Latest / Revisionist History / Revisionist History LIVE with Nate Berkus
Transcript
- 0:15Speaker 1: Bushkin.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, everyone. We have a little surprise for you today.
- 0:24Speaker 2: It's a conversation I recently have with Nate Burkas. If
- 0:27Speaker 2: that name rings a bell, He's a famous interior designer.
- 0:30Speaker 2: You may know him from his appearances over the years
- 0:33Speaker 2: on the Oprah Winfrey Show. You may have read one
- 0:35Speaker 2: of his books. You may even have some of his
- 0:37Speaker 2: products in your home. Anyway, this all came about because
- 0:41Speaker 2: AC Hotels wanted to host an event about design and
- 0:44Speaker 2: creativity at their Times Square location in New York City,
- 0:48Speaker 2: and we decided to invite Nate to come, which turned out,
- 0:51Speaker 2: as you will hear, to be an inspired choice. I
- 0:54Speaker 2: had so much fun doing this. We talked about our moms,
- 0:57Speaker 2: about Paris, about the TV shows that Phillis with Rage,
- 1:00Speaker 2: and a million other things, but mostly about design and creativity.
- 1:05Speaker 2: Nate is as charming and funny as he is smart. Anyway,
- 1:09Speaker 2: here it is. This all took place in the rooftop
- 1:12Speaker 2: bar of the Cotel in New York with all kinds
- 1:14Speaker 2: of fabulous cocktails and advertisers being passed around. Just a
- 1:18Speaker 2: heads up, you may hear some city noises in the background.
- 1:22Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this live episode as much as
- 1:25Speaker 2: I did. I wanted to say before I started, I
- 1:29Speaker 2: think we should get this little order a bit of
- 1:32Speaker 2: business out of the way. I've scored enormous points with
- 1:35Speaker 2: my significant other this evening by interviewing you, Kate. Normally,
- 1:39Speaker 2: if I'm interviewing like the you know, hypothetically the CEO
- 1:43Speaker 2: of whatever Microsoft, she would say, oh, interesting, and then
- 1:47Speaker 2: go back to her phone. When word leaked that I
- 1:50Speaker 2: was interviewing Nate Burkas, it was like Nate Burkas. It
- 1:54Speaker 2: was like, you can't imagine the kind of celebrity power
- 1:58Speaker 2: you have.
- 1:58Speaker 1: In my home. You are welcome.
- 2:00Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so no, it's huge. It's huge for all
- 2:05Speaker 2: of us in the global household.
- 2:07Speaker 3: May I just say that when I told my mother
- 2:09Speaker 3: that I was going to be a guest on Malcolm
- 2:10Speaker 3: Gladwell's podcast, or response with why.
- 2:16Speaker 2: That's that's not very nice. We're going to be talking
- 2:20Speaker 2: about travel and design and your career and all kinds
- 2:24Speaker 2: of interesting things before we get to your career. Though,
- 2:28Speaker 2: you and I are both both have the travel bug.
- 2:31Speaker 2: Because I have a theory that the travel bug is innate.
- 2:35Speaker 2: It's not acquired. Yeah to have it, you don't, so
- 2:38Speaker 2: is the design bug.
- 2:39Speaker 1: So is this all good?
- 2:41Speaker 2: So we're talking, we're trafficking, and I have a little
- 2:43Speaker 2: story about myself which I think proves this is true.
- 2:47Speaker 2: But before I tell that story, I wanted you tell
- 2:50Speaker 2: me when did you realize what is the first evidence
- 2:53Speaker 2: the world has that Nate has the travel bug? How
- 2:57Speaker 2: young are you?
- 2:57Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think it was.
- 3:01Speaker 3: The first time I was somewhere without a chaperone, like
- 3:05Speaker 3: a proper chaperone. I did a semester abroad in Europe
- 3:09Speaker 3: and moved to Paris and sort of lived in this
- 3:12Speaker 3: tiny little box at the top of a beautiful old
- 3:15Speaker 3: building with a share bath fantasy.
- 3:17Speaker 1: It was amazing, It was amazing. I sold all my
- 3:19Speaker 1: clothes of spending money.
- 3:22Speaker 3: But I knew you wearing all black at that I
- 3:25Speaker 3: wanted to wear all black. Yeah, I was wearing Ralph
- 3:27Speaker 3: Lauren and that's not what no, no, no oh, yeah,
- 3:30Speaker 3: I had to to sell that. Yeah, get some money
- 3:34Speaker 3: for a leather jacket. But I was found myself in
- 3:37Speaker 3: Paris alone, and I remember walking the streets and feeling
- 3:42Speaker 3: really good, feeling like really solid, and not being afraid
- 3:47Speaker 3: and not being intimidated, and being fascinated by modern life
- 3:52Speaker 3: in an ancient place, and I think that that was
- 3:55Speaker 3: the first moment for me. And when I travel, I
- 3:58Speaker 3: don't I'm not really reaching for the sort of.
- 4:03Speaker 1: Where the guides say you should go.
- 4:05Speaker 3: For me, it's it's what is most indicative of that
- 4:08Speaker 3: place as seen through objects. So I'm in the markets
- 4:12Speaker 3: where people buy their pots and pans and the fabric
- 4:15Speaker 3: they make the potato sacks out of, and those are
- 4:17Speaker 3: the kinds of things that I'm always searching for.
- 4:20Speaker 1: But that trip to Paris, that first.
- 4:24Speaker 3: Move really to Paris, was when I knew I would
- 4:26Speaker 3: never really stay in one place for a long time.
- 4:29Speaker 2: My version of that story is we moved from England
- 4:34Speaker 2: to Canada when I was six, and there's a picture
- 4:39Speaker 2: of us about to get on the train to go
- 4:43Speaker 2: to the We took a boat, took the Empress of England.
- 4:46Speaker 2: We're about to get on the train to go to
- 4:47Speaker 2: the boat. And so there's a family shot. My oldest
- 4:51Speaker 2: brother is weeping, it's leaving the only country has ever
- 4:56Speaker 2: known all of his friends. My middle brother is clinging
- 4:59Speaker 2: to my mother anxiously. You know, it's a long ten
- 5:03Speaker 2: days on a through uncharted you know, stormy seas. I
- 5:07Speaker 2: look like someone just give me a million dollars. I
- 5:11Speaker 2: am five years old and this is the single greatest moment.
- 5:14Speaker 2: I'm like, are you kidding me? We're going to some
- 5:17Speaker 2: unknown place on a boat for ten days. This is amazing.
- 5:20Speaker 1: That's amazing.
- 5:21Speaker 2: Couldn't wait to get out of there. That was when
- 5:23Speaker 2: if I look at the foot, I'm like, oh, yeah,
- 5:25Speaker 2: that's exactly you. Nothing has changed. So I want to
- 5:29Speaker 2: go back to you in Paris. You're how old seventeen?
- 5:34Speaker 2: Did you experience Paris at seventeen the same way you
- 5:39Speaker 2: would have experienced today and now others? Were you doing
- 5:41Speaker 2: the same things that in a new city that you
- 5:44Speaker 2: do today, only without realizing why with the habits there?
- 5:48Speaker 1: Yeah? They were.
- 5:49Speaker 3: I still love doing all the things that I did
- 5:52Speaker 3: when I was that age in that city, no matter where,
- 5:55Speaker 3: I am allowing myself to get lost.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Not relying on you know, an.
- 6:01Speaker 3: Uber or a driver or whatever it is, but really
- 6:05Speaker 3: digging in and seeing the space and seeing the place,
- 6:10Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to ask the right people
- 6:12Speaker 3: where the best Chinese food is or the best croissant
- 6:16Speaker 3: or the best coffee. Like I you know, I have
- 6:21Speaker 3: this aversion to being told what to do when I'm
- 6:26Speaker 3: I have this aversion being told what to do of that,
- 6:30Speaker 3: but especially when I'm traveling, because I want to figure
- 6:32Speaker 3: it out for myself. And if a friend says you
- 6:35Speaker 3: have to eat here, you have to see this, or
- 6:37Speaker 3: you have to go to this museum or see this
- 6:39Speaker 3: historic home, I'll do it in two seconds.
- 6:42Speaker 1: But I also like to be the guy that has.
- 6:45Speaker 3: Days doing nothing and just kind of soaking in what
- 6:48Speaker 3: the culture might might bring.
- 6:51Speaker 2: I want to go back to something you said about
- 6:53Speaker 2: allowing yourself to get lost, which is nearly impossible today,
- 6:58Speaker 2: but all of us over the age of forty remember
- 7:01Speaker 2: a time when that was kind of not the norm.
- 7:04Speaker 2: It was really easy to get lost and thrilling in
- 7:07Speaker 2: this way.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 7:08Speaker 2: I remember when I, as a fifteen year old, me
- 7:12Speaker 2: and my brother went to London and spent we spent
- 7:16Speaker 2: twos with my uncle and Anne. They lived just on
- 7:19Speaker 2: the kind of furthest reaches of West London. I would
- 7:22Speaker 2: get on the Parsons Green Tube and randomly get off
- 7:26Speaker 2: at a stop and walk around. I knew nothing about London.
- 7:31Speaker 2: I had never read a guidebook. What I knew about
- 7:33Speaker 2: London I knew from Dickens.
- 7:34Speaker 3: Yeah wow, And I get. I totally get that I
- 7:40Speaker 3: had the best time. You're a little bit afraid, but
- 7:43Speaker 3: it's anticipatory and you never know what you're going to
- 7:45Speaker 3: stumble upon.
- 7:46Speaker 1: You know where the coolest place, the best for us?
- 7:48Speaker 2: You know where I ended up going Without realizing I
- 7:50Speaker 2: was there until many years later. Malcolm McLaren, the founder
- 7:55Speaker 2: of the Sex Pistols, had a clothing store with was
- 7:59Speaker 2: it Vivian Westwood yeap on something road in Chelsea.
- 8:03Speaker 1: That I don't know, but yes, I remember I went there.
- 8:06Speaker 2: I was fifteen. I had no clue what was going on.
- 8:08Speaker 2: I was like, oh, this looks interesting.
- 8:10Speaker 3: But you found it and it felt differently because you
- 8:13Speaker 3: found it.
- 8:13Speaker 1: It's like, you know.
- 8:14Speaker 3: And I yeah, I mean I to allow yourself to
- 8:18Speaker 3: get lost. It wasn't that It wasn't really that scary now.
- 8:21Speaker 3: I mean as a dad, I think it's super scary.
- 8:23Speaker 3: I would kill my kids, Like, what are you talking about?
- 8:26Speaker 3: There's a lowjack and your shoe and we've an apple
- 8:28Speaker 3: tag and your forehead and you know you're you know,
- 8:32Speaker 3: but I can still see you.
- 8:34Speaker 1: But I think you know.
- 8:35Speaker 3: It was just I don't know, there was just something
- 8:37Speaker 3: about being in a foreign capital and a new culture
- 8:41Speaker 3: in a place that was so old and so beautiful,
- 8:45Speaker 3: and the architecture was so special to my eye at
- 8:49Speaker 3: that age that I wanted to be lost. I wanted
- 8:52Speaker 3: to be lost every day.
- 8:53Speaker 2: Does that if we think about that phrase as a
- 8:55Speaker 2: kind of metaphor, does it also describe your professional practice
- 9:01Speaker 2: as an interior designer.
- 9:03Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it describes it in that I'm really
- 9:06Speaker 3: afraid of people who present themselves as like they're mastered
- 9:10Speaker 3: a craft like I just it's the weirdest sort of place.
- 9:14Speaker 3: I've been doing this for almost thirty years now, assembling
- 9:17Speaker 3: spaces hopefully that I'm meaning.
- 9:19Speaker 1: For the people that live there.
- 9:20Speaker 3: But I am trying really hard to do that. But
- 9:23Speaker 3: it's all evolving constantly. And you know, in any creative endeavor,
- 9:29Speaker 3: if you've made decisions about how things need to be
- 9:32Speaker 3: or should be, you're missing every other sort of bright,
- 9:38Speaker 3: shiny thing you can reach down and pick up and incorporate.
- 9:41Speaker 3: And so I think, after this long in design, I'm
- 9:45Speaker 3: adept at scale. I'm adept at certain things that have
- 9:49Speaker 3: practiced is sort of refined a skill set that's a
- 9:52Speaker 3: practical skill set, but the creative, the magical, the imaginative.
- 9:58Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always lost. I love it.
- 10:00Speaker 2: Yeah, so walk me through. You're in Paris at seventeen,
- 10:05Speaker 2: tell me take me from there to your how you
- 10:09Speaker 2: became a design.
- 10:10Speaker 3: So I'm seventeen. I've sold all of my Ralph Lauren
- 10:14Speaker 3: clothes to the Lovely Kids.
- 10:16Speaker 1: What do you like?
- 10:17Speaker 2: Just briefly, in two sentences, what do you like at seventeen?
- 10:22Speaker 1: Guys and fries.
- 10:27Speaker 2: No, no, no, nay, you can do better than that,
- 10:31Speaker 2: And I still do you can do better than that?
- 10:35Speaker 1: What I like at seventeen?
- 10:36Speaker 2: Do you? If my set is seventeen year old Malcolm
- 10:38Speaker 2: and seventeen year old Nate Meat, we would.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Probably talk about music.
- 10:42Speaker 3: I was listening to like the Smiths and you know,
- 10:45Speaker 3: course so music music. My walk Man was on my
- 10:50Speaker 3: whatever discman, Walkman, whatever awk Man, and I liked clothes
- 10:56Speaker 3: and I liked history. I was interested in history, and
- 11:00Speaker 3: at that.
- 11:00Speaker 2: Age, that's what we would have talked about.
- 11:03Speaker 1: What's up we talk about?
- 11:04Speaker 2: I don't think you would have talked about clothes if
- 11:06Speaker 2: you saw the clothes I was wearing when I was seventeen.
- 11:11Speaker 2: Further ahead of me. But you came, you grew up
- 11:13Speaker 2: in Chicago.
- 11:14Speaker 3: No, I was actually raised in suburban Minneapolis, and I
- 11:18Speaker 3: split my time between southern California and Minneapolis. My parents
- 11:22Speaker 3: divorced when I was two, and they both remarried instantly.
- 11:26Speaker 3: My mother actually tried to get married before her divorce
- 11:29Speaker 3: was legal. To my dad. They went and they said,
- 11:33Speaker 3: ma'm you're actually still married. My mother was like, oh, so,
- 11:39Speaker 3: so I'll go home and wash my hair.
- 11:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 11:42Speaker 3: But they both remarried, and my stepfather was a radiologist
- 11:46Speaker 3: in Minnesota, and so I was raised there and then
- 11:49Speaker 3: and then I went away to school for high school
- 11:51Speaker 3: over out on the East Coast.
- 11:52Speaker 1: So I've been all over the place.
- 11:53Speaker 2: Oh I see, yeah, yeah, but you do sound more
- 11:56Speaker 2: sophisticated than I was at seven seventeen.
- 12:00Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I don't know.
- 12:01Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I don't even know if I'm sophisticated now.
- 12:05Speaker 3: My my favorite restaurant worldwide is the State Fair of Mine.
- 12:09Speaker 1: So it's just the best.
- 12:13Speaker 2: Guys, When you say you were interested in history at
- 12:17Speaker 2: that age, what does that mean.
- 12:19Speaker 3: I was interested in architecture, and I was interested in spaces,
- 12:25Speaker 3: and I was interested in a little bit in mythology
- 12:29Speaker 3: and a lot in sort of like royal palaces and
- 12:35Speaker 3: sort of aristocratic homes, and like really beautiful, beautiful in
- 12:39Speaker 3: homes in castles and.
- 12:42Speaker 1: Hotel particular and things like that.
- 12:45Speaker 3: I was interested in the intersection between history and design,
- 12:48Speaker 3: even though I didn't know that I would make a
- 12:51Speaker 3: life for myself working in design. But I was always
- 12:54Speaker 3: very sensitive to environments. I grew up with a mother
- 12:58Speaker 3: who was an interior designer, so our home was constantly changing.
- 13:01Speaker 3: I was. My job was to carry these old wallpaper
- 13:04Speaker 3: books in and out of the trunk of her car
- 13:06Speaker 3: that weighed more than I did you.
- 13:09Speaker 2: Did you like your mother's sense of style.
- 13:11Speaker 3: I appreciated it. She used a lot of old things.
- 13:14Speaker 3: But no, I mean it was French country.
- 13:16Speaker 1: She knows this. We've talked about this. Trust me.
- 13:19Speaker 3: She's because I had a sudden tuning in and I'll
- 13:25Speaker 3: be living with you and underwitness protection.
- 13:28Speaker 1: Now. My mom knew that.
- 13:29Speaker 3: But I What I admired about my mother's style was
- 13:32Speaker 3: that she she never reached for new things. She always
- 13:35Speaker 3: reached for antique furniture or vintage things. And she loved
- 13:39Speaker 3: an auction or an estate sale. And that was how
- 13:42Speaker 3: I got the bug of caring so much about assembling
- 13:46Speaker 3: interiors for other people with things that have a little
- 13:48Speaker 3: bit of history and soul.
- 13:51Speaker 2: Did your mother have the travel bug?
- 13:53Speaker 3: My mother the shopping bug. So, I mean my mother
- 13:57Speaker 3: was very intrepid. She was you know, she had a
- 14:01Speaker 3: point of view and growing up. Actually, now that I
- 14:04Speaker 3: now that you asked me that I knew it a
- 14:08Speaker 3: very age that pearls came from China, or you know,
- 14:12Speaker 3: great shoes came from France, or great leather came from
- 14:17Speaker 3: this place, from you know, the tanneries we're here.
- 14:20Speaker 1: That's probably why when.
- 14:22Speaker 3: I land somewhere now, I'm always interested in, like the
- 14:26Speaker 3: local craft, what's made there, what they do the best
- 14:28Speaker 3: job doing.
- 14:29Speaker 1: That's what I always want to know.
- 14:31Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be expensive, but like what's the
- 14:34Speaker 3: what's the best thing in Sri Lanka, what's the best
- 14:38Speaker 3: thing in Barcelona? Like what's the coolest craft in Wahaka?
- 14:42Speaker 3: What are they known for?
- 14:43Speaker 2: Yeah, you said earlier that you're very interested in investigating
- 14:47Speaker 2: the culture of a place through its artifact.
- 14:50Speaker 1: Yeah, through its craft.
- 14:51Speaker 2: It's that and what you're describing in your mother as
- 14:54Speaker 2: a version of them, Yeah, it is, it is.
- 14:57Speaker 3: You know.
- 14:58Speaker 2: My favorite this is one of my favorite things to do,
- 15:00Speaker 2: by the way, is to locate someone's passions in there
- 15:04Speaker 2: in an earlier form found in their parents. My favorite
- 15:07Speaker 2: I can I go in to total digression.
- 15:08Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 15:09Speaker 2: My favorite example of this was I was once at
- 15:12Speaker 2: a party in LA and I met a very famous
- 15:16Speaker 2: LA manager, maybe one of the most famous of all
- 15:20Speaker 2: of managers. He was famous because he was the hardest
- 15:22Speaker 2: negotiator in Hollywood. He was like the guy who would
- 15:26Speaker 2: argue with you for you know, two weeks, for the
- 15:29Speaker 2: down to the slightest detail of a contract. And I
- 15:32Speaker 2: was chatting with him and I was like, Oh, tell
- 15:33Speaker 2: me about your chither and he goes, oh, yeah, well
- 15:35Speaker 2: I am. My parents were, and I was really raised
- 15:36Speaker 2: on my grandfather. What's your grandfather do?
- 15:38Speaker 1: Well?
- 15:38Speaker 2: He was in the button business. He's like, oh, what
- 15:41Speaker 2: was that like? Well, every day after school I would
- 15:43Speaker 2: go to my grandfather's office in the garment district and
- 15:45Speaker 2: I would sit in a chair and I would listen
- 15:47Speaker 2: to him argue over the you know, the tenth of
- 15:52Speaker 2: a cent difference in a large order of buttons. Pause,
- 15:58Speaker 2: and I'm like exactly, And he looked at me like,
- 16:02Speaker 2: what are you talking about?
- 16:03Speaker 1: No connection to see it? Same thing.
- 16:06Speaker 2: He takes the buttons, and he takes the it makes
- 16:09Speaker 2: a fortune.
- 16:10Speaker 3: Exactly right, exactly so, and he's negotiing over the tenth
- 16:13Speaker 3: acent of a price of a button.
- 16:15Speaker 2: Still, but you do you do you see what you
- 16:17Speaker 2: see where I'm going?
- 16:18Speaker 1: Oh, of course, of course I'm following this. Yeah, and
- 16:21Speaker 1: you're right.
- 16:21Speaker 3: I mean, you know, my mom and I have talked
- 16:23Speaker 3: about over the years. She's asked me like, what do
- 16:25Speaker 3: you think my influence on you was as a young person,
- 16:29Speaker 3: and then obviously is in design, and it was she
- 16:32Speaker 3: taught me how to source. And I think a good
- 16:35Speaker 3: designer has to be really good at sourcing because even
- 16:39Speaker 3: in today's age, where you know, obviously, like at any
- 16:43Speaker 3: given moment, at any place in the world, you can
- 16:46Speaker 3: find exactly what you're looking for online, it's not really enough.
- 16:51Speaker 3: You have to know who makes the hand painted lamp
- 16:55Speaker 3: chains on Etsy, and who makes the Mexican pineapples in Morelia,
- 17:01Speaker 3: and then who you know it's just and then who
- 17:03Speaker 3: can put it all together for you and turn it
- 17:05Speaker 3: into a coffee table. So you know, you've got to
- 17:07Speaker 3: know the guy in Brooklyn too. So it's but sourcing
- 17:10Speaker 3: is is what she gave me, and especially a love
- 17:14Speaker 3: of vintage and craft and handmade.
- 17:17Speaker 2: We'll be right back after the break, and we're back
- 17:25Speaker 2: with Nate Burgis. We'll stop a lot of hotels, since
- 17:29Speaker 2: hotels are such an integral part of the travel experience
- 17:32Speaker 2: for so many people. I was thinking when I was
- 17:34Speaker 2: preparing for this about so what is the what's the
- 17:37Speaker 2: most wonderful hotel experience I ever had? And it was
- 17:41Speaker 2: in a little hotel in Stockholm, which is in an
- 17:45Speaker 2: old mansion. And I've forgotten what the mansion looks like,
- 17:50Speaker 2: and I've forgotten what the my.
- 17:52Speaker 1: Room looked like.
- 17:52Speaker 2: I know that it was nice and comfortable room. The
- 17:55Speaker 2: genius thing was there was a huge old oak table
- 18:00Speaker 2: immediately adjacent to an open kitchen, and when you wanted
- 18:04Speaker 2: to eat, you went down and you sat the table,
- 18:06Speaker 2: and the cook came over to you and said what
- 18:09Speaker 2: do you want? And everybody who's saying the table, it
- 18:12Speaker 2: was a small sale. Everyone who just came and sat
- 18:15Speaker 2: at the table. It was that thing. Yeah, their intention
- 18:18Speaker 2: was that they were recreating a Swedish home, family home
- 18:24Speaker 2: of which you were a visitor. And that's not what
- 18:26Speaker 2: I want from every hotel. But no, they executed that
- 18:29Speaker 2: intention beautiful. Yeah, that's what I about.
- 18:32Speaker 1: I think listen.
- 18:33Speaker 3: I think that every every hotel wants to be welcoming,
- 18:37Speaker 3: they want to be curated, they want to be you know,
- 18:40Speaker 3: intentional in their design decisions. And most definitely design does
- 18:44Speaker 3: translate and communicate sort of what are you meant to
- 18:48Speaker 3: feel chic and urban and you know free? Are you
- 18:52Speaker 3: meant to feel relaxed and calm and sunburnt like?
- 18:56Speaker 1: You know?
- 18:56Speaker 3: Of course, the furniture and the textiles and the even
- 18:59Speaker 3: the distribution of the rooms lends itself to certain activities
- 19:04Speaker 3: and certain feelings. So I have these clients in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- 19:09Speaker 3: They're incredibly wonderful.
- 19:11Speaker 2: I was wondering what was going to come out, No, brilliant,
- 19:14Speaker 2: they're brilliant, And you said you want to be there
- 19:17Speaker 2: to the pause.
- 19:18Speaker 3: After incredibibly that they are wonderful and there They travel
- 19:24Speaker 3: probably three hundred days a year. Yeah, and the goal
- 19:29Speaker 3: was to create a home that they liked more than
- 19:33Speaker 3: anywhere they've ever stayed. They can stay anywhere in the world,
- 19:37Speaker 3: and they can stay in a five star, rent a house,
- 19:40Speaker 3: rent a villa. They can literally go anywhere they want
- 19:43Speaker 3: to go. But My assignment was to make home feel
- 19:47Speaker 3: better than that. So it's me against like man against
- 19:51Speaker 3: the world.
- 19:51Speaker 1: Man.
- 19:52Speaker 2: But you know, did this make you nervous?
- 19:55Speaker 1: No?
- 19:55Speaker 3: I was so excited about this challenge because what it
- 19:59Speaker 3: did was it allowed me to really figure out who
- 20:03Speaker 3: they were as a family, what really mattered to them,
- 20:07Speaker 3: what ceremonies they do in their home, how they spend
- 20:10Speaker 3: time together. And it offered me an opportunity to build
- 20:14Speaker 3: that tile by tile, pillow by pillow, book by book,
- 20:19Speaker 3: and create a space that dreamt a bigger dream for
- 20:23Speaker 3: them as a family than they had even dreamt for themselves.
- 20:26Speaker 3: How did you figure that out about We had the
- 20:28Speaker 3: architectural framework there. We knew it was a house. We
- 20:31Speaker 3: knew it had these many bedrooms and these many bathrooms
- 20:33Speaker 3: and whatever. But we started with a lot of imagery.
- 20:37Speaker 3: And I just watched their eyes as they commented, and
- 20:42Speaker 3: I would ask them, why are you smiling when you're
- 20:46Speaker 3: talking about that fireplace. You've never picked a fireplace in
- 20:49Speaker 3: your entire life, But what is it that.
- 20:50Speaker 1: You like about that?
- 20:51Speaker 3: And they were able to communicate, well, it feels so rustic,
- 20:55Speaker 3: and it feels so interesting, and it feels like this
- 20:58Speaker 3: house in Italy that we stayed in years ago, and
- 21:01Speaker 3: I don't know, and we really liked the idea of
- 21:04Speaker 3: not using a lot of marble.
- 21:06Speaker 1: In the bathrooms. It feels too pretentious to us.
- 21:09Speaker 3: And I said, well, what if we just use the
- 21:10Speaker 3: marble on the trim and the floor is would and
- 21:13Speaker 3: there's no in the marble and the countertops and the trim,
- 21:16Speaker 3: but we'll just go around the baseboards and the doors.
- 21:18Speaker 1: There'll be no slabs in the shower.
- 21:20Speaker 3: And so it just gradually became this dialogue that went
- 21:23Speaker 3: back and forth, and you know, the goal is not
- 21:27Speaker 3: just to assemble something that's beautiful and meaningful, but it's
- 21:30Speaker 3: to delight the people who have spent this time and
- 21:33Speaker 3: money hiring you to do something. And I have to say,
- 21:36Speaker 3: I get a text from them weekly. They moved in
- 21:38Speaker 3: over a year ago. Yeah, and then they just we
- 21:41Speaker 3: just love it here, like we just you know.
- 21:44Speaker 2: The greatest thing would be if they stopped traveling. Right,
- 21:46Speaker 2: how much do you travel?
- 21:48Speaker 1: I travel a lot.
- 21:50Speaker 2: How much for fun and how much work? Or is
- 21:51Speaker 2: there no distinction in the sense that you're always collecting? I?
- 21:55Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I mean there is a distinction. I mean,
- 21:57Speaker 3: obviously I'm going to a beach trip with my kids.
- 22:00Speaker 3: You know that I know what I'm doing there. But
- 22:03Speaker 3: all the work trips, I mean, I spent twenty five
- 22:05Speaker 3: years doing makeovers in all these towns across the country.
- 22:08Speaker 3: Some I'm staying there for her up to two weeks,
- 22:10Speaker 3: sometimes being there for forty eight hours. I always make
- 22:13Speaker 3: it fun. I want to go to the local antiques malls.
- 22:16Speaker 3: I want to find out who is the best Hamburger.
- 22:19Speaker 3: I want the vintage fashion, the coolest monument, the private
- 22:24Speaker 3: museum house, like I can't sit still. The funny story
- 22:28Speaker 3: about the first time I was ever in Madrid with Jeremiah,
- 22:30Speaker 3: my husband. We had canvassed all these museums and we
- 22:34Speaker 3: had had this beautiful lunch and then we met friends,
- 22:37Speaker 3: and then we went to another district and we were shopping,
- 22:41Speaker 3: and we came home and our feet were bleeding. So
- 22:44Speaker 3: we're like, you know, wearing the wrong shoes. Of course,
- 22:46Speaker 3: you know, even though we're well traveled.
- 22:48Speaker 1: We wanted to look cute. You want to look cute
- 22:50Speaker 1: when you're in Madrid.
- 22:51Speaker 3: So we got back to the hotel and he like
- 22:54Speaker 3: had his feet in the bathtub and just sitting there
- 22:57Speaker 3: like sort of softly moaning.
- 22:59Speaker 1: And I was on the bed.
- 23:02Speaker 3: With one of the magazines that was in the hotel,
- 23:04Speaker 3: and as I was reading this men's fashion story, I
- 23:08Speaker 3: was looking intently at all these decorative boxes and objects
- 23:12Speaker 3: and frames and like leather from the fifties and like
- 23:15Speaker 3: all this like really cool stuff. And then I went
- 23:18Speaker 3: to the back of the magazine and found the credit
- 23:20Speaker 3: and it said the name of this store. And I
- 23:22Speaker 3: called downstairs to the concierge and as he said, it's closing,
- 23:25Speaker 3: but it's actually owned by my neighbor. If you want
- 23:28Speaker 3: me to call him, he'll stay open for you. And
- 23:30Speaker 3: I said, yes, yes, please call him. I want to
- 23:33Speaker 3: see this store. And Jared finally comes around the corner
- 23:36Speaker 3: with his bloody feet and I go, you gotta put
- 23:39Speaker 3: your shoes back on.
- 23:41Speaker 2: Nay, you're exhausting.
- 23:43Speaker 1: I'm so exhausting.
- 23:45Speaker 2: Describe to me when you encounter spaces for the first time.
- 23:51Speaker 2: What's your process of judgment? Do you do you always
- 23:55Speaker 2: have a kind of reaction to it? Are you do
- 23:58Speaker 2: you find yourself frequently appalls outraged?
- 24:05Speaker 1: No, I'm never I'm never outraged.
- 24:08Speaker 2: You know, because you know I asked this question because
- 24:11Speaker 2: my version of what you do is stories, and when
- 24:14Speaker 2: a story is badly told, I am furious. I just
- 24:20Speaker 2: parenthetically wasted a good three weeks of my life and
- 24:25Speaker 2: I have no free time to smuntle watching Ozark, and
- 24:29Speaker 2: after a season and a half, I'm like, this is
- 24:32Speaker 2: absolutely indescribably appalling. How did they do this? I want
- 24:39Speaker 2: to go after the showrunner and just say, you destroyed
- 24:43Speaker 2: three weeks of my life. Do you have any idea
- 24:45Speaker 2: out precious that is to me? Yeah, but you don't
- 24:48Speaker 2: have this, so you don't know the rage.
- 24:51Speaker 1: You know the rage? No, I mean I don't.
- 24:52Speaker 2: We both virgos, I know.
- 24:54Speaker 3: I mean I have rage about other things. I have
- 24:56Speaker 3: rage about dirty laundry, but I don't have raged about that.
- 24:58Speaker 2: Okay, but I know.
- 25:00Speaker 1: I mean.
- 25:00Speaker 3: The answer to your question, though, is when I walk in.
- 25:02Speaker 3: First of all, I hate that show too. It's so
- 25:04Speaker 3: badly done. Oh my god, it's miserable. But catch them
- 25:07Speaker 3: or don't catch them already, it's the same thing. It's
- 25:10Speaker 3: the same scene every episode.
- 25:12Speaker 2: Ozon if it's so much the ox, yeah, exactly, talk
- 25:17Speaker 2: about travel, don't start another casino and then like in
- 25:21Speaker 2: like in like at the end of episode one. You know,
- 25:23Speaker 2: Laureal Lenny Wendy says, Oh, yeah, we have a spot
- 25:26Speaker 2: in Australia all picked out.
- 25:28Speaker 1: Go I know, save yourselves. Save.
- 25:33Speaker 3: When I walk into a space, honestly, it's a it's
- 25:36Speaker 3: almost like AI like my eyes open and I look
- 25:39Speaker 3: into space and I can immediately see what I would change.
- 25:42Speaker 3: And there's not one right way to do anything, obviously
- 25:46Speaker 3: in life, and there's certainly not one right way to
- 25:47Speaker 3: assemble a room or renovate a space. Marry another designer
- 25:52Speaker 3: for ten years if you don't believe. But honestly, like
- 25:55Speaker 3: the minute I walk in, and this is I think
- 25:58Speaker 3: one of the reasons why I've I've had so much
- 26:00Speaker 3: fun with real estate over the years. It's like I
- 26:02Speaker 3: can just like I walk in and it's just like
- 26:05Speaker 3: a film goes over me and I can see like
- 26:07Speaker 3: raise that, take out that beam, bring the cabinets to
- 26:11Speaker 3: the ceiling, do a floor here, change the floor there,
- 26:15Speaker 3: move this doorway over three feet and by the time
- 26:19Speaker 3: I mean most of our renovations actually, and this is true,
- 26:23Speaker 3: most of our renovations, and we've renovated everywhere we've ever lived.
- 26:26Speaker 3: We've never just walked in and been like this is great.
- 26:29Speaker 3: My little plant air. It's gonna be perfect. But every
- 26:34Speaker 3: single renovation started with going home and writing out initial
- 26:39Speaker 3: ideas and short and those initial ideas were eighty five
- 26:43Speaker 3: percent of the final product. The instant knee jerk reaction
- 26:47Speaker 3: of how the room should flow, how the space should
- 26:50Speaker 3: be laid out. Not for furniture floor plans, because you know,
- 26:53Speaker 3: we're two designers, like we move stuff around all the time.
- 26:57Speaker 1: But in terms of the actual bones of a place.
- 27:01Speaker 3: It's like a film just comes down and on the
- 27:04Speaker 3: film I can see it.
- 27:04Speaker 2: I think that's right. I'm reminded of as you talk
- 27:06Speaker 2: about it's like a point guard describing what he or
- 27:11Speaker 2: she sees on a basketball court.
- 27:13Speaker 1: Yep.
- 27:13Speaker 3: And that is a project that is so hard for
- 27:15Speaker 3: me to follow. But you are one hundred percent. I'm
- 27:17Speaker 3: sure you're right. I love a sports analogy and welcome
- 27:21Speaker 3: bring them, bring them at me, let me try the
- 27:24Speaker 3: forty yards, but let me try again.
- 27:27Speaker 2: No, No, there is a kind of no. But what's
- 27:30Speaker 2: what's funny about listening to you say that, which makes
- 27:34Speaker 2: perfect sense to me, because that's that is your gift, right,
- 27:38Speaker 2: That's the essence of what you do is being able
- 27:40Speaker 2: to see a different, a different and more interesting version
- 27:45Speaker 2: of what you're presented with.
- 27:46Speaker 3: And a version that's easier and better to live in. Yeah,
- 27:49Speaker 3: it may not be better than the original, of course, but
- 27:51Speaker 3: like it's going to be better.
- 27:53Speaker 1: For whoever lives there. But Nate, how does this?
- 27:55Speaker 2: I want to go back to this question of why
- 27:56Speaker 2: you don't feel rage? So if you go in and
- 28:00Speaker 2: you can't change it, how do you cope? You come
- 28:04Speaker 2: to my house for dinner. Yeah, and you walk in
- 28:07Speaker 2: and you do that thing, and you're like, oh god,
- 28:10Speaker 2: I was called like fifty things wrong, and you're like, well,
- 28:13Speaker 2: you're not going to change it, And now he's not
- 28:15Speaker 2: a client.
- 28:16Speaker 1: I don't.
- 28:16Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not gonna be here. So what do
- 28:18Speaker 2: you do? You sit uncomfortably through dinner just thinking why.
- 28:21Speaker 1: Is that there? No? What do you know? You know what?
- 28:24Speaker 3: Honestly it First of all, a little side note about me.
- 28:28Speaker 3: I appreciate a home cooked meal more than I care
- 28:30Speaker 3: about what the diving looks like because my mother made
- 28:33Speaker 3: nothing growing up, So let me that sounds delicious.
- 28:36Speaker 1: I don't even care.
- 28:37Speaker 2: I love how large your mother has loomed. I know
- 28:40Speaker 2: what's your mother's name? Nancy shout out to Nancy.
- 28:43Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. But yeah, she has been looming
- 28:46Speaker 1: a little large.
- 28:46Speaker 2: And you know why it is because my favorite thing
- 28:50Speaker 2: is talking about people's parents.
- 28:51Speaker 1: You do.
- 28:51Speaker 2: I didn't know I could talk about people's parents. If
- 28:53Speaker 2: you told me I could do this, I would have
- 28:56Speaker 2: made this the entire show about your mom.
- 29:01Speaker 1: You would love that. Let's just talk.
- 29:02Speaker 2: Let's just talk about your mom.
- 29:04Speaker 1: That's amazing.
- 29:05Speaker 2: Get people think moms get like too much airtime. Wrong, yeah,
- 29:09Speaker 2: way too little airtime. It's all about mom.
- 29:13Speaker 1: My mom is aware of that.
- 29:17Speaker 2: My mom actually is not, which is one of her charms.
- 29:19Speaker 1: That is terming. I can't imagine.
- 29:22Speaker 2: That's like a point guard too, my mother if you
- 29:27Speaker 2: if you talk on the phone with her too long,
- 29:29Speaker 2: she will she'll remind you you of other things to do.
- 29:32Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, yeah, I can't even imagine.
- 29:35Speaker 3: Where were we You're upset that I think you're upset
- 29:38Speaker 3: that that I'm not rage full when I come for
- 29:40Speaker 3: a meat loaf at someone's house.
- 29:43Speaker 2: No, I'm trying to I'm here and we're getting back
- 29:45Speaker 2: to this series, okay, And that is I'm trying to
- 29:49Speaker 2: understand how you manage your You have a powerful aesthetic sense, right,
- 29:56Speaker 2: which dominates your life. Yeah, it's why you're who you are,
- 30:00Speaker 2: why you're good at what you do.
- 30:01Speaker 1: I can answer that.
- 30:02Speaker 2: I know where you're going about how you manage it.
- 30:04Speaker 1: There's two things. Yeah.
- 30:05Speaker 3: One, there's a time and a place for everything, and
- 30:09Speaker 3: I believe that. And so if I'm looking at a
- 30:12Speaker 3: property because I'm going to live there personally, then I
- 30:15Speaker 3: can't turn off that AI kind of you know thing.
- 30:19Speaker 3: If I'm looking at a property that somebody is paying
- 30:22Speaker 3: me to change on their behalf, then I can't turn
- 30:26Speaker 3: anything off. But if I'm going to dinner at someone's
- 30:29Speaker 3: house or I'm sitting on my you know, sister's floor
- 30:31Speaker 3: playing with my nephew, I don't care. Yeah, I just don't.
- 30:35Speaker 3: I mean, I couldn't care less. I'm like, where's where
- 30:37Speaker 3: we're bringing luncheon from?
- 30:39Speaker 1: You know?
- 30:40Speaker 3: Do you like my haircut? There's so many other things
- 30:42Speaker 3: that are you know, did you read this book? Did
- 30:45Speaker 3: you hear what happened to so and so?
- 30:46Speaker 1: Like? What really makes me Rageye?
- 30:49Speaker 2: Actually I'm glad we're finally get get you ready?
- 30:52Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, here you go, mister Malcolm. Glad.
- 30:55Speaker 3: Well, now, mom, you know why what makes me ragie?
- 31:00Speaker 1: Is people who are really confident in their bad taste. Yeah,
- 31:05Speaker 1: it makes me insane.
- 31:06Speaker 3: And it usually is tied to a lot, like a
- 31:09Speaker 3: great deal of money, like a huge fortune wasted. And
- 31:13Speaker 3: I cannot stand the shape of their heads when they
- 31:16Speaker 3: tell you how special and fabulous, because they use that
- 31:19Speaker 3: word a lot.
- 31:20Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a keyword.
- 31:21Speaker 3: If you're going to have really terrible taste and be
- 31:23Speaker 3: confident about it, you need to say everything is fabulous
- 31:26Speaker 3: over and over so you yourself apparently believe it.
- 31:30Speaker 1: But that makes me insane.
- 31:32Speaker 2: Do you want to name names at all of it? Sure?
- 31:35Speaker 3: I think that there's the reason why it's not extremely
- 31:40Speaker 3: complicated to have a career in design at any level
- 31:44Speaker 3: is because there's so much insecurity around design. And I've
- 31:49Speaker 3: tried to make that okay over the years to not
- 31:53Speaker 3: be so heavy handed.
- 31:55Speaker 1: I have my own convictions. I know what I think
- 31:57Speaker 1: is beautiful.
- 31:58Speaker 3: You know, when you're on makeovers for fifteen years on
- 32:02Speaker 3: the Oprah Winfrey Show in two hundred countries and everybody's
- 32:05Speaker 3: looking to you, the question.
- 32:07Speaker 1: Was always like, what's the trend? What's the trend coming up?
- 32:10Speaker 3: And you could hear the representative from the wool bureau
- 32:13Speaker 3: in the background and the pantone color of you know,
- 32:16Speaker 3: and not that I would decide that, but they were
- 32:18Speaker 3: just like, is he going to agree? Is he gonna whatever?
- 32:21Speaker 3: And I've always felt like all these waves, these trends
- 32:24Speaker 3: are designed to make people feel bad about what they
- 32:26Speaker 3: didn't buy at the last trend. And so my whole
- 32:29Speaker 3: philosophy has always been like, if you actually spend the
- 32:31Speaker 3: time to get to know yourself well enough to know
- 32:33Speaker 3: what you really do, enjoy what really like makes your
- 32:37Speaker 3: heart sing when you look around a space, then you
- 32:40Speaker 3: can shut out all that noise and build something that matters.
- 32:44Speaker 3: Because the hit the interiors that I've been inspired by
- 32:47Speaker 3: over the years, the ones that really mattered to me
- 32:50Speaker 3: are the ones where people just like kind of busted
- 32:52Speaker 3: a move.
- 32:53Speaker 1: You know.
- 32:53Speaker 3: It was France in the nineteen fifties and this Mexican
- 32:57Speaker 3: count decided that he was going to make all these
- 32:59Speaker 3: follies in his garden and design the house. It's called
- 33:02Speaker 3: Chateau to Grus for anyone who wants to look it up,
- 33:05Speaker 3: but like it's a real place.
- 33:07Speaker 1: And he put a royal blue rugg in the.
- 33:09Speaker 3: Dining room with Kelly Green chairs because no one was
- 33:12Speaker 3: doing that and that's what he wanted to live in.
- 33:14Speaker 3: And maybe it was because he was half from Mexico.
- 33:17Speaker 3: Maybe it wasn't, who knows, but it was revolutionary. And
- 33:21Speaker 3: you know, had he been worried about what color the
- 33:25Speaker 3: sweaters on the mannequins and Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue,
- 33:29Speaker 3: we're going to be like it was. You know, it
- 33:32Speaker 3: was inconceivable. So am I like a real renegade? Am
- 33:36Speaker 3: I breaking all these rules? Am I zahadde making buildings
- 33:40Speaker 3: that look like they balance on the bottom of a pin?
- 33:42Speaker 1: And you know, no, I'm not. My goal is to.
- 33:45Speaker 3: Make like really livable spaces that if they're designed right
- 33:49Speaker 3: now twenty five years from now, they still look great
- 33:52Speaker 3: and more importantly, they still feel great. So that's my niche.
- 33:57Speaker 3: That's what matters. And I think that's the like, what
- 34:01Speaker 3: all this loathing people with lots of money and bad
- 34:05Speaker 3: tastes and being vehemently anti train and you know you
- 34:10Speaker 3: end up with with some nice tyle.
- 34:12Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, last question. Yeah, not meant to be a
- 34:15Speaker 2: downer question, But I imagine that you were sad, you
- 34:20Speaker 2: were melancholy over so Slumsley and I came to you Nate,
- 34:24Speaker 2: and I said, I will fly you tonight to the
- 34:28Speaker 2: one place in the world that will cure you of
- 34:30Speaker 2: your melancholy. Where do I take you home? Oh? That's lovely.
- 34:38Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Nate.
- 34:39Speaker 3: This is.
- 34:45Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this special live episode of Revision's History,
- 34:49Speaker 2: brought to you by AC Hotels. It was produced by
- 34:52Speaker 2: Tali Emlin, with Nina Lawrence and ben A d Alfh Haffrey,
- 34:55Speaker 2: editing by Sarah Nis, mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our executive
- 35:00Speaker 2: producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Kira Posey, Joshua Crowley,
- 35:05Speaker 2: Brion Moreno, Raya, Anthony, Benjaminster and a whole production crew
- 35:10Speaker 2: at iHeartMedia. Not to mention Nate Berkus's shop, I'm Malcolm Gladwell.