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