Speaker 1: My name is Jeffery Z. Carrien. You're listening to four
Speaker 1: Courses with Jeffery Z. Carrion from my Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: four Courses. I'll be taking you along for the ride
Speaker 1: while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focus on four different areas for
Speaker 1: my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
Speaker 1: inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
Speaker 1: push forward. My guest for this episode is an expert
Speaker 1: in the economics of his state sales. He went from
Speaker 1: a one time guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show to
Speaker 1: becoming the show's design expert for the next twelve years,
Speaker 1: and finally he's one of the most sought after interior
Speaker 1: designers in the country. Without further delay, please enjoy my
Speaker 1: insightful and inspiring conversation with Nate Burkers. Nate, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: how are you? How are you? Very nice to see Oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to you in such a long time.
Speaker 1: I think it's way too long. I'm sorry if I
Speaker 1: take total responsibility, but I think everybody gets a free pass.
Speaker 1: It's what I've said to my mother, at least during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. So the pandemic is a good excuse. What
Speaker 1: are we gonna do when the pandemic is over? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to see anybody. I'm so excited, like
Speaker 1: I haven't made a plan in a year and a half.
Speaker 1: It feels great. I read as much as I could
Speaker 1: about you. My gut said to me that I felt
Speaker 1: really strongly that you have this sense of always being older,
Speaker 1: even from as a childhood. You seem like an old soul.
Speaker 1: Is that true? Definitely. I've always considered myself an old
Speaker 1: soul as soon as I had any emotional I q
Speaker 1: to be able to, you know, kind of assess myself.
Speaker 1: But I'm married an old soul, and I have two
Speaker 1: children who are old souls. And there is a distinction.
Speaker 1: There's something sort of behind the eyes, there's something that's
Speaker 1: sense of I've done this before, I've I've had this
Speaker 1: conversation before, I've i've i've survived this before, I've triumphed before.
Speaker 1: And you can see it in certain people. You see
Speaker 1: it almost instantly. For my first course with Nate, we
Speaker 1: hear a story from his childhood that proves he was
Speaker 1: an old soul at a young age. We're designing with
Speaker 1: your mom is a gift by Mitsvah, gift to do
Speaker 1: your own room in your basement. Yeah, that's not what
Speaker 1: most kids going to be teenagers do. But what was
Speaker 1: it that your mother said or did or provided that
Speaker 1: gave you such clarity of purpose in that way at
Speaker 1: that age? I mean, that's a very big deal. That's
Speaker 1: like jumping into the kitchen and making sufflet's the first
Speaker 1: time you've cooked. I think for her, she was cognizant
Speaker 1: from a very early age that spatially, I was very
Speaker 1: sensitive that. I was very alert to my environment and
Speaker 1: she being a designer my whole childhood, that environment changed
Speaker 1: very frequently, and I again was entitled to have an
Speaker 1: opinion even as a child. And my mother used to
Speaker 1: wake me up as a little kid to help her
Speaker 1: rearrange the fireplace mantle in the family room, and I'd
Speaker 1: be standing there and like my little pajamas, and she'd say,
Speaker 1: something doesn't look right. Don't you think something doesn't look right?
Speaker 1: And it would be like, you know, nine thirty at night,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, I'll sleepy with a bear, and
Speaker 1: I'd say, yeah, I think, I think you need two
Speaker 1: of those vases to balance it out or something. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was a dialogue for me, It was
Speaker 1: a dialogue that was welcomed. It was a dialogue that
Speaker 1: was honored, I guess if you will, and and I
Speaker 1: think that that really gave me a tremendous amount of confidence.
Speaker 1: And and then giving me my room for my bar Mitzvah.
Speaker 1: She wanted me to have my own space. And I
Speaker 1: think what that what what I interpreted that to mean,
Speaker 1: and what it actually ended up meaning for me was
Speaker 1: that as much as I loved going to garage sales
Speaker 1: and going to antique smalls and things like that with
Speaker 1: my mother growing up, I didn't have a place to
Speaker 1: bring anything home to. There wasn't any space that I
Speaker 1: could call my own. And so what it did was
Speaker 1: it actually opened up the opportunity for me to become
Speaker 1: a collector, even at eleven or twelve or thirteen, because
Speaker 1: I had a home for the things that were interesting
Speaker 1: to me. And I've spent the greater part of twenty
Speaker 1: five years connecting people to their homes, into their interiors
Speaker 1: by saying over and over the way we tell our
Speaker 1: stories is what we allow into our homes. What we
Speaker 1: allowed across the threshold, whether that's color or pattern or
Speaker 1: style or a lot of things are a few well
Speaker 1: chosen things, it speaks volume about where we are in
Speaker 1: our lives. And I knew that at thirteen because of
Speaker 1: that gift, I had that sense of of pride, or
Speaker 1: you know, you walk a little taller when you like
Speaker 1: your home. You your kids do a little bit better
Speaker 1: with homework when they have a neat, organized space. Your
Speaker 1: life isn't as out of control when you know where
Speaker 1: to find everything in your home, or when you've you know,
Speaker 1: just finished spring cleaning and you've got options around what
Speaker 1: you want to do with your time instead of being
Speaker 1: behind the eight ball with home organization and cleaning all
Speaker 1: the time. And so, you know, I've noticed over the
Speaker 1: last twenty years, and I've paid attention to what it
Speaker 1: really means for people to have an environment that rises
Speaker 1: up to greet them. And what my mother gave me
Speaker 1: at thirteen years old was an environment that I could
Speaker 1: choose how to make it rise to greet me at
Speaker 1: that young age, and it was a massive, massive I
Speaker 1: cannot underplay the importance of that gift. Also, your opinion
Speaker 1: mattered I mean to give a twelve year old or
Speaker 1: thirteen year old, the ability for opinion to matter is
Speaker 1: very big, huge, not just it's not just saying you matter,
Speaker 1: because of course what you matter, but it's an opinion
Speaker 1: that matters, and to act on that opinion. It's such
Speaker 1: a hard thing to give a child. But at that
Speaker 1: age your mother did that so well. It's even harder
Speaker 1: not only to give the kid an opinion, but write
Speaker 1: a check for their opinion. She also did I got
Speaker 1: to pick the wallpaper, Well, somebody had to put that
Speaker 1: wallpaper in, and you know that order had to go in.
Speaker 1: So my mother really didn't balk. Even though she didn't
Speaker 1: agree with me on every decision, she really let me
Speaker 1: run with it for the most part. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how many friends you had back then in
Speaker 1: the design world at thirty, but what did your other
Speaker 1: friends that you were hanging around think of you were like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're out doing whatever they're doing. You're downstairs
Speaker 1: measuring the walls. Yeah, that's great, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: So years ago, Mitchell Gold, the furniture maker who has
Speaker 1: shops all over the country. Mitchell Gold assembled a book
Speaker 1: called Crisis, and he asked successful gay people to write
Speaker 1: a chapter in that book about their coming out story,
Speaker 1: and the chapter that I wrote. Very briefly, the point
Speaker 1: of it was that at a very young age, when
Speaker 1: you're growing up and you know you're gay or you
Speaker 1: think you're gay, you have to lie. You're taught to lie,
Speaker 1: and lying is really really important because it's you know,
Speaker 1: what your interests are, that you want to go out
Speaker 1: for the t ball team or would you rather be
Speaker 1: playing with Jennifer's Barbie Corvette that she just got for Christmas.
Speaker 1: You know, how you're walking, how you talking, what are
Speaker 1: you wearing, what's your hair like? So for me, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny you ask a very simple question. But the
Speaker 1: foundation behind that was that I wasn't comfortable as a
Speaker 1: kid expressing how exciting decorating a design was because I
Speaker 1: wasn't out and I didn't want to be out, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was on the Barn Bob Mitzvah circuit.
Speaker 1: We were all like fooling around with each other in
Speaker 1: the basement of synagogues around Minneapolis. So it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of glamour going on. I hope
Speaker 1: you can feel that, you know, I hope you I
Speaker 1: hope I'm setting the scene is very great Gatsby in
Speaker 1: the basement of on the shelf there, I get it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to really keep my enthusiasm and
Speaker 1: my excitement for it not tampered down. But just you know,
Speaker 1: it's not what kids want to talk about, and I
Speaker 1: understood that, and I was conscious enough to know that
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna be a topic that would excite the
Speaker 1: entire lunch room. You know. Conversely, I had, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously a handful of very good friends, which I was
Speaker 1: lucky to have, and many I'm still friends with. But
Speaker 1: and they refused to sleep over after I finally moved
Speaker 1: into my own bedroom because I'd say to them, just
Speaker 1: pick up the side of the bed, I want to
Speaker 1: see what it looks like on this side, or you know,
Speaker 1: help me glue this thing to the ceiling. And they
Speaker 1: were like, we want to like watch movies and eat
Speaker 1: popcorn and you know, tell ghost stories and go to sleep.
Speaker 1: And you're asking us to try and like change the draperies,
Speaker 1: like don't ever sleep in Nate's house. It's not fun,
Speaker 1: it's it's work. This is like the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: my mom would ask me to help her with on
Speaker 1: a Sunday you couldn't help yourself. It sounds like, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what you who you are. You're a creator
Speaker 1: of a better vision of what people think they need.
Speaker 1: And I always look at it is like we both
Speaker 1: I think or in the business of creating an environment
Speaker 1: that you think is better than the environment they might
Speaker 1: have or they've never seen before. Because Oprah always said,
Speaker 1: people like us, our job is to dream a bigger
Speaker 1: dream than somebody thought possible for themselves. Whether it's food,
Speaker 1: whether it's an environment and restaurant, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: a home, whether it's fashion. You know, we're we're meant
Speaker 1: to be the dreamers were meant to be. We're meant
Speaker 1: to be holding the space for people to dream a
Speaker 1: bigger dream. In our second course, Nate share some hard
Speaker 1: earned business lessons. One lesson is on the hidden economics
Speaker 1: of auctions. Burgas continues with what he learned from working
Speaker 1: with one of the most iconic TV personalities of our time.
Speaker 1: So I want to get back to old and young.
Speaker 1: But at a young age, you started at an auction house,
Speaker 1: and that's where just it got me. I grabbed me
Speaker 1: like at an auction house. You started at a very
Speaker 1: young age admiring vintage and old things, the auction house
Speaker 1: and living in Paris as an exchange student. Where the
Speaker 1: two moments from me that really ignited what it means
Speaker 1: to revel in the world that has come before us,
Speaker 1: revel in history, revel in old other cultures, revel in
Speaker 1: age and patina and story. Still to this day of
Speaker 1: what we put in a client's house is vintage, antique, reclaimed.
Speaker 1: We really, you know, it's funny, We really as a
Speaker 1: firm never go to like the new showrooms unless we're
Speaker 1: buying fabric or wall paper. But if I have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to buy something old for myself or on behalf
Speaker 1: of a client, I always pick it. And one that's
Speaker 1: a really smart thing to do in design because obviously
Speaker 1: fine interior design knows no upper limits from a financial standpoint,
Speaker 1: but there's a resell value built into vintage and antique things.
Speaker 1: And I think all of that philosophy came from my
Speaker 1: first job at the auction house. You know, they say
Speaker 1: in in the auction businesses, the three d s, it's
Speaker 1: fueled by death, divorce, and debt. And so I would
Speaker 1: watch these massive estates be unloaded, and all these things
Speaker 1: that people would spend twenty dollars on a sofa or
Speaker 1: you know, ten thousand dollars on a custom dining room
Speaker 1: table would sell for four hundred bucks. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that it was so wasteful. It really bugged me.
Speaker 1: And so when I started my firm, I I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to buy a reproduction, I'm going to
Speaker 1: buy it in an auction for four dollars, not twenty thousand.
Speaker 1: And and why why are we even buying a reproduction?
Speaker 1: Why don't we find a nineteenth century French table that's
Speaker 1: the same size, And maybe it's a thousand dollars, but
Speaker 1: ten years from now it's worth ten thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: there was a mathematical philosophical lesson inherent in starting my
Speaker 1: career in design at auctions. And so you fill homes
Speaker 1: with value, not just fund present. Allison and Robbie is
Speaker 1: a great your our mutual friends. They it took us
Speaker 1: two years to build that house for them in Tampa.
Speaker 1: By the time their house was ready to move in,
Speaker 1: and they're the great architect and a terrific contractor, and
Speaker 1: you know that's just how long it took. The things
Speaker 1: that they had bought sixteen months prior with me to
Speaker 1: fill their home were worth so much more money than
Speaker 1: they paid that we actually went and looked at everything
Speaker 1: and said, should we keep all this or should we
Speaker 1: sell some of this and buy paintings? You know, like
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? And there were a couple
Speaker 1: of pieces that we thought, you know, we can find
Speaker 1: who cares about that thing, like, you know, if if
Speaker 1: that's what the market is right now, on first DIBs
Speaker 1: or on at Setby's or Christie's, let's get rid of it.
Speaker 1: And they were game, and you know, we had a blast,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, we've done that over and
Speaker 1: over and over with clients, and we're one of the
Speaker 1: very few design firms that actually will take our clients
Speaker 1: things when they change their mind or move or they
Speaker 1: you know, are done with something, and we'll resell it
Speaker 1: for them online. And so, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: that's also a really important aspect of the business because
Speaker 1: you know, a custom sofa is a custom sofa, and
Speaker 1: you pay for good quality, and you pay for yardage
Speaker 1: of yards and yards of fabric, and you pay for
Speaker 1: the polsters skill and the time and sorry, like there's
Speaker 1: nothing you can do. That's the prices, the price, but
Speaker 1: the end table and the lamps and the coffee table
Speaker 1: and the pair of chairs and all of that that
Speaker 1: could be worth something and should be worth something if
Speaker 1: you're doing it correctly. How did that? How did the
Speaker 1: transition from auction? And you you started your own company
Speaker 1: and when you're twenty four, but how did you transition?
Speaker 1: It seemed almost effortlessly. Well I sort of know the
Speaker 1: answer about how did you transition it to TV? And
Speaker 1: why was TV such a magnificent place for you? It
Speaker 1: is so a couple of things. So I thought I
Speaker 1: had made it. In Chicago, I had my design firm,
Speaker 1: I had a condo above the Sacks building on Michigan
Speaker 1: Avenue at a Mercedes. I was like, I'm done. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm done. This is it. I've surpassed My father. He's
Speaker 1: jealous but also proud, like we're in great shape, folks,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to see here. And my space in my
Speaker 1: my Chicago office was on the first level of the
Speaker 1: art gallery district in New York in Chicago called River North,
Speaker 1: And I did that intentionally so that I could, you know,
Speaker 1: on the White Walls do a show or invite the
Speaker 1: community in, you know, occasionally. And so Greg Lauren, Ralph
Speaker 1: Lauren's nephew, who is a fashion designer and a good friend.
Speaker 1: He was dating Elizabeth Berkeley at the time and the actress,
Speaker 1: and they he's a painter. He wanted to do a
Speaker 1: show in Chicago. He had had set up one in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica and one in New York City and wanted
Speaker 1: to hit Chicago. And so we were connected by a
Speaker 1: friend and and I decided to do this show. And
Speaker 1: one of Oprah's producers happened to come to the show,
Speaker 1: and everyone sort of asked me, Oh, you're on Oprah.
Speaker 1: So that's how you get best selling books and product
Speaker 1: lines and you know and all this. And the answer is, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: that is exactly how you do that if you have
Speaker 1: the good fortune to be on Oprah. But I always
Speaker 1: remind people that I was on the Oprah Show and
Speaker 1: I loved it every month roughly for twelve years. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that have been on that stage
Speaker 1: who have had that moment, who have basically had that opportunity,
Speaker 1: and they did it once and some people did it
Speaker 1: three times. And the only reason I feel like I
Speaker 1: was able to stay and I worked with the same
Speaker 1: producers from my first segment to my last when the
Speaker 1: show ended at twenty five years, was that I always
Speaker 1: treated the show I was doing as the first show
Speaker 1: I had ever done there. My work ethic never changed.
Speaker 1: I was the last person to leave set. I didn't
Speaker 1: care that I was making all this money from publishing
Speaker 1: or making all this money from products, and my business
Speaker 1: had grown, and I my my companies had grown, and
Speaker 1: I had expanded in all these ways. If the flowers
Speaker 1: were dead, I went to the grocery store at eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock at night to replace the flowers, and and sometimes
Speaker 1: I slept on the floor of the location if I
Speaker 1: had to wait for paint to try to hang pictures.
Speaker 1: And I did that from the first time I was
Speaker 1: on Oprah until the last time I was on Opera.
Speaker 1: And I also never lied to Oprah, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: bad plan. Don't do it. If you ever have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be with Oprah, don't tell her bullshit. She's very,
Speaker 1: very smart, so we had a good relationship. I honored
Speaker 1: the opportunity, and I was very strategic about how to
Speaker 1: use that opportunity to build my career. In our third course,
Speaker 1: Nate lays out his personal philosophy on design, from his
Speaker 1: thoughts on finding inspiration on social media to how he
Speaker 1: observes trends over decades and beyond. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of talent out there, you know, and I've never
Speaker 1: been threatened by that. I love seeing things. In fact, now,
Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm pulling ideas for a project, I'm
Speaker 1: on Instagram and I save them all on my phone,
Speaker 1: and these little files based on the client and their project,
Speaker 1: and we don't rip off anything per se, but there's
Speaker 1: definitely launching points for floor plans or for materials, or
Speaker 1: we'll take the ceiling treatment from one image and combine
Speaker 1: it with the marble from Joseph Durand's bathroom, and we'll
Speaker 1: take the bench that we saw at the end of
Speaker 1: that person's bed and use that, you know, in someone's
Speaker 1: entrance and and recover that in in a vintage textile.
Speaker 1: So it's all up for grabs, you know, It's it's
Speaker 1: really up for grabs, and and and I think it's
Speaker 1: just a lot easier now um using Instagram as especially
Speaker 1: to communicate the client to be able to say, let
Speaker 1: me just send this to you. Do you like this?
Speaker 1: You should take I remember we did, like thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: would take it would take two to three weeks to
Speaker 1: put a deck together to like go take photos of stuff,
Speaker 1: and now it takes half an hour. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: putting those decks together, you know, was a nightmare of inspiration.
Speaker 1: I mean you'd have to go through books. You literally
Speaker 1: have to go through books and take a picture of
Speaker 1: the book. You didn't have a phone xerox the book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was harder than doing the job. You can't copyright design,
Speaker 1: you can't copyright recipes. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: And people are gonna borrow. But everybody borrows. I think
Speaker 1: it's a richer world because we all borrow from It's
Speaker 1: so flattering when people borrow from us and from me.
Speaker 1: I'm I go for it, guys, you know, like and
Speaker 1: and I borrow from people and references and things like that.
Speaker 1: Gen roy Air, I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: I've copied the undulating upholstery detail that he's done that
Speaker 1: he did originally, whether he did it originally or not.
Speaker 1: I had a big fight with Madeline Wine rib years
Speaker 1: ago because she she owned ABC here in New York
Speaker 1: City and I put Ecott prints on Home Shopping Network
Speaker 1: and she sent me a mean letter right target, She
Speaker 1: sent me a mean letter, and I called her. I said, Madeleine,
Speaker 1: you don't own Ecott. Ecott has been around your You
Speaker 1: look good, but you have to be three thousand years
Speaker 1: old to own Ecott. So let's talk about this like
Speaker 1: you're not. You don't have a lock on this pattern.
Speaker 1: When that was a big trend, I said, anyone's got
Speaker 1: anyone's got the right. We've altered it, but anyone's got
Speaker 1: the right to use this motif. Where'd you find it?
Speaker 1: Because here's the books that I pulled. Mind, once you
Speaker 1: let it go, it's gone you you gotta let it go.
Speaker 1: And you know, I always tell people like I feel
Speaker 1: the same way. They can take as many recipes as
Speaker 1: they wanted for me. I like, I got million more
Speaker 1: behind that. Help you help yourself, help yourself. Be nice
Speaker 1: to say this is inspired by Yeah, it would be nice,
Speaker 1: but made Jeffries and Carrion's Thanksgiving for this, we know.
Speaker 1: Tag me on Instagram and say I saw this room
Speaker 1: and we recreated it. You know, I love that stuff,
Speaker 1: Go for it. What is it that you call your
Speaker 1: sort of design philosophy? Is it lifestyle based? And what
Speaker 1: is people now? People here? Who? HI? Are you? What
Speaker 1: are they? What are they looking for? Is there like
Speaker 1: a can you generalize what's happened from when you started
Speaker 1: twenty four two? What started now? What if you're looking for?
Speaker 1: How has that changed? So? I don't call it lifestyle
Speaker 1: at all. Lifestyle is a word from me that's like
Speaker 1: when you see my dear friend on Instagram. It drives
Speaker 1: me crazy. It's like a pet peeve. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: used to like only use the word an exclamation mark
Speaker 1: after the word fire, but I gave up on that
Speaker 1: because now everybody uses them. But but but yeah, I
Speaker 1: lifestyle is like a meaningless ubiquitous word that you know whatever.
Speaker 1: I do. Think what's changed over the course of twenty
Speaker 1: five years is that, you know, at the beginning, I
Speaker 1: just want to make money. I wanted to be successful.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get clients. I wanted to do a
Speaker 1: decent job. I didn't have any vendors, I didn't have
Speaker 1: any relationships. I was building, building, building, And I think,
Speaker 1: you know what's changed now is that I would like
Speaker 1: to believe that people come to me not only to
Speaker 1: craft them a beautiful environment that's in great taste or
Speaker 1: you know that, that that they feel like they can
Speaker 1: trust my aesthetic and my listening skills to be able
Speaker 1: to capture their aspirational aesthetic. But more importantly, I think
Speaker 1: people come to me because they want to live in
Speaker 1: a place that feels storied and feels layered, and feels
Speaker 1: assembled over time, not a cookie cutter, fancy designer apartment
Speaker 1: or suburban home or vacation home that they're going to
Speaker 1: go to dinner at their friend's house that lives in
Speaker 1: the same area and they're going to see eight of
Speaker 1: the ten same things that they've got in their friend's house.
Speaker 1: I've never done that. I've always crafted spaces specifically for
Speaker 1: the people who live there, have never go back to
Speaker 1: the same resource. Really, my hope is that at this stage,
Speaker 1: people know that I'm helping them assemble a collection of
Speaker 1: furniture and objects that tells their story, as opposed to
Speaker 1: just doing you know, a pretty job that has no
Speaker 1: character personality. I find it really almost when I approached
Speaker 1: some things like I don't know what to do, like
Speaker 1: I I want my restaurant to look like X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z, but I can't do it myself. It's a
Speaker 1: sense of vulnerability. I have all this taste and I
Speaker 1: have all this style, but I just don't know how
Speaker 1: to put it together. And you're actually acting almost like
Speaker 1: almost like a psychologist in some way. Okay, we we
Speaker 1: have all these pieces of your brain. They're really good
Speaker 1: at doing these other things. You just can't assemble what
Speaker 1: I know. I can put together what you know. We
Speaker 1: all know the same thing and what's pretty. But to
Speaker 1: put it together and make individual things that are eye
Speaker 1: catching work together is very hard, and you have to
Speaker 1: sort of give up. Well, let's talk about that for
Speaker 1: a second, Jeffrey, because I think that's fascinating for a
Speaker 1: lot of creative people and people who aspire to do
Speaker 1: things on her own. I can't make a three course
Speaker 1: meal to save my life. I don't know what temperature
Speaker 1: things should be. I can't follow a recipe in a cookbook.
Speaker 1: I can't do any of it. And I have a
Speaker 1: massive appreciation for something that's delicious, but I have no
Speaker 1: interest whatsoever in trying to figure out how to do
Speaker 1: it for myself. None. Rachel Ray's tried to get me
Speaker 1: to do I can't do it. I mean I I
Speaker 1: it's like weird. It's messy, everything smells, it's dirty. I
Speaker 1: cooked on your show once. You won't stand off as
Speaker 1: it just you always wasn't natural for you. I could
Speaker 1: care less. Remember that line in Goldie in Overboard with
Speaker 1: Goldie Hans that I prepared and handled raw food. It
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like me, Like that's me. Couldn't couldn't care
Speaker 1: less and couldn't be a bigger fan, but couldn't care less.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, though, you know what design
Speaker 1: really is the alchemy of design, the alchemy of food,
Speaker 1: the alchemy of fashion or jewelry, design or painting. What
Speaker 1: I've always viewed that to be the sort of magic
Speaker 1: sauce is that it's all just about the references. When
Speaker 1: you're speaking about design ideas, you have to be speaking
Speaker 1: to somebody. All the ideas for a restaurant or the
Speaker 1: feeling you want to have. You have to be speaking
Speaker 1: to somebody who can catch the ball and throw it
Speaker 1: further visually for you to say, there was this place
Speaker 1: in France that was so unexpected, let me just find
Speaker 1: it on my phone, or what if we took how
Speaker 1: in Mexico, how everything is just built out of plaster
Speaker 1: and stucco. What if here, let me just you know,
Speaker 1: look at this, And it's that interpretation of those design
Speaker 1: ideas paired with a life well lived, hopefully a life
Speaker 1: well traveled or at least visually well traveled on online.
Speaker 1: And for me, that's the great distinction and design between
Speaker 1: a designer, an a d one designer and el decor
Speaker 1: a list designer or an Instagram designer. You know, and
Speaker 1: there is a there is a distinction when when young
Speaker 1: designers come to me and ask me what they what
Speaker 1: they should be doing to prepare for real world and design,
Speaker 1: I say, I've said over and over you're only as
Speaker 1: good as your references. You've got to dig deep and
Speaker 1: understand what was happening in Sweden in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: what was happening in Vienna at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: You have to know what was going on in France
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. And and you don't have to
Speaker 1: be an expert in everything. No one can, but at
Speaker 1: least aesthetically, if something interests you, please dig deeper to
Speaker 1: understand the movement around it. The architecture around it, what
Speaker 1: was happening in fashion, what was happening in painting, what
Speaker 1: was happening in photography? Because if you don't have those references,
Speaker 1: you can't sell your own ship. It's so well said,
Speaker 1: and I believe that's the same for food. For me,
Speaker 1: the food is like fashion. It has a direct coalation
Speaker 1: of fashion every twenty five years. You know, Steakopav is
Speaker 1: fantastic again, right, all of us French bestos are like,
Speaker 1: oh boom, we'll have an artichoke n regret what And
Speaker 1: weren't people sitting reading the Preppy Handbook eating Steako plav
Speaker 1: like you know, it's a massive trend and you can
Speaker 1: just see it because I used to work with all
Speaker 1: these people who came to my restaurant, Vogue and Hannah Winter,
Speaker 1: and the trend of the fashion was the same. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure now what's trending now was trending years ago
Speaker 1: in some form or another. And follow interior design as
Speaker 1: well now a hundred percent. In fact, it's funny. My
Speaker 1: husband is twelve years younger than me, which you know
Speaker 1: sends me to the dermatologist about every three hours. But
Speaker 1: he he his references, what he thinks is fresh, is
Speaker 1: very like what I grew up with in the eighties.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'll look at stuff we design a
Speaker 1: collection for living spaces together, a furniture. We were working
Speaker 1: on another massive deal with an American retailer right now together.
Speaker 1: And so it's really interesting because he'll show me stuff
Speaker 1: that he thinks is like revolutionary, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: my grandmother had it at our condo in you know,
Speaker 1: in Florida. So you know, there is something in between.
Speaker 1: And I look at like what if you look at
Speaker 1: like what the young people are wearing around the streets
Speaker 1: of New York City right now, it's all like Jack Amiss,
Speaker 1: this French brand, which looks like Korage looked like to
Speaker 1: us when you know, and it's just and and and
Speaker 1: in design, even the textiles, mohair, you know, Miss Sony,
Speaker 1: like all of that stuff. Even in home it's it's
Speaker 1: back and you know, I couldn't look at that stuff
Speaker 1: Pastel's Pastel's. I mean, my mother redid the house seven
Speaker 1: hundred times. When I was growing up. I lived through
Speaker 1: every trend and it's probably why I'm so anti trend.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating and it's your percent, right Stako puav and
Speaker 1: a white linen sofa man and we are back, and
Speaker 1: we're back. Is that where or are we are architecturally
Speaker 1: into a design? Wise, there is something you're seeing, even
Speaker 1: though you hate seeing it, you're noticing it and you
Speaker 1: don't want to look at it, but you can't help
Speaker 1: but noticing everybody is doing what When I was growing up,
Speaker 1: the rich people in the Twin Cities built a house
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties with like a curved sex in
Speaker 1: an uh boxy situation, And that's what was fancy then.
Speaker 1: And I just bought the same house in Montauk and
Speaker 1: and it looks great again to me. So you know
Speaker 1: that if anything is not a better example, I've only
Speaker 1: lived in old homes, old apartments, old homes my whole life.
Speaker 1: And now I our beach house. Is this nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: house that could have been in Minnetonka, Minnesota, that I
Speaker 1: would have gone to a playdate after school. In our
Speaker 1: fourth and final course, Nate and I discussed lifestyle. Our
Speaker 1: conversation weaves from cultural history to what makes his neighborhood
Speaker 1: so alluring, and even what it's like to work with
Speaker 1: his husband. But Nate begins by explaining his surprising choice
Speaker 1: for his all time favorite restaurant. My favorite restaurant in
Speaker 1: the world, you know, not just in the continental you
Speaker 1: know states. My favorite restaurant in the world is the
Speaker 1: State Fair of Minnesota. Corn Dogs, Baby oh Man corn
Speaker 1: dogs and and many doughnuts that drop into a paper
Speaker 1: bag filled with cinnamon and sugar and and Minnesota corn
Speaker 1: with Lando legs, butter, Lando leg Did you have fried butter?
Speaker 1: You know what? I drew the line at fried butter
Speaker 1: because I thought, bye, bye, I'm almost fifty. I'll be
Speaker 1: fifty next year. But I thought fried butter. If I
Speaker 1: actually go up and wait in the line and say,
Speaker 1: may I have to fried butters please, then that is
Speaker 1: the bullet train for to me waiting weighing like sift pounds.
Speaker 1: So fried butter was the only that didn't sound good.
Speaker 1: So when you were growing up, who is cooking and
Speaker 1: what was on fire? It sounds like family was very important.
Speaker 1: Was there a sit town? You had to sit down?
Speaker 1: And obviously when you were sitting down, you were checking
Speaker 1: out the height of the table and the chair to
Speaker 1: make sure that was correct. But were you sitting every
Speaker 1: meal you're eating? You know? Yeah, you know what? It
Speaker 1: was Jeffrey. The truth is a great cultural food history
Speaker 1: of my family was lost with my grandparents. My grandmother.
Speaker 1: When I was a boy, we would go to her
Speaker 1: house for dinner every Saturday night, and she was an
Speaker 1: excellent cook. I mean she she was an excellent, excellent cook.
Speaker 1: And it was sort of traditional Ashkenazi Jewish. You know,
Speaker 1: all that stuff that I still love to this day,
Speaker 1: noodle coogle and all those things that you make out
Speaker 1: of small sliced, thinly sliced potatoes and pot roast and
Speaker 1: any of that, so, you know those that was the
Speaker 1: food culture of my childhood was the like Jewish food,
Speaker 1: and I still crave it. If I if I see
Speaker 1: like sort of amenable looking, sort of friendly looking Jewish lady,
Speaker 1: I'll ask her to make me a google. But my
Speaker 1: mother was not interested. My stepmother was very, very nutritious
Speaker 1: growing up her Her mother was part of Shackley, the
Speaker 1: big vitamin company, So we had carab instead of chocolate.
Speaker 1: We were there was food combining principles, There was all
Speaker 1: this business on that side of the family. But my
Speaker 1: mother didn't care. You know, she was working. She was
Speaker 1: dressed well, which wasn't interested in cooking and I didn't
Speaker 1: care either because I didn't know any differently, But I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it was my grandparents, my step
Speaker 1: my stepfather's mother and my mother's mother who would turn
Speaker 1: out the table, set out the silver. We would eat beautifully.
Speaker 1: That's where we were taught our manners. That's where we
Speaker 1: had things that still to this day, if I close
Speaker 1: my eyes, I can taste it. You know. It just
Speaker 1: was so delicious. The best memories of the memories you
Speaker 1: can do the food memories, right, It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this thing that you can get a whiff of an
Speaker 1: onion and it just brings you right back. Absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I know I have you designed a restaurant, No,
Speaker 1: not not really. I mean we have dabbled, like consulting
Speaker 1: over the years, but no, I've never sat down and
Speaker 1: crafted an environment around better or fine dining, which is
Speaker 1: usually amazing at it. You'd be amazing at it because
Speaker 1: you're you're love of the way people flow, how they
Speaker 1: flow would be just fantastic because restaurants all flow, baby,
Speaker 1: everything and you're talking about it is how how you
Speaker 1: flow through your life. Yeah, I mean, I definitely am
Speaker 1: interested in the moments that people share. I really have
Speaker 1: always been fixated in on that. I That's why I
Speaker 1: design well, I think because I'm really putting myself in
Speaker 1: other people's shoes. How they wish to be perceived, how
Speaker 1: they you know, what the what the space, what what
Speaker 1: how they wish to feel in the space. And I think, listen,
Speaker 1: it's one of the great luxuries in life is to
Speaker 1: go to a wonderful restaurant and have a beautiful meal
Speaker 1: with people that you love and hear the laughter and
Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's really it's why we moved
Speaker 1: back to New York City, you know, was that culture
Speaker 1: was so missing for us in Los Angeles. Obviously, there's
Speaker 1: beautiful places to go have dinner, and we have those
Speaker 1: dinners and breakfasts and things like that in l A.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing like our life here in New York City,
Speaker 1: in the West Village where you know, we we decided
Speaker 1: four minutes before we leave the house with two kids
Speaker 1: under six, that we're just going to go to this
Speaker 1: place and and sit and have bolon as. And it's awesome.
Speaker 1: So it is if you're if you're in the village,
Speaker 1: what is your version of the village now as to
Speaker 1: when you first laid eight on your first house. What
Speaker 1: what has changed for you? There? Not a lot, I'm
Speaker 1: happy to report it's got the same exact. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to live surrounded by something that would be delightful visually,
Speaker 1: and you know that. That's why I took to Paris
Speaker 1: and had an apartment there for many years. That's why
Speaker 1: I like the water, you know, like a lake house
Speaker 1: or the beach kind of vibe. But the West Village
Speaker 1: for me, it's like it makes me laugh every time
Speaker 1: I walk out my front door that I get to
Speaker 1: live in the United States in an area that's so
Speaker 1: old and so protected and so charming. I love the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Like I sound like Jerry Seinfeld, but like I have
Speaker 1: such a deep connection not to all of New York City,
Speaker 1: but that part of New York City. I just feel lucky.
Speaker 1: I feel grateful. I feel like it. You know, post pandemic,
Speaker 1: a lot of young people are moving back into the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We see the moving vands now with moving in instead
Speaker 1: of moving out, and there's an energy even though everybody's
Speaker 1: you know, primarily massed up. Still it's there's a street
Speaker 1: culture and there's a restaurant culture. And there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a there's an energy and a spontaneity. I I
Speaker 1: say that only because I know it so well. I
Speaker 1: lived on seventy Perry Street for about four years, and
Speaker 1: I used to sit on the stoop for hours and
Speaker 1: watch people. We do that with our kids and Dune.
Speaker 1: They just sit and watch people and then lay down
Speaker 1: stairs and grab something to drink or running grab cheerios
Speaker 1: from my son. But we just hang out. And the
Speaker 1: way the light hits the trees in the corners of
Speaker 1: the street, how they're angled. There's so much perpendicular action
Speaker 1: going on that there's this incredible lightness of being all
Speaker 1: the time that you totally keep this gribe. You can't
Speaker 1: find another neighborhood. And that's why I stay for so long.
Speaker 1: How is it working with your husband? How do you
Speaker 1: figure that out? Because it's hard, you know it is.
Speaker 1: We don't fight about design. It's really interesting. We can
Speaker 1: fight to the death, near death about so many other things,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, with design, we both have a
Speaker 1: free pass to be completely unconcerned about how the other
Speaker 1: person is going to receive a statement or an opinion
Speaker 1: or information. And I think maybe it's because we both
Speaker 1: do it, or maybe because we're not really that ego driven.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because as people. Maybe it's because we both
Speaker 1: know that there's not one right way to assemble a space.
Speaker 1: There's not there's never been one right way to to
Speaker 1: to to do something in design. So you know, if
Speaker 1: he it's the last piece of pizza without saying to me,
Speaker 1: like do you want half of this? We're like a
Speaker 1: like a Judge Judy that afternoon, like the fight that
Speaker 1: comes out. It's like, you know, if I'm like stepping
Speaker 1: on his underwear, you know, in the bathroom and he
Speaker 1: just couldn't make it that foot to the hamper, that's
Speaker 1: another you know, I'm piste off for like seven hours. Design.
Speaker 1: We can produce the shows that we do, we can
Speaker 1: do the makeovers that we do on television, which we love.
Speaker 1: We can design the collections that we work on together.
Speaker 1: And also you know, we're we're we're back on h
Speaker 1: GTV now for the first time in a in a
Speaker 1: big way, and and we're trying we're building something together now.
Speaker 1: And so the truth is it's just smart business as
Speaker 1: it is for you to just pick your battles. And
Speaker 1: and you know, I respect him and I know he
Speaker 1: respects me. I really respect his perspective. I believe in
Speaker 1: him as a designer. I believe in his knee jerk reaction.
Speaker 1: I like his instinct. In many ways, he's I've I've
Speaker 1: gone too bad about something. I hated something I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was the right decision for one of our homes.
Speaker 1: And he said, I'm doing it anyway. And it comes
Speaker 1: in and I'm wrong. And I love being wrong because
Speaker 1: it's You've been doing this for twenty five years, and
Speaker 1: and and I have a very open environment with my
Speaker 1: with my employees. It's always the best idea at the
Speaker 1: table wins. It's a little bit different when you're you know,
Speaker 1: wiping some of your kids butt and talking about producing
Speaker 1: the show and you know, figuring out when your parents
Speaker 1: are coming to visit and juggling all the things that
Speaker 1: families deal with. But but I think at the end,
Speaker 1: I we just like each other. We like we like
Speaker 1: doing this stuff together. Plus it's they don't call it makeover.
Speaker 1: I tell people like, they're always so, how do I
Speaker 1: how do I do it? You make it look so easy?
Speaker 1: How how do you cook? How do you get it
Speaker 1: like this? I'm like, if you make a mistake, you
Speaker 1: just eat it. It's fine if you choose the wrong
Speaker 1: paint call you just painted wall again. Well listen, I
Speaker 1: mean that's the whole Like, that's yet another life philosophy,
Speaker 1: you know, made by man, fixed by man. I mean
Speaker 1: we I know, and I've had really high strung clients
Speaker 1: who get really worked up very quickly, and you know,
Speaker 1: at forty nine years old, it's just not my perspective anymore.
Speaker 1: I I just will say to them, you guys, I'm
Speaker 1: not replacing your kidney, Like, yes, it came in broken,
Speaker 1: and yes we waited a long time for it. So
Speaker 1: here's what we're gonna do. We're going to fix it
Speaker 1: and then it will be delivered and then everything will
Speaker 1: be fine. But I'm protective over emotion, and I'm protective
Speaker 1: over that. I'm protective with my team. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I I I don't like it. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: of space for it, for for elevation in designer, in food.
Speaker 1: To me personally, how is it when you get a
Speaker 1: first time client that really hasn't hired someone as higher
Speaker 1: level high it's never hired someone like yourself that's at
Speaker 1: that level. They've done it themselves the whole I can
Speaker 1: imagine being nightmare. They've done it themselves their whole life.
Speaker 1: They think they know best, and someone said, please hire
Speaker 1: Nate to do this. It will be the way you
Speaker 1: want it to be. It will be the way you
Speaker 1: never could do it that you've been trying for twenty
Speaker 1: five years to do. What happens in that scenario, Well,
Speaker 1: they've got to want it, you know, to sign on
Speaker 1: the dot line and pay the depositive. They've got to
Speaker 1: have wanted it on some level. It's like sony years,
Speaker 1: like getting ven years right through the pain. You gotta
Speaker 1: do it or botox. I mean preserving the peace, preserving
Speaker 1: an environment that that promotes creativity and and fun. I
Speaker 1: like to enjoy myself. I like to have a good
Speaker 1: time with my clients. I like my staff to have
Speaker 1: a good time. I don't like to have those clients
Speaker 1: in the roster where no one wants to return the
Speaker 1: email or you see their number and everybody's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: oh no. And luckily I've been pretty decent at at
Speaker 1: calling that out in a in an initial interview like this,
Speaker 1: this isn't the culture for us to be a part of,
Speaker 1: because it's not really how we roll. It's not what
Speaker 1: we love, it's not it's not going to make the
Speaker 1: space for us to do a great job. But you
Speaker 1: know what's happened over the years, of course, and I
Speaker 1: think I think everything can be solved through conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: I think you've got it. You can't be fear based.
Speaker 1: You also have to know your stuff. You have to
Speaker 1: be able to defend your stuff. But I have fired
Speaker 1: clients that I've said to them, you know, guys, this
Speaker 1: isn't working. You're spending all this money and I know
Speaker 1: you're not having a good time. And guess what, I'm
Speaker 1: not either, And you know, the truth is is that
Speaker 1: this shouldn't be about this. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: because you don't trust this process or you don't trust me,
Speaker 1: or this is just kind of how you move through
Speaker 1: the world, whatever it is. There's no judgment attached to this.
Speaker 1: But I'm not interested in participating. You know, Either we
Speaker 1: can do it this way, which you know we've done
Speaker 1: this now for excellent number of years, and then this
Speaker 1: system really works, or I wish you well, you know
Speaker 1: like I I, and I'm sure you'll find you know
Speaker 1: somebody that that wants to work under this kind of
Speaker 1: paradigm that you've created. I don't, and I don't want
Speaker 1: my team working for them either, because we can we
Speaker 1: can design three spaces and laugh the whole time or
Speaker 1: of the time, or we can spend the exact same
Speaker 1: amount of time designing one space. Begrudgingly, it's just not
Speaker 1: worth it. You're a class act. Mr Burkas. Thank you, Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: as are you taking time? Really? Really? Thank you for
Speaker 1: taking time. I could speak two hours, but I only
Speaker 1: have an hour, which kind of sucks. But maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get you back one day. I will student again another
Speaker 1: list of questions I did not more technical stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to get in that mind of yours. But
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. It's my great pleasure. It's great
Speaker 1: to see you. Thanks very much for listening to Four
Speaker 1: Courses with Jeffrey zacarian a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Corner Table Entertainment. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.
Speaker 1: Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zacarion, Margaret Zacarion, Jared Keller,
Speaker 1: and Tara Halper. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler.
Speaker 1: Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields. Four Courses is
Speaker 1: engineered by Molly Swanson. Our talent booking is by Pamela
Speaker 1: Bauer at Dogtown Talent. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.