Charles de Lisle is a decorator, not a designer

[Music] This is Business of Hall. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. I guess this week is Interior Decorator Charles DeLyle. Born in rural Massachusetts to a family of makers and tinkers, 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 a claim for his residential work, including placement on the AD-100. 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. [Music] This podcast is sponsored by Ernesta. With Ernesta's new coastal and family collections, you can find a custom-sized rug that works beautifully inside and out. Indurable 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 Ernesta.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 Kohler Veil 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 Veil and all Kohler smart toilets at Kohler.com. And now on with the show. I want to understand early days how you became the tinkerer and the hands-on person. You grew up in rural Massachusetts if I recall. So tell me a little bit about that and what it was like. I grew up in a town of 1200 people in the woods. In the center of northern, northern, northern Massachusetts building stuff on my own. And I think that I grew up a lot of my dad and my grandfather and my mother. For that matter, everybody made things. My grandfather was a machinist and a wallpaper hanger and 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 side idea of 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. It was just like if it's broken, you just fix it and figure out a way to make it work. 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 kind of, you know, I haul it was a holistic way of looking at whatever I was doing. And so I just, I don't know, that's kind of where my brain was. I think carried out and that really hasn't changed at all. And so how did how did decorating and and interiors show up in your world and and point you in the direction of becoming everything that you have. I mean, I've always been interested in architecture since I was young and started looking at architecture, started you've digging into all the magazines by mom, head on the coffee table, definitely, you know, was that early or digest fan. And you know, 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, I would be the assistant. So I was very much involved in like, you know, 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. And junior high 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 love 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 and doing steel work, doing small shops for people and that started leading me into architecture and design again back where I was about 29 30 years old. I realized that maybe that was a direction I could look at as a career. So 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 it again I'd love I love the complexity of it and I realized that oh I 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 they didn't have any skills. Well, so where were you showing up trying to get a job? I was in San Francisco and I had met someone through my dad actually who she was vice president of Noel furniture for the west coast of the time and she was very connected and and we had lunch and she was like super wary at first. I got it, you know, I met your dad and he said I should talk to you. I don't know why, but by the end of the lunch, she was like, you're actually super amazing and I'm going to connect to 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 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 realize well 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 this kind of you problem of starting to be an interior decided that you can't show work that you don't have that you need to show that work to get the job sure the catch 22 of the whole thing. It's yeah, it was super challenging and so I decided I was going to just make some product and see how that works 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 to and see what happens and I took my lap and shopped it around and kicked out a couple stores and one of them was a store named Troy which at the time was it was the cool news store. And Troy happened to be sitting at the front desk when I walked in and I pulled out my little box and pulled out the lab he's like these are great he's like I'll take 20 and and I'm not probably order 20 more and I was just like absolutely. And you're like great I have like two that I've made and 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 box. Landed in a New York time spread on like cool new labs and the Sunday magazine and then it got in a mtv video. Wow yeah it kind of made 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 just started this small interior firm and I called them back said yeah I don't know what that job is but sure let's like I'm on board so it's really kind of just serendipity my whole world and my life there was no plan. I was super fortunate because I landed with my old business partners Jonathan and Marion who started 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 like 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 I within a month I had three of my own clients and was running these jobs with no assistance, no computer. Like we were using paper grocery bags to their 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 was it 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 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 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 Bayer 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 of a more of a leaf leap of faith. And that's not for everyone. You know, it's a very specific type of client who's excited about, you know, 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, that they're right people who supported it. 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. Yes and no, I mean, I think they're, I think they're still looking at all the same things, but they're not interested in both like being super on board with Taster 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's that is interesting. I think a lot of things have happened here when you look at California, especially in this part of California, you know, there's radical changes in music have happened here in government in even just the nature of the gold rush and architecture in the city burning down. There's this strange like 10 to 20 year cycle that San Francisco in the Bay Area kind of burns itself out and then start 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 in architecture. You know, there was a moment where theories this whole Bay Area style that took this single style, but then it morphed into this other weird radical style that 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 creative people like Michael Taylor, right? Like that happened, I think, because he was in the Bay Area. There was there was the space to create this like really weird California style that that meets sets and that was was really different. And so for me, I look up to all of those people, especially in the field that I'm in that because it's fascinating like that this area produced that. We're taking a quick break to remind you about color. New technology can be intimidating to clients and smart toilets are no exception. But the experts at color have developed a product with intuitive and thoughtful design to improve and elevate the everyday experience in the bathroom. Touch screen controls, customizable cleansing features, comfort and convenience. Discover colorsmart toilets at color.com. And now back to the show. 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 our age recently purchased, I guess, some of the intellectual property and some of the historical pieces. But and wanting to bring that style back his name and his work seemed to be top of mind for a lot of people. 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 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. That 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 the redness of his work right now. I think right now people are again because of technology and image based systems that were in that are just, you know, 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 have the good fortune of going in it many of his projects when I when I was working or 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 like life events than they were interiors. There were there was something in them that was visceral and like for me really were a kind of life changing because they showed me that an interior just isn't a functional place. You know, 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 like truly like you experienced really what those rooms felt like because if it took all this stuff that was in my head about like how I felt as myself as an artist and then made me realize well this is this is a palette and a toolbox and but it's also there's a way of showing art in a different way that's human and it's interactive and and I think that that kind of beauty that separates you from your world a little bit and makes you take a breath or you know feel something like 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. 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 and and so often people don't want to share their their intimate lives and and the privacy issue and I and I completely understand but it so often it means that we're not seeing so much of that of that work. Yeah and also you know it's also hard because I know my peers are also doing cool work that I don't get to see yeah and it's not shared information but there are people who visit those places and as as it always been historically like there's work out there that you have to visit to see it and in some of its private and some of its public and and you know it the irony is that a lot of the clients that aren't doing this work in a Bay Area have created this the the world that we're in yes that that also has created this like this there's a world that you don't want to put yourself in all of a sudden right the press has become a thing that's different than it used to be you know being in a magazine had a gravitas to it you know being published in 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, you know, self-eism world that some people don't want to participate in, right? Like they don't want that to be seen as that. And so it's ironic that that has been created. But you know, it's that's kind of the way the world works, didn't it? Well, it's interesting because, I mean, to your point, and we've been having a lot of conversation recently about it's it's it's such a different world today with all of that, right? So the the effort to get published and and I had so many designers reach out to me just about all of the expense and effort that goes into the publicist and the stylist and the photographers 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. Well, I think that I mean, photographing a project is is definitely important to me because it's it's your space to actually get a document of 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 a 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 for clients to give you that space to do that. And then you know, disrupt their life a little bit because doing photography is a big it's a big process. It's not as simple as just going in and shooting for a couple of hours. It's a couple day adventure. Yeah. And requires a lot a lot of work. For me, I still you know, pushed 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 it felt yeah, it felt really a different experience than it is now we're now we have to photograph everything ourselves. And then you know, kind of pitch it because again, there's so much content out there that the value of that content has changed. You know, just a dollar value for the people who are published unit. So yeah, the world has definitely changed. And I think that also, you know, somehow connects to the clients attachment to it as well, right? It's all it all is the ecosystem together. And I think I'm just floating through the best I can. Well, and as many people are and as you say, you've been very fortunate in that there has been this interesting in your work and interesting you and 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 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 and 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? So when I started my own business, I kind of was fortunate where I got some of that like this information. So I wasn't storing from scratch, but I did want to build a company that was smaller at that time we had, you know, 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 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, you know, 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. Yeah, so it's been an adventure and an ongoing one. I think that it's actually just reading recently that like the 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 that comes 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. 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%. Yeah, I think when I first started, I think I mentioned a story that writer Ty and 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 calls me and said, you know, she loves the lamp, but there was no story there. And she told me two things in that conversation. One was that, you know, people love a story. And it doesn't matter how good it something is like you got to you got to tell a great story. And the other thing is that to do this job is 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 Mary 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 to do it, you have to love it. And it's, yeah, it's just the way it is. 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 lot of work. 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? I think that from half you, you know, it's still leaving. Again, like my, because my clients are coming from this place of change in their world is all about change. You know, 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'm 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. Yeah. I think doing the commercial work taught me a lot because it was flat fee. It was based on faces. And it was very budget driven. And you had to track all your hours to make sure that you state a float during that whole process, right? You had to understand where you're projecting the work, as well as what you're building against yourself. And I realized that that model doesn't really work for a 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 the space where they need to. Some clients are more hands-off and they're 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 prove everything and just install it. Some clients want to do a piecemeal and be part, again, part of 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? 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 budgets. And it says exactly what they're paying at all times and at any time they can review a budget because every month we track everything in. keep it up to date. And that was another thing I learned from doing commercial work. It's 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. Sure. And so sometimes, you know, 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 project, like we'll also be kind of in a managing landscape architecture, the whole piece, like we kind of do the whole. Yeah, you get super involved in landscapes, right? And I mean, yeah, I just I can like I like telling the story, right? And and I get in fearless. So I kind of jump into different areas. And again, I've been super fortunate. We have clients here like, yeah, let's just do it. So I've started doing gardens and and actual buildings and architecture. And and so what I've learned is that we as an officer evolving and we're actually looking right now to hire probably an architect of record, a landscape designer, a graphic designer. You know, the way I look at it is like we're trying to tell a really consistent story. And to do that, it somehow is really hard to do it when there's four different, you know, stylistic offices running a project, right? Because those pieces don't always fit together. Yes. And I think 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, you know, 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 involved where you need to be involved in the landscape because the way it's attached to those rooms. So what's happened is we've been involved into this office that we kind of are doing all the pieces. And we now have job to where we're designing the whole 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 look 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 in 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. It's what that all means. We'll see where it goes. We're taking a quick break to remind you about Ernesto. Designers know that the right foundation makes all the difference. Let Ernesto help you start your project with a custom size rug that fits your creative vision and your client's space. Join Ernesto's trade program and explore their high quality assortment of custom size rugs today. You'll also receive dedicated one-on-one support, preferred pricing and unlimited samples curated just for you. To apply for membership to Ernesto's trade program or learn more visit Ernesto.com/boh. That's Ernesto.com/boh. 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. 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 not, 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 like out. 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, right? It's more about this essence of making art, about the whole project. Like 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 an office that has structure to hold that. But we really are in that world of someone like Ron Mann who I met early on in 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's way of doing this type of work, right? It was a little more hands-on. There, you know, you would go to a work room to do a poultry. It was kind of this, you know, it was just like a hole in the wall, a place that made drapes. And, you know, and those are still there, but now there's our 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. And, but to me, like that's the important piece. Like an attention to subtlety. I feel like these 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, I just made more sense to it. 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 the word decorator became almost a pejorative term. And many wanted to distance themselves from what they thought, right? Was somebody with some flair and an eye for color. And there was even, and I think you raised this recently and others have as well, there was almost the the, oh, the gay male kind of stereotype that became the decorator or this sort of overly dramatic character. Exactly. Right? They came to be what people would. And so there was a move away. Oh, no, no, I'm far more professional than that. And I've got this whole organization. And often 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. Exactly. And I think that there's a lot to unpack in all of that. Go ahead. This may not be that hour to do it. But, um, yeah, I don't know if I could, I want to do done all those for this 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 is 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 stabbed 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 changed become so commercialized. And that there's some charm to that idea that is valid of the suburban decorator and and the old school gay decorator and, uh, you know, just like 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? There's there a little bit different. And I think that, you know, it's interesting now because there's this, there's this whole like influencer world that's now in our world of interior design and decorating. And it's using the language and through the photograph of stylates, you know, 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 the next video. a certain way because there's so much information out there or it's maximal in a certain way. But to me, there's something missing underneath that, right? That there's, I'm not interested in tastes. 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 anyway. And then I try to try to not think about it and let whatever internal voice I have like help me make decisions to do whatever I'm doing in the space I'm doing. That's right for that space. 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 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 better. 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 am also trying to let it come through in a certain voice in a way. And I'm but I'm not worried about that being tasteful. And again, that's where I mean, I don't know, I mean my own little world because I'm lucky in a way that my clients are also not interested in that right there interested in it having being fun or an adventure or not like everybody else's house or feel different like all these different things. 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've figured that out. And that's okay. Well, and I think to your point, I mean, 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. I wish I wish I could make my life easier. I was actually I'm reading right now the 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 like it's the fun opportunity for me to look at the programming and how it works for 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, he grows up in his base where he doesn't, he didn't get an education on doing gardens. He just started obsessive about it and building gardens on his own. And then when he started doing it, he started, you know, 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 like 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 like 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 tonight and I will just stand and stand here, stay over there, stay 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. Yeah, and I wonder in the world 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, like AI could put together a storyboard, it could write some tax, it could do your budget, it could do all these stuff, things, right? But it can't stand in the room when you're unloading the furniture, right? Or maybe it could. 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. Yes. I did not bring us here, but we're going to have it since you raised it because yes, well, you're great. You brought it up. So okay, a, right. So a, the humanoid robots, right? Musk is working on, on that. So you're going to have those soon standing at the job site going, yeah, this way, that way, move this over here. But what do you, what do you imagine? I imagine many of your clients are huge participants in everything that is, is happening. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I don't know how much they share with you of their, of their thoughts, hopes, fears. Have they shared with you that we need to get out of here soon, that we need to, we need to find another place. I, I'm not kidding, that's the right. Yeah. Okay. Good. And I guess we don't talk about it all that much. Like clients and I on the AI page. But I, 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, and we have been using it to do like kind of basic tasks of like just recoloring things and understanding how things look in the elevation. I personally have not been a person who's ever trusted drawings to begin with or, uh, rendering. And it's 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 like for however long it's going to last, like the ability myself to enjoy, you know, 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, very different. You know, 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, you know, working. I'm also very like work with a pencil person and I try to get my whole team to draw more because I, I don't know if it's fully true or not, but I believe that, you know, entering data in a keyboard is a different type of brain work that uses a different thought process versus the holding something and working out geometries with your hands. Right. Because I think your brain is connected to your hands 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 taking written down and jot it down because you could make 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 to 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, I'd 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. Nobody knows what's in the notes and then you show up and the sink is in the wrong place. Right. Why? Because no one listens. No one was engaged in the conversation. No one took any notes. The notes, no one references. This is almost every day in our world right now is we are trying to figure out how to manage that, which is, you know, 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 work. So we're going to see where it goes. I don't know. I mean, it's very, it's definitely frustrating for me being more hands on and constantly having to remind people like, well, if we just like we're paying attention and standing there, having dialogue. I'll log about it. We'd be done already. We wouldn't have to have another meeting with more notes that no one would look at. - 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? - I think that there are space for all different types of people because the business is so varied now. There is room for someone who is more technical base or creative base or in different spots, but I think doing this work specific to what we're doing, I do think kind of a world experience is like super helpful. Going out and working at a workshop and working at a restaurant, all of these things are skills about people, communication, how do you get through something and complete it? And working just out of school in a design office, which people do, it's hard to get those other kind of bits that you really need to succeed because 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. But you need to understand like so many different things. The causing 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 gotta go out. And I think that's super important 'cause that's what we're doing. We're really, we're helping people put that stuff together in their own world. So it's good to know what all those worlds are. Yeah, I mean, and that's I think, that's I think the gift that decorators give to clients is all that accumulated knowledge that they bring 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 works. Hopefully, I mean, yeah, I think that not everyone has the time to obsess over all these things. So, and that's the way, you know, I get that from other people too, or obsess over what they do. Yeah. Well, and I think you're helping to put a much more positive spin on being obsessive. Exactly, it's okay. (laughing) Turns out it's helpful. Yeah, it's all gonna be all right. It's all gonna be all right. Yes, exactly. Charles, I wanna thank you so much for making the time this has been so fun to get to speak with you. And I really appreciate it. Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me and for really enjoyed it too. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to keep up with the latest design industry news, visit us online at businessofhome.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, browse job listings, and join our BOH insider community for access to online workshops, a free print subscription, and much more. If you have a note for the podcast, drop us a line at [email protected]. If you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us 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. (gentle music)