Latest / She’s Smart / Nikki Glazer- Creating Spaces with Soul, History & Intention

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Nikki Glazer- Creating Spaces with Soul, History & Intention · She’s Smart

0:03
Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. I'm your host, Maria Robotham.
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Today's guest is someone who blends creativity, community, and design with remarkable
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thoughtfulness, Nikki Glaser.
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Nikki is the owner and director of brand at Graybarns, principal at the Glaser
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Group, and a real estate agent with Compass.
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She's deeply rooted in both storytelling and placemaking,
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whether it's transforming historic inns into soulful boutique destinations or
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helping brands and guests experience meaningful moments through curated pop-ups,
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immersive dinners, and design-forward hospitality.
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In this episode, we dive into Nikki's path from working at Google in San Francisco
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to restoring one of New England's most iconic properties and how that journey
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taught her the power of space, narrative, and intention.
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We talk about the history and reimagining of Graybarns, family legacy in real estate and design,
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intimate, community-driven experiences, tariffs, residential real estate,
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a new project, and the beautiful, quiet magic of building something with authenticity.
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Nikki shares insights on design, partnership, and decision-making,
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plus a few great stories about speakeasies and real estate curbside appraisals.
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This one's full of warmth, wisdom, and inspiration.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart. We'll be back.
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Music.
1:59
Nikki, thank you for being on She's Smart.
2:02
Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled that you're here. When we first met,
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we were at just the most delightful event for Parker Thatch at Graybarns.
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And when I met you, I 100% thought you were someone else. And I was so embarrassed
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because you have such similar names. You forgot about that.
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Yeah. I was like, okay, that's never going to happen again. And also it was
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a really good learning moment to not jump into someone and be like, oh, I know who you are.
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And then realize, no, I thought you were someone else. So it was a good lesson to not do that again.
2:33
But when you started Graybarns, was that concept of bringing in people for these
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collaborations and these dinners part of the plan? Or did it just kind of happen organically? Yeah.
2:46
Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for having me. It's really nice to
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be here and start my week out this way.
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Gray Barnes, to answer that question specifically, was not part of the plan.
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Gray Barnes was formerly known as the Silvermine Tavern. It was an operating restaurant and hotel.
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My grandmother had dinner there when she returned from her honeymoon.
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The community knew it as a place to have sticky buns and pancakes.
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It had an antique store, which is where we now house the Mercantile Cafe.
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It has a longer history, which I'm happy to get into as well,
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you know, dating back to 1700s, 1800s, where it was a stagecoach stop.
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It was a speakeasy in Prohibition.
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Oh, wow. Yeah, it's like magical. There was an artist's guild.
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Which now down the street, there's a Silvermine Arts Center,
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which is sort of formed out of what was happening on the, what is today,
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Greyburns property, where a group of artists founded the artist's guild.
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They used to have something called the Knockers Club, where they would knock each other's work.
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They would comment on or knock each other's work in what is now the tavern at Greyburns.
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It has rich overlays of history during different time periods.
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To answer your question, our intention was to restore it to its original usage
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and keeping some of the architectural integrity intact. So that's a hotel and restaurant property.
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What is currently happening with all of these buildings?
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You know, events on property and brands envisioning it as a kind of home base
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for retail pop-ups is something that evolved, you know, through COVID,
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just looking at the retail environment that exists now.
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So it's been a bit of a experiment. It's been a happy accident.
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It's been being in the right place at the right time.
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Yeah, I would say so. Crossroads kind of in the community. The history behind it, fascinating.
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What is knocking? Like, is that where they talk? What does that mean?
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Sorry. So the Knockers Club, to my understanding, that was conversation or I
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went to art school and in art school, you would create something and then you'd
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have a review with your peers and your peers get together and comment on your work.
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So it's sort of a convivial review of each other's work. OK.
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Yeah. I want to bring that back. OK. I want to bring that concept back.
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Let's do it. That'd be really cool. Local artists and have like a Knockers Club. That's very cool.
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And they would drink and hang out and chat. So what brought you?
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You went from this publishing background, right?
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You were at Cottage and Gardens and then helping with the background and creative places.
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What brought you to this Silvermine project?
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Yeah, great question. So I was working in San Francisco. I lived there for four years.
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I worked for Google for a little bit on a project called Google Glass,
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which some people will remember was this heads up display. and you could take
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pictures with it. You can make phone calls with it.
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And we were under the Google X umbrella, which they call Project Moonshot.
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Everything that's a crazy idea falls into that department.
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We started our first pop-up retail experience in what's called the garage in
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Mountain View at the Google campus.
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Google itself was founded in the garage of Larry Page and Sergey Brand.
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It's this ode to the founding of the company that exists on the property of
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Mountain View. We had our first retail pop-up there, curating everything from
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the music to how the VIP fittings would go to, you know, the operations of it.
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And I think that's where I kind of fell in love with this high-touch retail
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experiential experience.
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Environment. We extended that to San Francisco hosting retail pop-ups in a boat
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hangar across the water from downtown during the Americas Cup.
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The San Francisco office is downtown on the Embarcadera. We were taking VIP
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guests over in a fleet of boats.
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It was like no expense was spared. And at the time, Sergey Brin was really obsessed with this idea.
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So he was just throwing a ton of money at it. We had three floating barges in
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New York, LA, and San Francisco.
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His vision was to create essentially a floating Apple store on each one of these barges.
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And it would take guests out to sea and you would try on Google Glass and you'd come back.
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And at one point we were learning how to tie knots, you know, and it was bizarre.
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For me, I mention it because it was really a formidable experience and kind
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of shaping how I look at experiential events and space.
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So I I fell in love with this idea that you can create a magical moment for
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guests in a space that's maybe not supposed to be used for that.
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Here we are in this boat hangar with this beautiful view of the Bay Area,
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bringing in really cool food vendors and music and thinking through all these cool details.
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And then we moved to the San Francisco office and set up a semi-permanent pop-up
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space. I was working with industrial design team doing furniture and bringing
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in like Lina Rosé couches. And I was like, I want to hang out with them.
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And like, can I go be their errand girl and go get the plants? And it was amazing.
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I was thinking about it this morning as I was driving here. Like Steve Jobs
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says you can't connect the dots forward. You can only connect them back.
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For me, that experience was a building block to creating the experiences we at Greyburns today.
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I was working in publishing a bit. And then my family, my parents.
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You know, my family's been in real estate development in the area for...
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Generations. My grandfather started the business after World War II. He was a builder.
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And my uncle and my father took it over doing high-end residential speckums in the 90s and 2000s.
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And then my father got into historical renovation and also a bit more of multifamily and commercial.
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And he had known about this property, grew up around this property,
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and nobody could really figure out how to do it, both from a financial perspective
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and a building perspective.
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The building had gone a bit into disrepair. I was living in San Francisco,
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and at that time I was working and publishing a bit more in the print media
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space, and that was just a dying breed.
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He mentioned that they were working on this, and I felt really called to it.
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The more I peeled the layers away of the history and the sense of place that
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was already there, it just kind of called to me and I was ready to be back on the East Coast.
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So that's kind of how I arrived.
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When you got there and your dad was like, here we go. This is the space.
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Did you look at it and go, okay, you saw it immediately what you thought it would become?
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Or were there parts that you're like, okay, I'm going to start with this.
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We're going to start with the restaurant and then we'll do the mercantile.
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I remember when the bread guy was in the barn.
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The bread guy who now is flower water salt. You have to wait in line.
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Where is he in, Darien or New Canaan now? Both. In both. Amazing.
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Yeah. But you would show up, park, and then walk into the barn and grab your
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croissants and whatever else. In our garage, so to speak.
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Our incubator space. So I could imagine you walk up into this beautiful space.
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Your dad's like, we're going to do this.
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What did you see first? My dad is a visionary in so many ways.
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When he looks at space, he's brave in the sense that he's not afraid to pull
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some things away and maybe not have all the understanding or answers before.
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When you're working with historical structures, you often uncover quite a few things.
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For example, as we were working, there had been a fire and something got kind of band-aided over.
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So there were layers that you had to peel away to understand what was going
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on structurally. He's very concerned with architectural integrity.
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We really wanted to maintain the facade of the inn specifically.
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One of the decisions we made up front was to separate the building.
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The tavern and inn used to be combined and the dining area was on the backside of the inn.
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And so we thought it would be wiser for noise, for logistics to separate them out.
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So that was one big decision up front. And then I think, you know,
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process wise, again, like we had a sense of what we wanted to do,
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but there were many things that we discovered and we made decisions,
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you know, game time decisions, essentially.
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So, for example, I remember we were sitting in what is now the bar of the tavern and...
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We had planned to have it maybe like 10 feet forward. It's a bit recessed.
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We were looking at the windows and everyone was like, oh, you have to keep the original windows.
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I remember sitting in there with our, he's our head mill worker and carpenters
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work with our family for probably 20 years and wonderful.
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He's like family. We were just sitting there. We said, we can't do this.
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They're not going to be warm. They're not going to shut properly.
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And it was one of those painstaking decisions where you have to weigh a few different things.
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We decided to replace all of the windows. When you're working with something
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historical, you have to exercise a lot of thoughtfulness and care as you comb
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through different parts of it.
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And we did open the inn first, and then the tavern came right after.
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I think it was the first week we opened, we had a vendor, Gaggenau,
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they're a very high-end appliance company. They wanted to do a pop-up event
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in the barn. I swear, this is the first week we're opening our doors at the tavern.
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I was like, I can't. They're going to pay me tens and tens of thousands of dollars.
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I can't say no. they did a pop-up kitchen experience in the barn.
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They brought in trees and made full kitchens. It was a beautiful event.
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So it was a good sign that there would be a lot more of these types of experiences on property.
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The mercantile was really the last part, which took us a bit because we were
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ironing out the operation and then COVID hit.
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We've done a few different things with the mercantile space,
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but we love having it as a community space. It's a cafe, coffee shop,
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and then And we have a speakeasy we call the gray area in the evenings,
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Thursday through Saturday.
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Fun fact, if you didn't know about that. About that. And you're at the coffee shop.
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I didn't know. But around 3.30, we have Ian, our infamous mixologist,
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making cocktails and we have cheese boards.
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It's a great spot to hang out. That's so cool. It's become this kind of mixed-use
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community space. During COVID, I did an arm knitting class there.
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We've done wreath making. We've
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done private events. I love that that is a community footprint, right?
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You don't have to stay at the inn or go have a fine dining experience to experience the property.
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I can see why people gravitate towards it. We eat at Greyburn's a lot.
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It's one of our date night spots. We love it. You can dress up. You cannot dress up.
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But it's always nice to feel like you're back in the city at a cool spot where
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the food's fantastic and the drinks are fantastic.
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And you're not going all the way into the city for that experience.
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And with all the different spaces, you have the garden now in the back.
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It's really opened up so many opportunities for you to bring that community
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together and make it like that spot.
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It's very cool. It's really important to us. It was a really important part of how it was founded.
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It also sits at this interesting intersection and crossroads of community.
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You have Darien, you have Norwalk, New Canaan, Wilton, Weston that all kind
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of front, you know, this crossroads.
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And again, it was it served as this outpost.
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They used to deliver milk by horse and buggy from the mercantile. and there were,
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A lot of the houses in the area are historical houses that were the buttery or the post office.
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So community is central to its identity and to not honor that in the reconstructing
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and revisiting of this, you know, junction would be to like fail it as developers.
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Yeah. Was there anything that you came upon during this process?
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I'm fascinated because I've bought a house and I'm living in a historical house.
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So I see the difference between a new home and historical home.
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The character of it, you don't want to lose that, right?
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But you also probably come up against some real challenges.
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Did the historical society, or I don't know, tell me who manages that because
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I don't know the name of it, manages the historical upkeep of like you have to keep a certain code.
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Was there anything you bumped up against that you had to figure out?
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Well, let's start with the community.
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The Silvermine community in the beginning was a bit averse to us coming in.
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I think any development in their charming little enclave was a bit intimidating
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and felt unknown. So we had to do a lot of ingratiating with the community.
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We're going to preserve as much of this as possible and undertake this with
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integrity. Different people have different opinions on our work,
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and that's not for me to judge. But that was step one.
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And then, yes, there is the historical society.
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You have to go before...
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Planning and zoning. And there's a lot of loopholes you have to jump through
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and also the environmental associations because we're right on the Silvermine River and Guthrie Pond.
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So there's a lot that you can and cannot do there.
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So it adds another layer of work and bureaucracy development for sure.
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It's a whole other set of skills that you have to learn when you're,
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you know, trying to figure out, okay, you guys want this, we want this,
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where's the balance Yeah, I stay away from T-Mall.
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Yeah, I don't really like going there. It's not really my vibe.
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My father manages that process really well. He's got all of his best friends down there.
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So when you were designing it, the actual feel, because it's just a cozy spot,
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not in like a kitschy cottage way, but in a very elevated way. You walk in.
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Like I said, you feel like you can be dressed up. I have a friend who had her
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husband's full office dinner party in the little upstairs nook.
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And you can do really special events there without feeling like it's super ostentatious either.
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There's this very warm feeling. When you were going into designing that,
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what were some elements that you wanted to bring in to keep it with that kind
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of vibe? Yeah, great question.
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I actually was spending a lot of time in England living there part time and going back and forth.
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They do country inns and taverns better than anyone.
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I was experiencing this fun and seeing how everything is very much informed
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by and integrated into the natural country environments.
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It's not trying too hard. That was really important to us that we really kind
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of let the environment, you know, into the spaces.
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So I'm trying to think of a good example of that, but I suppose that would be
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like the green space in the back of the inn.
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And there's a very simple fire pit in Adirondack area where the intention is
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simply just to reflect upon the Guthrie Pond and take in the natural environment
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and unwind and slow down.
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Right. That's not doesn't need to be overcomplicated.
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I think, you know, in the visual experience, the point was to declutter and edit.
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My mother and I do a lot of the interiors and my dad and I do some furniture design.
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Everyone kind of has their hand. And my mother always makes fun of me because I'm the editor.
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I was like, she's like the hoarder.
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And so editing out clutter and refining were really important in our process.
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But it was difficult because I always say we sell the idea of country,
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not the rickety floors and the moth smell.
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Right? Absolutely. So to create a luxury environment, you have to have a certain
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level of quality. So in our design build, we use a lot of reclaimed wood.
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That's no secret at this point.
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Combining that with other materials is what makes us successful.
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So for example, our beds, they're built out of walnut and wenge,
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which is this beautiful dark wood from...
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I don't know if I would say it's from there, but I think we first identified
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it in Africa, in Zanzibar. They use it a lot.
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And we built these beautiful beds and we used a beautiful Holly Hunt new book
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leather for the headboard.
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It's, you know, kind of a water resistant and so it was a bit more durable.
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But it provided this really elegant contrast in a way that felt relaxed and natural.
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So I think, you know, I guess that's sort of insight into some of our thinking
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and design process. Yeah, I love walking in.
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I've not stayed at the inn yet, but I love the combinations that you've used
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in the Mercantile Farm, in the space for the restaurant.
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And especially when you walk down, it's almost like you're going to a secret
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place when you walk in and then you opens up into this beautiful space behind you.
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It's just really lovely. When
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you started it, you started with the lodging and then you did the food.
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At this point, are you really heavily in like the restaurant business?
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And what are you really having to put most of your time into these days?
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Or is there a nice balance between both? Yeah, good question.
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I think at this point, we're evaluating the new tariff landscape and how that's
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impacting our business, adjusting to that.
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The restaurant on a day-to-day definitely takes more management, so to speak.
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But the in-business is something that continues to grow and grow,
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as well as the event business. We do a very large event business,
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given the flexibility of our spaces.
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We're a very bespoke offering comes to events.
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That's what we're trying to focus on continuing to grow.
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So with the events we had, we got to do that beautiful Parker Thatch dinner.
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And you had a pop-up. There was an article in the Financial Times that you sent
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me where you and your mom are mentioned.
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The universe is doing the things. If anyone wants to find it, I'll link it below.
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It talks about the tariffs and how it's affecting UK brands.
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It was talking about Marfa Stamp.
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And I know you had them last year come in.
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Yes, we've worked with them now, and they'll be returning this year.
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I think this is the fourth year. Incredible.
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They'll be doing an event on site. Yeah, so this article talks about the tariffs,
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and there was an event out in the Hamptons that they went to.
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The idea is that the 10% tariffs are so difficult for any retail business.
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All my boys surf and snowboard, so everything I listen to happens to be like
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has to do with surf and snowboard. There was a really cool surfboard brand,
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and they had to close because it was such a big expense.
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They couldn't pass it on to people because surfboards are expensive,
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like $600 for a really good surfboard.
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You can't pass that on to a person, so they closed. So we're seeing all this happen.
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So in this article, it talks about this 10% tariff and how in some of these
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U.K. brands that they're talking about –.
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So many of their consumers are U.S. They're in the U.S.
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And they're like, how do we get the U.S. customer these products?
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So they're flying over with all of their products and doing these pop-ups, which is brilliant.
21:17
And I couldn't believe the numbers. She was saying that a high-end jewelry company,
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90% of the customers bought something at this pop-up. Yeah.
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I can't imagine. And it's different because Europeans buy one thing a year.
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They'll buy one beautiful handbag and use it. Americans shop differently.
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They like to buy things all the time, consistently changing their wardrobes.
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So if that's the way that these brands can sell their products,
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it's a really brilliant idea.
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Yeah. It was an interesting article. Funny enough, it was sent to me by a client,
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Bowdoin, a friend to describe Bowdoin as the English J. Crew. That's right. Yes.
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Shout out to her. That was a really good analogy.
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Bowdoin is popping up at Greybarns. It's their first ever U.S.
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Retail pop-up, retail experience period. Amazing. So we're honored to have them with us.
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Johnny Bowden, their CEO, is flying over. We're doing a big content creator,
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influencer dinner, and then this pop-up. It's going to be magical.
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They're bringing over this very cool bus, like this London bus that they've
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kitted out, the interior.
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It's going to be beautiful. We'll share the visuals. I got the announcement
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because I'm on the SilverMine emails, the newsletters.
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I sent that out this morning. So funny enough, they sent that to me this morning
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and said, oh, how topical.
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We've been dealing with the logistics of getting their inventory over here.
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And they actually have a U.S. warehouse as well.
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Not all of the inventory can come from the U.S. warehouse.
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So they're filling from both sides of the pond, so to speak.
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They're going on to open a store in Buckhead right outside of Atlanta.
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I'm experiencing this tariff environment directly with them live as we work through this.
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I found the article kind of circular because it doesn't really solve the problem
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to address how we're actually going to overcome this.
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I think in my conversations with Bowdoin, they're taking this head on and almost
23:05
jumping at the opportunity to up their marketing.
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Experiential events are a really good way to do that.
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And as the article said, they also lead to higher conversion rates.
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Whereas you might be shopping online and not being able to touch and feel and
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have the representative from the brand talk to you and experience it in this
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magical environment where you might buy one piece online now you're sitting
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in front of it and there's this whole other,
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context you're buying three pieces right yeah with higher end we also work with
23:35
max mara they're coming back for their third year marfa stance is also a very
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high-end buy there has to be an element of hospitality,
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really, is the only word I can think of, right?
23:46
To sell luxury. It's a refined sell.
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I love that our space has become not just a hotel and restaurant,
23:55
a traditional hospitality space, but it's become this broader kind of framework
23:59
for people to create these one-of-a-kind,
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intimate, magical experiences that are also...
24:06
Helping them solve these kinds of problems. I don't think anybody in the last
24:11
10 years has been gung-ho about opening a brick and mortar.
24:14
Let's just back up to that. We get a lot of clients who say,
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well, I know Greenwich Avenue and I think I want to open a retail store there,
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but there's so much noise and the overhead's so high.
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I say, yeah, we can offer you space on a more temporal basis to test the market.
24:30
Case in point, Max Marr is coming back for the third time. We don't want to be on Greenwich Avenue.
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We don't want to be in Westport. We just we'll just
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hang out with you we're honored to form those partnerships and offer
24:40
our space as something more it also keeps us
24:43
fresh in people's minds from a brand perspective i'm passionate about continuing
24:48
that because it reflects our space in a new and fresh way for our guests and
24:54
it also is a give you know to our community to offer them something beyond just
24:58
you know f and be and a room for the night.
25:02
I really find that after styling for 15 years, the environment in which you
25:06
shop is incredibly different. You can't go into stores and get sizes.
25:10
You can't go into stores and see all the products. Because the retail environment
25:14
is so tough right now, they're not buying as much.
25:17
I've been in retail since I was 13 and I get it. I've always dreamt of having
25:20
my own store since I was a child.
25:22
I pretended my animals would buy all my things in my house and I would sell
25:25
that to them. I love checking people out.
25:28
Give me a job at Safeway. That's California.
25:31
I love that process of greeting someone, saying hello, checking things out,
25:36
going into styling, trying to find pieces for clients.
25:40
Everything was online. In the last 10 years, the first five was different. I was in the city.
25:45
I was able to be at every store. Things weren't just shut down.
25:47
The crime wasn't high. You could just go around and do stuff.
25:50
But everything else is online.
25:52
You're purchasing $1,000 worth of product and you're returning all
25:58
like 60% of it. So then don't get to feel it until you own it or until you've bought it to try.
26:06
So have any experience where you get to go in and try on Bowdoin.
26:10
And I've seen Bowdoin for years, someone might say, and I've never bought something from them.
26:14
They actually get to go in and see it. Bowdoin is an affordable brand.
26:17
And especially in our area, tons of people wear it.
26:20
I had a client who had like six Bowdoin dresses and she'd cycle through them for work all the time.
26:25
So it's smart. people want that they want to
26:28
be able to like touch it feel it be a part
26:31
of it the other brilliant part of it is you get another
26:34
customer because even if they're in the
26:36
uk and you can't try anything on here you already have a piece you know what
26:41
the sizing is you know how it fits you so when you want to go buy something
26:44
else you can immediately go on their site yeah and be like oh well i loved how
26:49
this shirt felt this is the new one for spring of 26 yeah we see that a lot with With Marfa Stance,
26:56
their model is that they have a lot of ready-to-wear, but they do jackets,
27:00
and the jackets are all customizable, so you can change out the collar and have
27:04
a shearling one one year and then have a leather one the next year.
27:07
A lot of their customer base will buy the piece, the base, and then come back
27:11
and get a new collar or change things out.
27:13
I think that people also want to buy that special piece that they have a memory
27:20
of. we see a lot of like, oh, I came to Graybarns with my daughters or my sister-in-law
27:24
or my mom, and I bought that special piece there.
27:27
So it's more than just fast fashion, which I think makes it interesting and unique.
27:33
I mean, I know certainly for me, the things that I wear the most, I have pieces that.
27:39
I remember buying or they were special pieces. I was traveling the summer in Spain.
27:43
We were at this amazing beach club and there was Giacomo, which is like he's,
27:47
you know, amazing designer.
27:49
And he had the most amazing pop-up at this beach club. He also had installed a palenque court.
27:56
Is it like the bocce in Spain?
27:58
It's kind of like my understanding. Please don't quote me, but looked like bocce.
28:02
But he had done this really he had you know branded out the bocce court and
28:07
he had done these beautiful yellow and
28:09
black polka dot lounge chairs he'd
28:12
ran into the whole space and you were just like oh my god i want everything
28:16
i personally did not end up purchasing anything but you can imagine being that
28:20
person he's like oh i got that special piece here while i was here i had this
28:24
amazing day it was incredible he had his own shop and i see it a lot more i've
28:28
seen it a lot more in the last four years in hospitality where there's either
28:32
a pop-up shop or a pop-up dinner.
28:34
I'm here for it because hospitality went through a really difficult time during COVID.
28:39
So you have to innovate what your space is used for and how it's seen.
28:45
And during COVID, I remember you guys were doing pickup dinners.
28:48
Oh my goodness. We were selling toilet paper at one point. I say that seriously
28:51
because we had access to all of these vendors, whoever off the street didn't have access to.
28:57
So our dry goods And vendors were bringing us paper towel and toilet paper,
29:02
and you could pick up a family meal and also get, I mean, that's the state,
29:06
that was the state of the world.
29:07
I had friends buying, they were, everyone was making sourdough.
29:10
Yeah. You know, it was a thing. And I had friends who were literally using the
29:14
restaurant vendor trucks to drop off like Cisco or whatever it is,
29:19
dropping off like 50 pound bags of flour and then breaking it up to everyone
29:23
so that people could have flour.
29:25
Or like buying vats of oranges so people would have oranges and just splitting
29:28
it up amongst each other. It was wild. We were like a supermarket.
29:31
But, you know, in some ways, ironically, we were all like, oh,
29:35
this is kind of what this place used to be. It was this community grocery store, outpost, mercantile.
29:42
It's funny how things harken back. I can't wait to see more.
29:45
And I can't wait to go to the Bowdoin pop-up because I will definitely be there.
29:48
Can you touch on a little bit of what you're working on now or next? Yeah.
29:54
So, you know, I do consulting work, design work. I also have my real estate
29:58
license and sell residential homes in Lower Fairfield County in my spare time.
30:03
I actually got licensed during COVID, you know, because you didn't.
30:06
I could just take night classes on. Yeah. Yeah.
30:09
Great. I work with a wonderful team, the Sax and Brian team at Compass out of New Canaan.
30:14
For me, it's like translating my passion and understanding of homes,
30:19
building and property development, and also my natural marketing abilities.
30:24
I love to be on the photo shoots and I'll be like, can we just style like a
30:28
sourdough loaf in there? And they're like, get out of here.
30:31
So I do some of that. And then our family group purchased a property in Greenwich
30:36
called the Homestead, which was formerly called the Homestead in Belhaven.
30:40
It was a hotel and restaurant.
30:43
Many people in the community knew it well and had many special occasions there.
30:47
I have been part of the redesign process.
30:51
There's a manor house and a carriage house and there will be a restaurant operator there.
30:57
So we're not doing the restaurant portion, which I think everyone will gain
31:01
a little more sleep at night. Seriously.
31:04
So that's great. Working on the hotel and residence design portion has been
31:08
fun and very different sense of place and style to Gray Barns.
31:12
I keep saying that. There'll be no Barnwood. There's no Barnwood.
31:15
It'll be a different vibe. Yeah, it's a different vibe.
31:16
The building was, is an, excuse me, an Italianate building, which is noted by
31:21
kind of the, there's like very decorative, ornate cornices.
31:25
It has a wraparound porch that we redid, preserving some of those architectural
31:30
details, but trying to make it feel slightly more modern, you know,
31:33
but still charming and whimsical and all that.
31:36
It's been a challenge conceptually because it's quite a public and visible project.
31:43
So many people have opinions about what they think it should be and how it should
31:46
look and feel. You think about that.
31:49
As you make those decisions. But ultimately, you have to stick to your vision
31:53
and tune that out slightly.
31:55
So that's the next thing. When you go around and you're just driving through
31:59
Fairfield County, do you sometimes see places and go, oh, man,
32:03
that would be really cool?
32:05
All the time? Well, it's funny because I'm more often fielding and coming from
32:12
friends and people being like, will you do that?
32:14
Could you go do that? And I'm like, yeah, I'll just go do that. Add it to my list.
32:17
Yeah, I'll get right on that. My girlfriends laugh because they know they're always doing it.
32:22
I looked at an amazing property in North Salem this summer with some friends
32:27
who were maybe going to take the deal on, but the town just wasn't interested.
32:33
And it would have been an amazing spa, hotel, members club property,
32:38
but the town just wasn't interested in the change of usage.
32:41
I think it's interesting. People don't understand what goes into development,
32:46
especially commercial development, and the hoops that you have to actually jump through.
32:52
So, yes, I do a lot of drive-by viewing, which actually makes me laugh because
32:58
my grandfather was notorious for it. He called it a curbside appraisal.
33:02
He would drive around, and I think he had a Cadillac, and he used to smoke cigars
33:06
and flick them out the window. They were called tipperillos.
33:10
And he would just drive by. It's wild. I found out from my father that he used
33:15
to own the land where Grace Farms is now.
33:18
He bought land and then he kind of flipped it. He sold that land off.
33:21
I can just imagine him in his Cadillac pulling up and pulling away. And I do that.
33:26
That's who I am. That is who you are. I'm curious about when you're starting
33:29
a project and then bringing on investors for that project.
33:32
Do you have control? And is there part of that conversation where you're like,
33:37
look, this is the vision. This is what I want to do.
33:39
If you guys are game, come on in and we'll figure out the financial part of it.
33:43
Or do they want to have a say in it as well? Does it depend on the person you're
33:46
working with? In regards to Greyburns, we have funded the project.
33:50
So we have 100% control of what we do there.
33:54
And that makes it very unique. I think typically in the hospitality environment,
33:58
you're dealing with a lot of invested parties, stakeholders, right?
34:02
So one of the things that drew us, I think, to the Greyburns opportunity is
34:08
that it could be 100%, you know, ours.
34:12
It makes it unique and it's kind of your baby that way. But that also puts a
34:16
lot of pressure and risk that you have to assume as well.
34:20
There's a million ways to slice it, but I think that is what makes Greyburns unique.
34:24
Yeah, it's yours. You know, I do go to a lot of like Aubert's properties.
34:29
Yeah, I travel and look at other things all the time. And I think what people
34:33
resonate with at Greybarns is it's it feels like a family run independent boutique hotel.
34:41
It doesn't have that corporate overlay for better or worse, but it just that's
34:45
what it is. And so that permeates into the experience.
34:50
That's not for everybody. Yeah. But I think that is one of the big things that people resonate with.
34:55
I sometimes feel like when I go to to these, you know, corporately held properties,
35:02
there's a lack of warmth and the playbook just feels like it's being done again.
35:08
And so it's almost like the place is being run by robots.
35:12
Just like I don't feel any soulfulness. So, again, I think that,
35:16
yes, you're looking at this from a very macro perspective of the difference
35:20
between independently run hospitality properties, corporately run hospitality
35:24
properties, and how that translates and funnels all the way down to the guest experience. Yeah.
35:28
There's a group that owns properties up and down where we travel.
35:32
We spend our summers in Rhode Island and we go to Nantucket.
35:35
And there's one property group that we really enjoy because the vibe,
35:39
it's, okay, I don't know the sizing.
35:41
So in my mind, a smaller group because it's not a huge corporate place. Right.
35:46
They just every property we've been to that they own is very welcoming and just
35:50
feels like that quainter vibe that you're looking for. Like it doesn't feel sterile.
35:57
It feels like people really took time. Like this is their house to invite you
36:02
into with the details and the welcoming and just the whole like the keys, even the keys.
36:09
I know this is crazy, but sometimes it's nice to have an actual key and not
36:12
a key card. I get they're probably expensive to replace, but there's those little
36:15
touches that this one group does that my husband and I have always been like, this is cool.
36:19
This is a good place. It's interesting you bring that up. We've gone back and
36:23
forth on this conversation about automating check-in. And part of me is like, no.
36:27
And then part of me is like, yes, please. We talk about these major.
36:31
I mean, they might to somebody else seem like very minute business decisions,
36:34
but they are actually very important ones.
36:37
I remember meeting the owner of the Serenus in Positano, a party in the city.
36:41
He said to me, Nikki, after every season, they're a family run hotel as well.
36:45
And we walk through, set everything up like it's where everyone's about to check
36:49
in and review every little detail of why are we doing this? You know,
36:52
why are we putting that there?
36:53
The intentions and the reason behind why we do things has to be constantly evaluated
36:59
because they're meaningful, especially in a guest experience environment.
37:03
You know, that that's everything.
37:06
And as you said, with your experience traveling, it's received.
37:09
And so I think you're only as good as your ability to review and refine those
37:14
processes and see those details. Yeah.
37:17
There was the CEO of McDonald's on this morning on CNBC.
37:21
He was on CNBC Squawk Box. It's on every morning. My children are going to be
37:25
forced into finance, it appears.
37:26
And I always find it fascinating because I like to get smarter,
37:29
as we know from the name of the podcast.
37:30
He was talking about how McDonald's are all automated because the younger generation
37:37
doesn't want to talk to people.
37:38
They want to walk in and pick up their food and leave.
37:41
And it made me so sad to think about that because...
37:47
The kids who are able to talk to someone are going to be the ones who run everything.
37:51
Because if everything's automated and nobody talks to anyone else.
37:55
What have we become as a society?
37:57
I don't want to check into a place unless it's the Airbnb, which I don't need to meet the owner.
38:02
But when I'm paying to stay at a hotel or an inn with a weekend away,
38:07
I want to say hello to someone when I walk in. I want them to know that I've
38:11
shown up and I'm at their property.
38:13
I'm going to come in and out. I'm going to check out. I don't care.
38:15
I just leave. I don't mind that part of it, but I don't want to lose that.
38:20
I fall somewhere in between, I suppose, as like a true millennial.
38:23
Half the time, I don't want to talk to anybody and half the time I want to be pampered.
38:26
Right. Yeah. Yeah. My brother and I were talking about it and it's the optionality, I suppose.
38:31
If you want to be that person, then be that person. But it's here if you want.
38:35
I think optionality in this environment of automation is important,
38:40
especially when you're servicing such a wide demographic.
38:43
We have people that stay with us that remember the Silvermine Tavern and come
38:48
back and they might be in their 70s, 80s.
38:50
And then we have people in their 20s and 30s. So you can't be just one thing, I think.
38:56
But then again, I also think it's important that you have a strong perspective
39:01
and you stick to that. These are questions that we roll around and try to figure
39:06
out the best way forward.
39:07
You have to be thinking about them, especially as it applies to the evolving
39:12
cultural landscape. Yeah.
39:14
So at the end of the podcast, I asked three questions. The first question is,
39:19
is there anything on your bucket list?
39:22
Professionally having had the success with a relatively small concept in business,
39:30
you know, just waking up this morning and being in the Financial Times, you're like, cool.
39:35
I remember when we were in Vogue for the first time and I felt like a little girl in a candy shop.
39:40
I read Vogue since I was, you know, it was always around.
39:44
My mom always had one. I remember that experience and just thinking, wow, I've made it.
39:48
And then I think you get a few of that kind of recognition or a few of those experiences.
39:53
And then it's really not about chasing anything anymore. And it's more about
39:58
preserving. I think I'm in a more reflective part of my career.
40:02
For me, it's less about the milestones on paper and more about how good the
40:07
experience feels or the community that we're fostering.
40:10
I just live in the present with that, right? Like the best...
40:14
And this is like getting slightly esoteric, but it's like last night I went
40:17
to a concert with a friend.
40:18
She was given tickets and we had an abundance of tickets.
40:22
She's like, should I sell them? And I was like, no, that's terrible karma. You can't do that.
40:26
We get there and we have two seats next to us. And behind us,
40:29
there's this mom with her daughter.
40:31
She's like, is anyone sitting next to you? And I said, no. We're like,
40:34
are you sitting there? She's like, no, we're in the last row.
40:37
But I just told my daughter we'd come down here and see what happened.
40:40
So we gave her the two tickets sitting next to us. It was like you had just made her world.
40:46
That to me, those are the things I live for. Yes.
40:50
This is just real good human interaction. I love it. Did you go to Oasis?
40:55
I did go to Oasis. And I, wow. Most wanted tickets ever. I had no idea,
41:02
though. No one could find them.
41:03
I feel like I made up for it by giving those tickets to these nice people.
41:06
But I knew three songs, like top line songs that everybody knows, right? Yeah.
41:11
And I was like, wow, I truly did not realize they had such an iconic following.
41:16
They're like the Stones.
41:17
I was like, whoa. It's crazy. A friend of mine was there last night and she
41:21
brought her twins who were 13 and her husband, she and her husband have been
41:28
going to the Oasis concerts for like 30 years.
41:31
I feel like I miss out on this microcosm of musical culture. Yeah.
41:34
Like, shout out Liz. Hi. They got to go all together.
41:38
Amazing. And it was like full circle moment for them. And I remember another
41:42
friend was like, oh, we got tickets to Oasis.
41:43
I'm like, this is like the biggest thing ever this year, I guess.
41:46
Everyone wants to see these iconic old bands.
41:49
I had no idea. Yeah. That's what everyone wants to see. Totally.
41:52
The second question is, is there anything that you've changed your mind about recently? Yeah.
41:57
I mean, I've changed my mind about everything every day. I feel like decision-making
42:01
can be, my brother would always say to me, he said, Nikki, you know,
42:05
just the process of elimination is also a very good way to make a decision.
42:11
Absolutely. Which I kind of love because sometimes, especially with design decisions,
42:15
I need to sit with something for a while and see if it sticks.
42:19
We as a family business are sort
42:23
of informal formal way of reconciling impasses
42:27
or disagreements of decision i had my mother and i were looking at something
42:32
the other day and she said well i like this and i said well i like this and
42:36
she said well how are we gonna reconcile this and i just looked at her and i
42:39
was like i don't know how are we and she oh god and we were all like okay let's
42:46
go back to the drawing board.
42:47
And then we found something that both of us were immediate yeses on.
42:51
And I was like, okay, this is like how it should feel.
42:54
Right. So I changed my mind in the end, but only to something that was more evolved.
43:00
It just takes more work and we get lazy about wanting to go the extra mile to get a different result.
43:10
But other than that, anything else I've changed my mind on.
43:14
The last question is, is there a piece of advice that you would give your younger self?
43:20
Yeah. I mean, so many things. I was always a creative person and I never really fit in a box.
43:27
I wasn't like working in finance out of college. I spoke to a younger girl recently.
43:31
She's in her junior year in college and she's wildly creative.
43:35
I said, you know, you're not going to go into finance and it's going to be okay.
43:39
Everybody's life trajectory is different. And I guess just believing that somehow
43:43
that would all amount to something, I don't.
43:47
It's amazing to look back and understand that once again, you can't connect
43:51
the dots forward, but you can connect them back for sure.
43:54
Just believing in your intuition and inherent talents.
43:57
Sometimes you do something and you're like, oh, that wasn't really great,
44:01
but you learn from that and you keep moving forward.
44:04
At a certain point, you arrive and you look back and you're like,
44:06
wow, I really am proud of. I think self-belief is really important and finding
44:11
the strength to pave a different path is really hard.
44:16
I feel questions from a lot of women who want that or want to be this term girl
44:21
boss makes me just cringe.
44:22
I really hate it because I feel like it's reductive and kind of overused and
44:29
not something I identify with.
44:30
I think this whole era of that we need to be this thing isn't really paying
44:36
tribute to just the quiet process of building that for yourself.
44:40
It doesn't need to be a showy thing. We don't need to be that shiny.
44:43
We can just put our heads down and honor something that feels authentic to us. That's cool, too.
44:48
That was one of the best answers I've ever had. Oh, thanks. I'm going to reflect now.
44:52
I'm going to have to be reflecting a little bit. Well, this has been fantastic.
44:55
Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me.
44:57
This has been amazing. Thank you.
45:02
Thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart. New episodes drop every Thursday.
45:07
Don't forget to subscribe and share. Stay cozy.