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Read the Latest Issue
Jul 31, 2024
Episode 136
KAREN HEROLD
Details
After a 13-year stint at Chicago firm 555 International, Karen Herold, who grew
up in Holland, went out on her own, founding Studio K in 2014.
A decade since she launched her practice, Herold has made a name for herself
with a portfolio that includes restaurants for BOKA Restaurant Group like chef
Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat in Chicago and Los Angeles, and BIÂN wellness
club in Chicago. Next up is a heli-ski project that marries Herold’s luxury
background with the great outdoors.
Here, she talks about her time as a fashion student, what she learned from her
mentor James Geier of 555 International, and building projects with people she
admires.
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Read The Full Transcript
SSR: Hi, I am here with Karen Herold of Studio K. Karen, thanks so much for
joining us today. How are you?
KH: I’m great. How are you today?
SSR: I’m great. Thanks so much for being here. Excited to delve into your story.
So let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?
KH: I grew up in a very small town in Holland, not Michigan, the Netherlands.
1,200 people, many more cows, on the east side of the country.
SSR: Amazing. And what were you like as a kid? Were you creative minded? Did you
guys travel at all?
KH: So I’m half of an identical twin. So as a kid I was always half of
something. We were trouble but trouble in an old school way. We would always be
lost in the woods, in the creeks, in the coming home dirty. So not so much
trouble maybe how you’re worried more about the kids these days.
But yeah, our school had only had 36 kids, the entire school, and our class was
me and my twin and four boys. So I think I kind of grew up a boy most of the
time until we went to high school. We were pretty much just outside and getting
dirty. But around that time I knew, I always kind of knew I was a creative and
was always drawing and making things. I grew up with hippie parents, so when I
was 10 I knew how to dye wool and spin wool, and knit and macrame.
I was weaving in grade school. And on Wednesday we had cooking lessons. So very
much free-spirited and we never had anything from a store. My mom would make her
own jam and make her own, our clothes. We wore until we went to high school, we
wore all the clothes that my mom made for us. So very alternative in that
regard.
My father’s an architect, so art was always a huge part growing up. Cards could
never be bought in a store. I don’t even think we knew what that was. So every
party, every birthday was a reason for a poem, a dance, or song and homemade art
and cards. So yeah, it was there very early on. And then I started on art
academy very young when I was 15, in a pre art academy thing to do next to high
school in the weekends. And at that point I was really trying to figure out
where I would fall within that world. And so jewelry was part of that, and
fashion, which later on became what I studied, was early on part of that.
And then the free art very early on, I figured out when I went through that
program for art school, that I didn’t want to do that. I very much early on knew
I wanted to design more than create art, which is kind of a difference I think.
So yeah, when I was 18, I decided to go to my first college, which was a great
school that just created the year before.
And it was a school that was all for the creative fields, but in definitely the
business world. So these were people who get you ready to work in the
advertisement world or in the PR world. So everything the creative side of a
business. I did that for two years until I knew I wanted to switch to fashion.
Girl & the Goat Los Angeles; photo by Anthony Tahlier
SSR: Amazing. It sounds like such a magical childhood. I’m like, “What am I
doing wrong with my identical twins?” But I have a question. Are you still close
with your twin?
KH: Every day we talk.
SSR: Oh good, that makes sense.
KH: Sometimes people ask me, “When’s the last time you saw her?” Which we do see
each other multiple times a year. But sometimes I don’t know because it kind of
doesn’t matter because we, thank God for WhatsApp. But we are, I know if she
picks out another color for her curtain or something. Like the day-to-day, basic
stuff, we are always connected. My whole family is actually, we’re extremely
close, and talk multiple times a day. And yeah, we’re always around each other
even though we’re in a different continent.
SSR: I love that. Okay, so you went to school for fashion, you decided to switch
to go to school for fashion. Where did you go and what did you learn from that
experience?
KH: I went to the Fashion Institute of Amsterdam, which is a very tough school.
Schooling is quite a bit different in Holland from here. It’s very selective
because it’s kind of sponsored by the Dutch Government. And so they’re very
selective in who can go, how many people can we create a year that can actually
then have a job in XYZ industry?
So it’s very small school. I think we started with maybe 90 students, you
graduate with around 30. So it was almost before Bravo was a thing. It was like
a Bravo TV shoot. Every six months someone gets kicked off the island type of
thing. So fairly dramatic but very competitive because of that also.
And I learned. I had a great, great mentor and I loved knitting especially, but
the technical version of knitting with huge computers. So knitting,
silk-screening, that’s when I really created my love for materials, which is
still my biggest driver I think in interior design.
Very small classes, very personal approach. And so I started working in fashion
in my second year. And was very lucky that I met someone who knows someone,
which is kind of how it always works in the world. And so in my second year I
already flew to Hong Kong, did collections in Hong Kong in Shanghai. Traveled
all over really to get those collections made. Got a crazy amount of freedom
from these owners of this company. And learned very early on that that part of
fashion was not for me because more or less it’s fast fashion. It’s really what
it comes down to is copying what other people are already doing and getting it
made cheaper. So I learned during that phase that if that’s what it is, then
that’s not what I wanted to do.
And so I started heavily focusing on textiles and found a mentor who guided me.
At that point, you could still study for free for six years in Holland. And I
knew if I would switch again that I would not be able to get a degree, which was
obviously crucial. And so I was lucky enough that through that mentor and the
rest of my core team of six teachers, they allowed me to graduate in the fashion
school, but with a focus of interiors and creating materials for interiors.
SSR: That’s very cool.
KH: That was very cool. And it was my luck that that was at that point, still a
very small school. It’s now merged with other schools and more buying for the
fashion industry and things like that. But I was allowed to create. So my
graduation thesis was in the restaurant world, which is funny that I ended up
there. But I created multiple textiles, hundreds really for interiors. So I
based it all on restaurants and then in terms of what the waiters wear and what
material on tables were. So I created the link between interiors and fashion,
through materials and through the lens of restaurant interiors.
SSR: Why do you think you picked restaurants? Or do you remember why you picked
restaurants? Had you had any early memorable experiences with restaurants? Or is
it just something you were interested in at the time?
KH: That’s a really good question. That was not a conscious choice. It’s like I
wanted to always build furniture. I did that with my father when I was younger.
In high school we already built our own furniture because again, we were always
makers. So I wanted to make a table.
And I think it just seemed like it was just an easy natural thing. It wasn’t a
conscious decision. We had classes in school where you had to put brands
together for retail. Or we had the whole class where we had to put magazines
together. It was like everything in and around kind of fashion. And maybe it was
something to get out of the fashion part and just do something that no one else
was doing.
And it allowed all these things like to make a table. So it was so cool to make
an actual table. It’s just cool at that age to draw something that later is a 3D
piece. That felt so different than clothing.
SSR: Okay, so you graduate, you do this really cool thesis. What was your first
job out of school?
KH: I worked for a textile company, was kind of the assistant to the creative
director. So I helped with textile design. But as many of people now from my
company even who start, you do odds and ends. So I helped them design their new
showroom. So again, I got more into interiors there because they knew I wanted
that. And so they had an in-house person who could goof around with that way too
long that I did. And I only did that for one year because my goal was to go to
Domus Academy where I wanted to do a master’s. So I only did that for one year,
but then the goal was to go to Domus. I ended up not doing that, but I went for
a two-week vacation to Chicago and that kind of got out ahead. So I’m still
here.
SSR: Yeah. Why Chicago?
KH: I wanted to just travel. I felt like a lot of people my age start traveling
immediately after school. All my family does it still. It’s a very normal thing
in Europe to do, at least in Holland. Where you take a year after school and you
figure out the world and figure out yourself. And I skipped it and I went to
that textile company that wasn’t the right fit. And I was very quickly figuring
out that I didn’t want to design fabric and I didn’t know what else to do. I
didn’t get the scholarship that I needed to go to Domus. And I was like, “Okay,
well then I’m going to do what everyone already has done.” So I wanted to travel
for a year. I had a friend in Chicago, so it seemed like a free stay and I ended
up staying.
SSR: That’s amazing. So you ended up staying? Did you find a job? Were you just
living on that person’s couch? What was it like?
KH: Yeah, all of those. I started doing any job that there was for 10 bucks an
hour, pretty much. I lived in Rogers Park in a tiny studio apartment. I was
lucky that there was a guy who owned a restaurant who allowed people without a
legal permit because at that point I was here on a tourist visa to help out.
So I would scrape paint off of walls and actually made tables for that guy,
Heartland Cafe, also total hippies. And they were like, everyone, kumbaya, help
us out and we’ll pay you cash 10 bucks an hour. And I would babysit. And I would
just odds and ends. Anything to just for those 10 bucks. And I met some people
in Rogers Park and ended up at a party with some friends. And there was a young
woman who was the creative director for an architectural company that was called
CUH 2H. It’s not in our world at all. I think they do mostly laboratories and
such.
And she needed an intern, not an intern, a librarian. And so my very first job
when I got my work permit is I became 30 hours a week her librarian in
architectural company. And that was my first job. And I was just over the moon.
I’d just meet all these people and I’m working with all these materials and now
I make still 10 bucks an hour, but 30 hours a week. So by now I have it made.
I went from a studio apartment to a one-bedroom and had a real job downtown and
I loved it. And that’s where I met… One of the principals there knew James
Geier. And I had done some stuff that I was noticed in that company and he asked
me to bring in my portfolio. And in my portfolio it was a piece of steel, what I
did for that table that I made for my thesis. Is I found a way to print with
rubber on steel. Because I was always very interested in working for the blind
and the tactile part of what interiors do to us, how we feel when we touch
things.
So I had created the table for the blind and I printed with rubber on stainless
steel, which was the tabletop. And that piece of stainless steel was in my
portfolio. And so this guy says, “Hey, I know someone who has a little metal
shop,” which James at that point already was working with wood and metal. “And
maybe you should meet him.” And then when I met James, he asked me to become his
creative director.
SSR: Amazing. Wait, can we go back to that table you were making? How did you
come up with that idea?
KH: This table, so I was always working with how clothes make you feel. And
already early on in school I made an entire collection for the blind. Because
the easiest way to explain it is if you wear a leather jacket, you feel very
different than if you wear a silk robe. That’s the most extreme way.
So whatever you see, doesn’t matter what you see. If you have your eyes closed
and I give you a leather jacket, you feel different than if I give you a silk
robe. And I was always very interested how our feelings are changed by design.
And so in clothing, that is one of the things that you can start designing to
create a different feeling.
And so that was when I was still doing hardcore fashion. We had to do a fashion
show every year with 12 models down the runway. So I created dresses, long
dresses with a bouncy ball. I’m not going to say it was good-looking, but it was
very conceptual. And there were bouncy balls that I created myself and to repeat
the movement of our body in these dresses, and what would happen if we can
repeat that moment.
So then later on when I started working more in the interior world with all the
textiles, I kept going on that. And see how can I use an ink that swells up by
heat? Like a puffy ink on stainless steel. So I started studying in the old days
when people were having the lace tablecloths on tables. Like grandmas, they
would have a coffee table with the lace tablecloth, and many times they would
then put glass on top of that to protect their lace.
So I started designing the modern version of those lace tablecloths in graphic
design. And printing those lace tablecloths on stainless steel to have that look
of the white lace on stainless steel. But you feel it, right? Because it’s 3D
ink. So yeah, that became one of the dining tables that I designed, where the
lace tablecloth is already part of the table.
SSR: Amazing. I love it. All right, so you meet James, he hires you as his
creative director. And then you were there for what, a decade?
KH: 13 years.
SSR: Talk to me about that experience and what you all created? Because you did
some amazing spaces and a lot of it was design build, right? It was you guys
doing a lot of the work.
KH: That was the luckiest, best thing that could have ever happened to me. And
what I wish for many young people out of school, that you work for a company
that makes things. Because it’s a game changer, knowing how things are made,
knowing that things need to fit through a door or in an elevator.
These basic things that when you’re a conceptual designer like I was and many
people coming right out of school with all these ideas and maybe less
practicality in mind, to actually be very soon. I worked for him for a couple of
years until he merged with the owner of the metal shop and it became one big
company. What then became 555 International.
We built the design studio on top of our factory. So literally you walk through
a paint shop, and a wood shop and metal shop was around the corner to the design
studio. So it’s just a very sobering experience.
And so in the beginning, the design was definitely just there to support the
manufacturing business. It was very retail driven. I tell many of my young
designers when they fly with me to Aspen or wherever we’re on a plane for some
fabulous location. I always tell them my first job was at a Best Buy where I had
designed a display booth for RCA TVs in Best Buy in Indianapolis where I had to
drive.
SSR: That’s a little different.
KH: That was my first real claim to fame like something you want to tell your
parents. I’m going on a business trip, I’m driving to Minneapolis or
Indianapolis, I don’t know which one of those. But anyway, so that was mostly
retail. We designed a lot of retail to then get it produced because the
production was the core of the business. And that all changed when a company
called The Nine Group at that point was building restaurants and nightclubs in
Las Vegas.
And I learned from an older gentleman who really became my mentor and grandpa,
new adopted grandfather, Art Miner, who used to be the creative director for
Playboy. And he now mentored me on designing the Playboy Club at the Palms Hotel
in Vegas. And he did everything with pencil and paper.
And he told me and explained to me how interior design works. And I was allowed
to make the choices and pick the colors, which I still say many times I just
picked the colors. But so at that point, I pretty much just picked the colors
and picked all the materials and he drew it. And we worked with the owners of
The Nine Group and built many, many restaurants and nightclubs.
Ghost Bar was one of them. Rain was a nightclub and Playboy Club. And for many
years, not only in Vegas but also in Dallas and also in Morongo, which is in the
desert by Palm Springs. We rebuilt and designed a lot of those clubs and I was
kind of thrown in head first. Kind of survival of the fittest.
SSR: Yeah. What Nine Group did and Scott DeGraff did was really kind of
gamechanging, right? Talking about they were some of the first, I mean there’s
others as well, but they were one of the nightclub companies that were really
looking at what experiential meant.
KH: Yes, and that passion and those, how we worked. We would start, James and I
would fly Tuesday morning, come home Thursday night most weeks. And we were the
ones early in the morning to be with the general contractors and the OAC
meetings and all that.
But then the owners like Michael, who I still work with a lot, Michael Morton
and Scott were partners. Those meetings wouldn’t start until 5:00 PM. And they
would, dinner reservations was mostly at 9:00 PM Vegas time, which for us,
obviously it was 11:00 PM. Those were crazy times where we worked day and night.
And it was all, we kind of made it up as we went. And I mean, as crazy as those
times were, it was the best way to learn. I remember when we did that one in
Palm Springs. Over and over, I remember packing my bags in the hopes to fly home
and someone would see me in the lobby be like, “No, no, no, you’re not going
home because we’re doing the tile next week and maybe we want to make changes.”
It was all kind of click and go. It was so almost like how you’re building a
home, but these were 30,000 square foot nightclubs that we built like that.
SSR: Yeah, I remember the opening of the Playboy Club like it was yesterday at
the top there. Or no, Nine, well, I guess it was like Ghost Bar and then Playboy
Club and all of them. I mean they had taken over the top of the Palms Casino in
Las Vegas. I mean, they completely transformed dining and drinking in the sky.
KH: Yeah. And then we had gaming right in the middle of it. We were somehow be
able to put the gaming tables in the middle of that nightclub. And remember
there was that big escalator that connected it to Moon above that. I remember
also as it was yesterday that I called one of my best friends from Amsterdam
when I was in a limo on my way to the mansion to present to Hef. And I call her
from the back of the limo and I’m like, “I’m on my way to see Hugh Hefner.”
SSR: What did she say?
KH: Crazy times. I mean we just had, that was like a play by play. I think as
soon as I got done with that meeting, I called her back and to give her every
single thing that happened. But yeah, that was a whole, it seems like a lifetime
away and yet also yesterday. And so lucky. How does it work that way? How you’re
a librarian. And that’s how I always say to young people here and my son, the
only place where you know no opportunities will come is on your couch. But if
you go out there and you just do the things, just start in the beginning, and
just pay your dues. And then life sometimes tends to happen that way where it
gets these really weird movements.
And yet still, James and I are very close friends. And Michael Morton and I,
after now working together for 25 years, I still do all of his work and we’re
still very close friends. So it’s such a crazy, crazy road. And you don’t know
when you’re in the beginning of it where all that is going to lead.
Nobu Hotel Chicago; photo by Eric Kleinberg
SSR: I know you and James are still very good friends, but what did you learn
from working with him for all those years besides the hands-on approach and the
importance of building things?
KH: Gosh, so much. I learned a lot what to do, and I also learned a lot what not
to do. So both of those are very valuable. Let me start with the what to do. He
is very opposite than I am in how we work, and he’s extremely pragmatic where I
am 99 percent intuitive.
And what I really learned from him is that pragmatic approach, in not everything
always has to be this grand idea or this moment of inspiration. There’s just a
lot of logical things, and I compare it to when you do a puzzle. When you want
to do a puzzle, you start looking for all the side pieces and you put them on
the side. And then you look for the corners and then maybe certain colors.
And so there’s these ways where you can make a daunting space like a 30,000
square foot nightclub or a 10,000 square foot food hall. Instead of seeing it as
this daunting place of, oh, my gosh, how I’m going to address this? There’s very
logical things. Where’s the front door? Most likely we want the bar close to
that. Where’s the back door? Most likely we’re going to load in there because
the garbage is going to go there.
So there’s a lot of these very pragmatic, logical things in design that are as
important as that grand vision of how it’s going to change the world. There’s
also just how staff works in there and how guests feel best in there. And a lot
of that can be done by just doing the steps.
And James’s patience in teaching those steps to others, and he’s just a really
great educator. It’s so great to know now that he’s actually a teacher or a
professor, I guess I should say. He really had that patient to sit with me and
always be the ABCs of design and that they need to happen no matter what the
rest is going to happen.
So I learned, I think that’s one of the most important thing. And one of his, he
has a lot of these sayings, and one thing was cooler heads prevail, which
especially in my first 10 years of my career, I was very not cool and more hot
headed. So this cool approach being like, “Okay, it’s not the end of the world.
How can we fix it?” That I learned from him.
And now when things happen that are not supposed to happen, I can, because of
him and because of becoming older also, but more like, “Okay, this is not how we
had it in mind. What are other ways to go about it and how can we fix that?”
Because there’s always a way. And that’s definitely the James approach in how to
tackle jobs and many jobs at the same time.
SSR: That’s amazing.
KH: I think the opposite side of that, but then I also learned, is that if you
stick to that pragmatic side too long and only do that, then it’s always one
plus one is two. And if you want to get to the one plus one is three, you will
also need to early on in a simultaneous process and not in a consecutive
process, early on, have the courage to try to look at things of what if? What if
we wouldn’t do it? What if the bar would not be by the front door? And so I
think blending the two has proven successful for my business. Where you can
dream while putting the puzzle corner pieces together, if that makes sense.
SSR: Why after 13 years did you decide it was time to launch your own firm and
go off on your own?
KH: I think for me, the biggest thing was that being a design build company, you
can never truly separate those. Those were always connected somehow, even if
there were jobs that maybe we were designing and not necessarily building. And
there were definitely a lot of jobs that we were building and not designing. The
core of the business is the production.
And that was something that, as valuable as it has been for me and how much I
still enjoy, that I know a lot about it and had a front seat to that factory. I
wanted to spend much more time on the other parts of design that are maybe a
little bit more intuitive. And getting closer to the psychology before design,
which is still even how it was in fashion still now, is the driver of everything
that I do. Is why do we create another restaurant? Why do we do it in a specific
way?
For me personally, the psychology that leads design is what I’m in the game for.
And that is so exact opposite of a lot of that production that is then all the
way at the tail end of it. And so many times my attention was so much on that
tail end because it was just part of what we as a company delivered. So that’s
one reason.
And the other reason was I was right around 40, and I think a lot of people
around that time, you start really thinking about your place in the world and
your mark that you want to put on it. And so it felt like the right time of
trying to jump in it and try it myself. And it was a very slow, the whole
uncoupling thing that later on, I think Gwyneth Paltrow kind of claimed that
word. But it was really something that we did very consciously. Where we had an
entire year of separating. Of me announcing that to the company, discussing it
for a long time before that with James, it was a very joint kind of
conversation.
And so I decided that in January and I didn’t leave until December. And so it
was a very slow transition. And even after that, when I was gone, 555 will still
produce many of our jobs. So it was a very slow kind of transition. And even
now, there’s many jobs that we overlap on or collaborate on.
So it’s a very nice way of kind of like when your kid moves out because at some
point it just makes sense for them not to live with you anymore. And I compare
it to that. At some point it was just 555 will always be that what gave me the
opportunity to do what I do. To meet so many great people like the Boca guys and
how close we all now work together still.
So many of those people I met there and they gave me the opportunities to do
what we now with Studio K, with my team here, what we create. And 555 is the
reason because of that. But at some point it’s then also very important to then
make that next step and step into your own zone. And that just felt the right
time.
SSR: I know it was a slow kind of separation, but what were the early days like
starting your firm? Was there a first kind of reality check? Like oops or oh no?
That looking back maybe you wish you had known more about?
KH: Yes and no. I was already leading the team at 555 and a few of those team
members came with me. And that was also a big reason why I started, I gave them
a year. Because I knew they were going to come with me and I want to make sure
that James had a new team built up there under his direction and the people he
wanted there. And so I was lucky that a few people that I had already worked
with multiple years, were there with me from the beginning.
And so that was a very… So I had clients, I had staff. It was definitely scary
because at some point you just need to jump. There’s no half jumping. The moment
when that jump happened, it was in the middle of winter. It was a big snowstorm,
no one was working, but rent had to be paid.
You started realizing very early on that even if money is not coming in, it will
still go out no matter what, with salaries and rents and all kinds of stuff to
pay. But I truly loved any minute of that. And maybe that’s after the fact
because I think sometimes we tend to look with rose colored glasses to the past.
But we were so close and it was so, maybe when you remember the first apartment
you moved in with your husband. There’s something so nostalgic about that
nothing was working. And I remember days of us screwing Ikea desks together
because that’s what we could afford. But then we forgot how much work it was.
And us, I have a lot of photos of Casey who’s been with me for 13 years, on the
floor screwing an Ikea desk together and realizing maybe that’s not her forte.
So yeah, there was a lot about that, doing it together and doing everything
together from the beginning.
I think the harder lessons didn’t come until later on. Hiring more staff and
maybe not knowing what no is and saying yes to every client who wanted us to
work on it. And I think that managing growth has been and is still maybe the
hardest lesson for me as an entrepreneur. Of when do we say no? What clients do
we say no to? What jobs do we say no to? How do we get the right staff, train
the right staff, keep the right staff? It’s like the growth part, I feel is
still the hardest nut to crack.
SSR: Yeah, no, and I think that’s an important lesson, right? Is like when do
you say no? When do you say yes? And especially now, however many years in, I am
sure that’s evolved for you a bit.
KH: Yes. We’re now 10 years in. 10 and a half, really.
SSR: On a decade.
KH: It gets easier. It’s a decade, yeah. It’s a big milestone. And it definitely
gets easier. I really feel us as grownups, and with some of those originals
still around and really leading the pack, it’s less fear-based. I think the
first few years, fear was a driver. You have the fear of what if this client
doesn’t sign on? And how am I then going to pay all the salaries of these people
that are dependent on you? You really feel that weight of people have mortgages
and those mortgages are paid from salaries that are offered by Studio K. That
will not happen if these and these clients do not sign on.
That is in the beginning, a very big responsibility that I didn’t take lightly
and that kept me up many, many nights. And the crazy thing is that you could be
in the same night, have the fear about what if those clients don’t sign on? Or
don’t pay on time? And then I can’t pay their salaries.
But within the same night you can have the exact opposite thought. What if all
those clients sign on? And how do we’re going to have enough staff to do all
this work? And where do we get the staff and how do we train them on time? Or
how don’t we overload the staff that we have now?
So it’s that the volatility of, I think the world of interior design is
something that, I don’t know if a lot of people have that knowledge or that
awareness. How that is on the forefront of any, I think smaller interior design
business and maybe larger too. Is you can have this ridiculous big job and you
get five people on it. And then you can get a phone call that says, “Oh, we’re
on hold.” Because whatever the reason might be. And there’s nothing that can
prepare you for that as an owner.
And then if another client calls and says, “Oh, yeah, and I know it takes you
six weeks, but it’s really urgent and we need it in four weeks.” Then it’s a
really tough way to say no because you want to be the go-to for that client. So
I think the management of the workflow and the volatility of that is something
that if someone has a book about it, I would love to read it.
Nobu Hotel Chicago; photo by Eric Kleinberg
SSR: Or you could maybe help write it, right?
KH: Yeah, let’s find someone who wrote that book.
SSR: Yeah, let’s do it. So how big is your firm now?
KH: 18.
SSR: That’s a good number. And how would you describe your culture? Because I
know you have a great office, and how would you describe yourself as a leader?
KH: That has evolved quite a bit. We went from almost 30 people to 20 during
COVID. And we started hiring very different. So we’ve gone through a big
transition, which has helped us a lot. So overall, we’re a much more mature
office now. So we have hired a lot of people that are longer in their field.
Most young staff that we have are people because they took an internship and we
then offered them an entry-level position. So we don’t hire entry-level
positions anymore. So we have a more, I would say from the entire 10 years, the
last three years have been the best, the most manageable because of that change
in staffing. So it’s a very consistent group now.
We are very much an in-house company, which everyone likes, everyone that we
have here. It’s important that those people subscribe to being together and that
together we can do more than by ourselves behind the screen. So we work from
home on Fridays. But there’s actually, or we have the opportunity to work from
home from Fridays, I would say. But I would say almost half or at least a third
of the office is here on Fridays also. And they prefer it that way.
So we’re extremely collaborative. A very diverse group of people in the sense
that we have expanded our work with the people, our clients that came. So a lot
of hospitality still, but also a lot of multifamily. Also, I guess food house
falls under hospitality, but faucet’s very different type of client. And then we
still do a lot of really high-end residential, but mostly in the mountains.
And what we have realized that people definitely have their likes and dislikes
in that world. And so there’s groups that have very organically grown gearing
towards certain clients and have their specialty in that. And then the biggest
thing that has changed now after 10 years is where we have a little bit of a
light separation between the front end and the back end.
So we have two people that lead the company that both of them have been with me
10 years plus, and one really leads the front house. Alicia who is our creative
director, rock star in most things, but especially space planning and that
client relationship. And so she makes sure that everything up until that
approval of 3D renderings is very much under her realm of things.
And Casey, who was already with me at 555, who is an extremely detailed person
and who loves spending extreme amount of times on every square inch of our
project, where I am much more of a big picture girl. She’s really that back end
of things. So they run the entire office but have more focus on the front or the
backside.
And we’ve learned with our staff the same. That there’s a lot of people who tend
to gravitate more to one side or the other. And so while we try to train
everyone across the board, we feel after a year or two or three, they land more
on one side or the other, which has worked for us really well to be able to
create the teams around that structure.
SSR: That’s awesome. I mean, was that just something that kind of evolved? Or
was that something-
KH: Yeah, it just kind of happened. And because we’re still so small, we have
monthly management meetings and we talk about what works. Or people come to us
and say, “I want to do more of this.” When you find those right people and
people that fit with our culture, and then we tend to work, we build the jobs
around the people more so than the other way around.
SSR: Love that. And speaking of jobs, you started with a lot of restaurants,
like you mentioned for Boca, for Stephanie Izzard, the Top Chef. But you’ve
evolved a lot more into wellness and hotels and now you’re talking a bit about
what you’re doing out West. What kind of projects are you excited about that are
on the boards or that have recently opened?
KH: Well, one that recently opened that I’m very excited about is Sunda. Billy
Dec, Chicago guy, asked me to consult originally, and now it has led to us doing
all of his future restaurants. He’s building a big portfolio. So we just opened
his restaurant Sunda here in the West Loop. So that’s one of the recent openings
that I’m very excited about. And we have a lot more work coming up with them.
Same as the Maple Nash group, they’re expanding across the country, so we’re
doing a lot of the restaurants there So the restaurant fixes are definitely met
with some of those client of ours that are rolling out a lot of them. Which for
us is great because it’s so nice after you know each other and after you trust
each other. That I feel then you can really start to play because the initial,
the first restaurant is always the hardest I feel, and just getting in sync with
each other.
So those are a lot of restaurants that’s coming. Some of the stuff that is in
our future that are larger project, which I really enjoyed is resort work. So we
have worked for the last 12 years, a project called Victory Ranch for Sterling
Bay, who’s a big developer here in town. They recently acquired a new one in
Jackson Hole or right by Jackson Hole, which is called Tributary.
And I love that. I love the part of the planning, the overall experience, and
being involved with the land planning and old architecture and old homes and the
amenities. So I love those larger projects where you’re a team creating an
entire experience. And especially if that is such a great team, which is the
same as we did the last 13 year in Park City, then it really becomes almost like
working with friends. And it’s as close as you can get to doing a hobby within
our world, I think.
So a lot of work out west. And we’re doing a tremendous amount of work with
company called Alterra that owns a lot of… And heli-ski companies. So we spent
crazy amount of time working for them in Deer Valley and in parts of Canada
where they own a lot of properties. And same thing, once you meet that client
where you have the same idea of how those interiors could look, it’s just so
great and such a luxury that you then work with the same client, but on multiple
projects. That are extremely varied in design and function, but you work with
the same team, which just feels really good for me because so much of what we do
is relationship based.
SSR: The heli-skiing sounds really interesting. So are those resorts in kind of
the middle of nowhere?
KH: They are in the middle of nowhere and they are resort is… I wouldn’t use the
word resort because what I really learned, it’s more like a cabin. Think if you
go to a cabin, you’re probably familiar with Camp Wandawega, a really great camp
here in Wisconsin. It’s more like that. It’s like a camp. It just happens to be
high in the mountain. And the one mistake I made before working with them is I
was thinking it was luxury just because how expensive it is to do the
heli-skiing.
But then I learned very early on, this is not luxury like how people might go
ski in Aspen or even Deer Valley. These are hard core, technical skiers that
spend that money because they want to be the only ones on those slopes that are
not groomed and where there are no tracks. But there’s no luxury. It’s more or
less a motel in terms of level of luxury.
And we are charged with taking these buildings that some of them were built in
the ’60s, some in the ’80s or ’90s, and get the interiors that they feel right
for the experience. So not too luxurious because that really is not on brand,
but still done in a way that helps the experience instead of being in an old
feeling of a motel of the ’60s.
SSR: Yeah. That must be beautiful and challenging all at the same time.
KH: For sure. Outside is really beautiful. The inside, not yet.
SSR: But I mean the location too.
KH: Oh, the locations to get there and just have the luxury of being in those
spaces. And I was there last week and we said to our client when we took a track
of two and a half hour drive high up in the mountains. Where there’s literally
nothing except from this road, which is a road that was created for the logging
industry. I asked him, I said, “Are there bears here? What’s the wildlife?” And
literally five minutes later, a grizzly bear was running in front of our truck.
Did you just cue bear? Did I? Or was this planned all this way? But yeah, it’s
just us and the grizzlies and then you’re all the way up in these mountains
where no one is there. Because these properties are only used for the winter
heli-ski experience. So we then have the summers to work on them.
SSR: Oh, my God. So cool. So looking back, what do you think has been your
secret to success? Has it been just your want to try new things? I always ask
successful business owners, what do you think was that for you?
KH: One, luck. We can’t underestimate all the things that come on our path that
have nothing to do with us. And I definitely feel I was born with an angel on
each of my shoulders, so that’s definitely one of them.
I think the other one, relationships. Relationships and what you have both with
your clients as well as your posse. I invest a crazy amount of time and effort
in those. And I think my clients, many of my clients become my friends because
of that. I think because at the end of the day, people always say, “Oh, it’s not
personal, it’s business.”
I never understood that because you’re personally doing that business. So for
me, everything is personal because it’s literally what you do every day. So I
think the relationship and the fostering of those relationship has been an
important part in my career.
And then the most important part is, and I learned that at 555 from James, is
just doing the things. It’s not skipping steps and this thing of going through
it instead of around it. And I literally lived that what’s called the American
Dream by starting painting restaurants and babysitting and being a librarian.
And then picking fabrics for Scott DeGraff who was building fancy clubs. And so
having the opportunity to do every single thing.
When I was working with McDonald’s, I learned from the CEO that in McDonald’s,
every person who is on any C suite’s deal has worked two weeks in the
dishwashing, two weeks flipping burgers, two weeks on the drive-through. And I
believe that system is a valid one where you really have to do all the things.
So when you’re directing those things, you actually know what it is because
you’ve actually done it.
And I believe that there’s kind of no replacement for just that time of putting
in your dues. I truthfully still feel I’m doing it, just doing the things. And
many times I’m in meetings where I listen to people, whether they’re architects
or landscapers or whatever they might be, I’m in that meeting. And I listen to
them and I’m like, “How did I get so lucky that I can sit here and listen to
those people that are so great at what they do?”
SSR: So you’ve seen so much in the restaurant industry over the past two
decades. How has it evolved? Or has it evolved? And how do you keep executing
successfully on these chefs and restaurateurs visions?
KH: Yeah, for me, those questions are always tough because I feel I only know
such a small sliver of this world because it’s just us and the 18 of us in our
little bubble here, and there’s so much happening in the entire world. So I
don’t want to have any idea that I know what happens in this whole industry.
I can talk from my vantage point. Everything is out there, everything is
possible. So I think it has evolved in the sense that our guests know
everything. Our clients know everything. There’s no easy way or easy way around
it or easy way out. And I think the people who are phoning it in, I think you
can’t get away with that anymore. So I think the bar is extremely high across
the board. And that’s not just in restaurants, that is in all design, in my
opinion.
So with that, knowing that the bar is so high, we internally talk a lot about
what is it then that differentiates you? Because if it’s not budgets anymore, if
it’s so normal that people spend $1,000 a square foot. Or it’s so normal that
people fly in designers from all over the country, all over the world. So where
is it that you can differentiate? And we talk about that a lot.
And for me, it is always that what happens before design. It’s like we haven’t
talked about BIAN yet, but I know you’re familiar with BIAN and all the stuff
we’ve done with Kevin Bane and Joe. And what I believe what they are working on,
and this happens to be in a well-known space, but it could be any space, is
really talking about what is it that we want to create for whom? And what is
that experience? And letting design follow that experience.
Because sometimes overshooting the design, I believe, is as much as a problem as
not, as falling short. So I believe the people who are going to be changing the
game in any of this hospitality world, are the people who are able and
knowledgeable of the psychology and what we can do in design to affect that.
Does that make sense? Or is that too vague?
SSR: I think we talk a lot about how buildings and design can really affect
people’s wellbeing, right? So I think that’s what you’re saying. It’s so much
more than just a pretty space. But how can we start thinking about the true
effect of somebody from their mental health to their just wellbeing, right?
KH: Yes. Yes. Exactly. And for everyone, not just the guest, but also the staff.
And so I think so much of that already starts with the beginning of a project.
It starts with how the team is assembled. How from the beginning, the owner, the
operator, the visionary, the architect, all these, so many people need to come
together to make.
None of us can do it by ourselves. And I think the clients that acknowledge
that, and from the beginning create that synergetic approach to team building.
Not just when the project is live, but also when it’s being built. I feel those
are the ones where I can see them making true lasting change and something that
can be built without needing to be redone within the next decade.
SSR: Right, right. How do you stay inspired and passionate?
KH: Mostly, again, comes back to the people. I’m just super involved with when
I’m getting excited about clients and while they’re doing it and their
conversations around it. So I love their stories.
And Sarah Grueneberg is one of these examples. Kevin, obviously people who I’ve
become really close with and hang out with over the weekends because of all the
blood, sweat, and tears that they put in it and why they’re doing that. And just
feels a privilege to be trusted with what they’re doing. And obviously there’s a
big risk involved in design and having people trust me enough to help them with
their new endeavor, that’s a huge driver for me.
And then the other part is traveling. I think you need to keep moving. And so I
travel for work a lot, but I always try to add a day and see that specific town
or meeting people there, travel to Europe a lot. So I think just getting away
from any screen and smelling and feeling places is such a different feeling and
has such a different result than seeing pictures of places.
SSR: Yeah. Do you have a dream project to put it out there? Maybe it’ll happen.
KH: Yeah. Well, I feel I’m living it. Many of my projects are dream projects. So
in the mountains with people that I admire and here on the team with people that
I love and trust and respect. And yeah, one time because we were doing so many
high-end homes, one time I would want to build a spec home. And design a home in
the mountains all the way until the towels are in the drawers without anyone’s
opinion on it. Because so many times with residential designers always where you
can say, “Yeah, but she really wanted this. Or they inherited that from such.”
It’d be nice to have a project with zero excuses.
UMMO restaurant in Chicago; photo by John Stoffer
SSR: That would be really nice. And no budget?
KH: No, budgets are good. I like budgets. Budgets are good because again, those
are those puzzle pieces on the corners. So I think budgets are good. I think
it’s always good to have some boundaries.
SSR: Yeah, some boundary, right?
KH: Yeah, boundaries are good.
SSR: I hate to end this conversation, but we always end the podcast with the
question that is the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson
or lessons learned along the way?
KH: The biggest lesson is somehow, someway, it will always work out. So we
shouldn’t get too worked up about whatever is not going right at that moment.
SSR: Yeah. Love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It was such a
pleasure to catch up with you and hear your story, and hopefully I’ll get to see
you in real life soon.
Interior Designers
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