft alive. That if it weren't for people like me and for my incredibly generous, inspired clients, these skill sets would die out. This is a business where handcraft is still alive and well, and that, you know, the second that a craft is lost, it will never be learned again. And so, you know, yes, I want to create a beautiful interior in the same way, you know, I want to go to beautiful interior, I want to buy lovely things. I want to make a lot of money from doing it. Sure are. But what's in many ways more important to me is to keep this industry alive. Not just the industry of interior design, but all of the things that it supports. And I think that, again, that's where I feel really, really fortunate, to an extent of my background, that I am the son of a craftsman. So I'm very fundamentally aware of that. And I think that, I guess a little bit of my kind of east coast puritanical sort of liberalism, it's. Even in interior design, we have A higher purpose than just making an expensive house. It's about, you know, there has to be a deeper meaning to this for me. And it's about, you know, when I, when I speak to somebody who is a seventh generation craftsman in a particular skill set, I mean, that Remi. That's why I remember what it is that I do. And you know, when a client says to me, well, why is this sofa $20,000 when I know I can go here and get any. Because every single bit of that is made by hand by somebody who learned that skill from somebody who learned that skill from someone who learned that skill. And that goes back hundreds of years. That's why you do this. It's not to have. It's not so you can say you have an expensive house so that you can have things that are so beautifully made in a world where there's so little of that left.

Dennis Scully (55:13)

So with that said, and as we wrap up, Remy, what would you like

Dennis Scully (55:17)

to see happen next for you?

Dennis Scully (55:19)

So you had this wonderful collaboration with Watts and creating, created some, some beautiful textiles and that, that geese wallpaper that you did was so fantastic. I mean, could you see doing, doing collaborations, more things like that?

Dennis Scully (55:35)

What would you, what would you like to see?

Remy Renzullo (55:36)

It's interesting, I think, that, you know, sitting here speaking about 10 years and as I said, I like milestones, for better, for worse. So it's on my mind to certain things. I'm. One thing that I'm really, really excited about at the moment is I'm entering a new field of which I have no experience in, which is hospitality. And I'm working on a hotel at the moment with my partner in Italy, in Tuscany. We are restoring a beautiful little 11 room hotel that is on the family estate of my partner's mother's family and are not only sort of restoring it, but will be transforming it, running it all. I was an accidental decorator. I'm now going to be an accidental hotelier, I guess.

Dennis Scully (56:23)

Really? So, I mean, you're really going to be that involved that you're going to be.

Remy Renzullo (56:26)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hugely so. Hugely so.

Dennis Scully (56:28)

How exciting.

Remy Renzullo (56:29)

Yeah, yeah. And so as I said, you know, I spent the last kind of year and a half learning about running a hotel. It's part of a larger kind of agricultural estate. And so lots of different aspects in that, aside from hospitality that I've been learning about and getting interested in. And so we'll see where that goes. But it's opening in June.

Dennis Scully (56:48)

It's opening in June.

Dennis Scully (56:50)

That's, that's any Minute.

Remy Renzullo (56:51)

Yeah, yeah, don't remind me. So that's that. And then I think, you know, a long, long held ambition and aspiration that I've had, which I don't know that it will happen this year, but it's. I'm certainly starting to lay the groundwork for. It is not a collaboration, but it's to do my own fabric business. It's something I've wanted to do forever and I've always had this passion. I'm a voracious, voracious buyer of fragments of antique fragments of textiles, documents, things like that. I have an enormous archive and it's something I've always wanted to do. And I think that it feels now that business is in a good place. The company is running really well. We've got good projects, good infrastructure and it might be kind of the time that I can devote a little bit of my time to doing this. And I think I've built a little bit of a profile so that I can start something and hope that some people will notice, but that's the next thing I really want to do.

Dennis Scully (57:51)

Okay, well, this is exciting. So we'll look for the new textile line in the next year.

Remy Renzullo (57:57)

I mean, hopefully it won't be, hopefully it won't be the 20 year anniversary. I mean, hopefully it'll come out before then. But I guess my point about it is that I don't know, it will happen this year. It might take three years, it might take five years. I don't know. I don't want to do it until I feel it's ready. And I think that it's so important in today's world where there's so much product, there's so much choice.

Dennis Scully (58:19)

I've heard that. I've heard there's a lot of fabric out there.

Remy Renzullo (58:23)

I've heard, I know, I've heard there's

Dennis Scully (58:25)

not a lot of white space. I don't know. Some talk about it regularly on podcasts about the plethora of fabrics.

Remy Renzullo (58:33)

Someone said, someone said recently said, I think the last in the world interior design world needs one more fabric line. So listen, it might, it might have a very short lifespan. Who's. Who knows.

Dennis Scully (58:42)

But it might be a passion project. But who got to write. You feel like you want to put something out there. That's you.

Remy Renzullo (58:47)

I want to do it and you know, and I think that, listen, the world needed the world heart did not need one more decorator when I decided to start my business either. So, you know, I think there's enough, there's room for everybody.

Dennis Scully (58:58)

There you go. Remy, I'm, I'm, I'm so thrilled to get to speak with you, and I'm so grateful for, for your, for your time, and I really, it's been, it's been such a pleasure.

Remy Renzullo (59:07)

Thank you. No, no, that was a pleasure, Dennis. Thank you so much. I enjoyed it, and it's always nice to talk about the things that I feel passionate about.

Dennis Scully (59:16)

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

Dennis Scully (59:19)

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Dennis Scully (59:33)

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Dennis Scully (59:35)

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Dennis Scully (59:39)

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Dennis Scully (59:46)

This show was produced by Fred Nicholas

Dennis Scully (59:48)

and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.