Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello everyone, we have a little surprise for
Speaker 1: you today. It's a conversation I recently have with Nate Burkas.
Speaker 1: If that name rings a bell, He's a famous interior designer.
Speaker 1: You may know him from his appearances over the years
Speaker 1: on the Oprah Winfrey Show. You may have read one
Speaker 1: of his books. You may even have some of his
Speaker 1: products in your home. Anyway, this all came about because
Speaker 1: AC Hotels wanted to host an event about design and
Speaker 1: creativity at their Times Square location in New York City,
Speaker 1: and we decided to invite Nate to come, which turned out,
Speaker 1: as you will hear, to be an inspired choice. I
Speaker 1: had so much fun doing this. We talked about our moms,
Speaker 1: about Paris, about the TV shows of Phillis with Rage,
Speaker 1: and a million other things, but mostly about design and creativity.
Speaker 1: Nate is as charming and funny as he is smart. Anyway,
Speaker 1: here it is. This all took place in the rooftop
Speaker 1: bar of the Cotel in New York with all kinds
Speaker 1: of fabulous cocktails and appetisers being passed around. Just a
Speaker 1: heads up, you may hear some city noises in the background.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this live episode as much as
Speaker 1: I did. I wanted to say before I started, I
Speaker 1: think we should get this little order a bit of
Speaker 1: business out of the way. I've scored enormous points with
Speaker 1: my significant other this evening by interviewing you, Kate. Normally,
Speaker 1: if I'm interviewing like the you know, hypothetically the CEO
Speaker 1: of whatever Microsoft, she would say, oh, interesting, and then
Speaker 1: go back to her phone. When word leaked that I
Speaker 1: was interviewing Nate Burkas, he was like Nate Burkas. It
Speaker 1: was like, you can't imagine the kind of celebrity power
Speaker 1: you have in my home.
Speaker 2: You are welcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so no, it's huge. It's huge for all
Speaker 1: of us in the glabled household.
Speaker 2: May I just say that?
Speaker 3: When I told my mother that I was going to
Speaker 3: be a guest on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, or response was,
Speaker 3: why that's that's not very nice.
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about travel and design and
Speaker 1: your career and all kinds of interesting things before we
Speaker 1: get to your career. Though, you and I are both
Speaker 1: both have the travel bug. Because I have a theory
Speaker 1: that the travel bug is innate, it's not acquired.
Speaker 2: Yeah to have it or you don't, So is the
Speaker 2: design bug.
Speaker 1: So is this all good? So we're talking, we're trafficking.
Speaker 1: I don't have a little story about myself which I
Speaker 1: think proves this is true. But before I tell that story,
Speaker 1: I wanted you tell me when did you realize what
Speaker 1: is the first evidence the world has that Nate has
Speaker 1: the travel bug? How young are you?
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: A share bath. Fantasy. It was amazing, It was amazing.
Speaker 2: I sold all my clothes of spending money.
Speaker 1: But I knew you wearing all black at that person,
Speaker 1: I wanted to wear all black.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wearing Ralph Lauren and that's not what no, no,
Speaker 3: no oh, yeah, I had to to sell that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: get some money for a leather jacket. But I was
Speaker 3: found myself in Paris alone, and I remember walking the
Speaker 3: streets and feeling really good, feeling like really solid, and
Speaker 3: not being afraid and not being intimidated and being fascinated
Speaker 3: by modern life in an ancient place. And I think
Speaker 3: that that was the first moment for me. And when
Speaker 3: I travel, I don't I'm not really reaching for the
Speaker 3: sort of.
Speaker 2: 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. But
Speaker 3: that trip to Paris, that first move really to Paris,
Speaker 3: was when I knew I would never really stay in
Speaker 3: one place for a long time.
Speaker 1: My version of that story is we moved from England
Speaker 1: to Canada when I was six, and there's a picture
Speaker 1: of us about to get on the train to go
Speaker 1: to the We took a boat, took the Empress of England.
Speaker 1: We're about to get on the train to go to
Speaker 1: the boat. And so there's a family shot. My oldest
Speaker 1: brother is weeping, it's leaving the only country's ever known,
Speaker 1: all of his friends. My middle brother is clinging to
Speaker 1: my mother anxiously. You know, it's a long ten days
Speaker 1: on a through uncharted you know, Stormy seas. I looked
Speaker 1: like some it has just given me a million dollars.
Speaker 1: I am five years old and this is the single
Speaker 1: greatest moment. I'm like, are you kidding me? We're going
Speaker 1: to some unknown place on a boat for ten days.
Speaker 2: This is amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Couldn't wait to get out of there. That was when
Speaker 1: if I look at the photo, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly you. Nothing has changed. So I want to
Speaker 1: go back to you in Paris. You're how old?
Speaker 2: Uh, seventeen?
Speaker 1: Did you experience Paris at seventeen the same way you
Speaker 1: would have experienced today and others? Were you doing the
Speaker 1: same things that in a new city that you do today,
Speaker 1: only without realizing why with the habits there?
Speaker 2: 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 2: Not relying on you know, an.
Speaker 3: Uber or a a driver or whatever it is, but
Speaker 3: really 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 you know, I have this
Speaker 3: aversion to being told what to do.
Speaker 2: When I'm I have this aversion being told.
Speaker 3: What to do of that, but especially when I'm traveling,
Speaker 3: because I want to figure it out for myself. And
Speaker 3: if a friend says you have to eat here, you
Speaker 3: have to see this, or you have to go to
Speaker 3: this museum or see this historical I'll do it in
Speaker 3: two seconds. But I also like to be the guy
Speaker 3: that has days doing nothing and just kind of soaking
Speaker 3: in what the culture might bring.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you said about
Speaker 1: allowing yourself to get lost, which is nearly impossible today,
Speaker 1: but all of us over the age of forty remember
Speaker 1: a time when that was kind of not the norm.
Speaker 1: It was really easy to get lost and thrilling in
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember when I, as a fifteen year old, me
Speaker 1: and my brother went to London and spent we spent
Speaker 1: twos with my uncle and Anne. They lived just on
Speaker 1: the kind of furthest reaches of West London. I would
Speaker 1: get on the Parsons Green Tube and randomly get off
Speaker 1: at a stop and walk around. I knew nothing about London.
Speaker 1: I had never read a guidebook. What I knew about
Speaker 1: London I knew from Dickens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, And I get I totally get that.
Speaker 1: I had the best time.
Speaker 3: You're a little bit afraid, but it's anticipatory and you
Speaker 3: never know what you're going to stumble upon.
Speaker 2: You know where the foolest place the best for us?
Speaker 1: You know where I ended up going without realizing I
Speaker 1: was there until many years later. Malcolm McLaren, the founder
Speaker 1: of the Sex Pistols, had a clothing store with was
Speaker 1: it Vivian Westwood yeap on something road in Chelsea.
Speaker 2: That I don't know, but yes, I remember I went there.
Speaker 1: I was fifteen. I had no clue what was going on.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this looks interesting.
Speaker 3: But you found it and it felt differently because you
Speaker 3: found it. It's like, you know, and I yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I to allow yourself to get lost. It wasn't that.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really that scary now. I mean, as a dad,
Speaker 3: I think it's super scary. I would kill my kids, Like,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? There's a lowjack and your
Speaker 3: shoe and we've an apple tag and your forehead and
Speaker 3: you know you're you know, but I can still see you.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: My eye at that age that I wanted to be lost.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be lost every day.
Speaker 1: Does that if we think about that phrase as a
Speaker 1: kind of metaphor, does it also describe your professional practice
Speaker 1: as a 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 have meaning 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: practices sort of refined a skill set that's a practical
Speaker 3: skill set, but the creative, the magical, the imaginative. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm always lost. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so walk we through. You're in Paris at seventeen.
Speaker 1: Tell me take me from there to your how you
Speaker 1: became a designer.
Speaker 3: So I'm seventeen. I've sold all of my Ralph Lauren
Speaker 3: clothes to the lovely kids.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do you like? Just briefly, in two sentences,
Speaker 1: what do you like at seventeen?
Speaker 3: Guys and fries, No, no, no, nay, you can do
Speaker 3: better than that, And I still do you can do
Speaker 3: better than that?
Speaker 2: What I like at seventeen?
Speaker 3: Do you?
Speaker 1: If my set is seventeen year old Malcolm and seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Nate Meat, we.
Speaker 2: Would probably talk about music.
Speaker 3: I was listening to like the Smiths and you know,
Speaker 3: and so music music. My walk Man was on my
Speaker 3: whatever discman, Walkman, whatever awk Man. And I like clothes
Speaker 3: and I liked history. I was interested in history, and
Speaker 3: at that age.
Speaker 1: That's what we would have talked about.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: I don't think you would have talked about clothes if
Speaker 1: you saw the clothes I was wearing when I was seventeen,
Speaker 1: further ahead of me. But you came, you grew up
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: To my dad.
Speaker 3: They went and they said, ma'am, you're actually still married.
Speaker 3: My mother was like, oh, because I'll.
Speaker 2: Go home and wash my hair. 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 2: So I've been all over the place.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, yeah, yeah, but you do sound more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Didn't I wasn't seven seventeen.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I don't even know if I'm sophisticated.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: My my favorite restaurant worldwide is the State Fair of Mida.
Speaker 2: So it's just the best.
Speaker 1: Guys, When you say you were interested in history at
Speaker 1: that age, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: I was. I was interested in architecture, and I was
Speaker 3: interested in spaces, and I was interested in a little
Speaker 3: bit in mythology, and a lot in sort of like
Speaker 3: royal palaces and sort of aristocratic homes and like really beautiful,
Speaker 3: beautiful in homes in castles and.
Speaker 2: 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 2: I was.
Speaker 3: My job was to carry these old wallpaper books in
Speaker 3: an out of the trunk of her car that weighed
Speaker 3: more than I did you did you like your mother's
Speaker 3: sense of style. I appreciated it. She used a lot
Speaker 3: of old things. But no, I mean it was French country.
Speaker 2: She knows this. We've talked about this. Trust me, she's
Speaker 2: listening right now. I have a sudden.
Speaker 3: Tuning in and I'll be living with you and underwitness protection.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: My mom knew that, but I What I admired about
Speaker 3: my mother's style was that she she never reached for
Speaker 3: new things. She always reached for antique furniture or vintage things.
Speaker 3: And she loved an auction or an estate sale and
Speaker 3: That was how I got the bug of caring so
Speaker 3: much about assembling interiors for other people with things that
Speaker 3: have a little bit of history and soul.
Speaker 1: 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 young 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 2: That's probably why when I.
Speaker 3: Land somewhere now, I'm always interested in, like the local craft,
Speaker 3: what's made there, what they do the best job doing.
Speaker 3: That's what I always want to know. It doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be expensive, but like what's the what's the best
Speaker 3: thing in Sri Lanka, what's the best thing in Barcelona?
Speaker 3: Like what's the coolest craft in Wahaka? What are they
Speaker 3: known for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said earlier that you're very interested in investigating
Speaker 1: the culture of a place through its artifact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, through its craft.
Speaker 1: It's not that And what you're describing in your mother
Speaker 1: as a.
Speaker 2: Version of them. Yeah, it is, it is. You know.
Speaker 1: My favorite, this is one of my favorite things to do,
Speaker 1: by the way, is to locate someone's passions in there
Speaker 1: in an earlier form found in their parents. My favorite
Speaker 1: I can I go to a total digression.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My favorite example of this was I was once at
Speaker 1: a party in LA and I met a very famous
Speaker 1: LA manager, maybe one of the most famous of all
Speaker 1: the managers. He was famous because he was the hardest
Speaker 1: negotiator in Hollywood. He was like the guy who would
Speaker 1: argue with you for you know, two weeks for the
Speaker 1: down to the slightest detail of a contract. And I
Speaker 1: was chatting with him and I was like, Oh, tell
Speaker 1: me about your childhood and he goes, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 1: my parents went and I was really raised on my grandfather.
Speaker 1: What's your grandfather do? Well? He was in the button business.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, what was that like? Well, every day
Speaker 1: after school I would go to my grandfather's office in
Speaker 1: the garment district and I would sit in a chair
Speaker 1: and I would listen to him argue over the you know,
Speaker 1: the tenth of a cent difference in a large order
Speaker 1: of buttons. Pause, and I'm like exactly, And he looked
Speaker 1: at me, like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: No connection to see it? Same thing.
Speaker 1: He takes the buttons, and he takes the hall. It
Speaker 1: makes a fortune.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, exactly, and he's negating over the tenth percent
Speaker 3: of the price of a button.
Speaker 1: Still, but you do you do you see what you
Speaker 1: see where I'm going? Oh, of course, of course I'm
Speaker 1: following this. Yeah, and you're right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my mom and I have talked about over the years.
Speaker 1: She's asked me like, what do you think my influence
Speaker 1: on you was as a young person, and then obviously
Speaker 1: is in design, and it was she taught me how
Speaker 1: to source. And I think a good designer has to
Speaker 1: be really good at sourcing because even in today's age,
Speaker 1: where you know, obviously, like at any given moment, at
Speaker 1: any place in the world, you can find exactly what
Speaker 1: you're looking for online.
Speaker 3: It's not really enough. You have to know who makes
Speaker 3: the hand painted lampshades on Etsy, and who makes the
Speaker 3: Mexican pineapples in Morelia, and then who you know it's
Speaker 3: just and then who can put it all together for
Speaker 3: you and turn it into a copy table. So you know,
Speaker 3: you've got to know the guy in Brooklyn too, so
Speaker 3: it's but sourcing is like is what she gave me,
Speaker 3: and especially a love of vintage and craft and handmade.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after the break and we're back
Speaker 1: with Nate Burgis. We'll stop a lot of hotels, since
Speaker 1: hotels are such an integral part of the travel experience
Speaker 1: for so many people. I was thinking when I was
Speaker 1: prepared for this about so what is the what's the
Speaker 1: most wonderful hotel experience I ever had? And it was
Speaker 1: in a little hotel in Stockholm, which is in an
Speaker 1: old mansion. And I've forgotten what the mansion looks like,
Speaker 1: and I've forgotten what the my room looked like. I
Speaker 1: know that it was nice and comfortable room. The genius
Speaker 1: thing was there was a huge old oak table immediately
Speaker 1: adjacent to an open kitchen, and when you wanted to eat,
Speaker 1: you went down and you sat the table, and the
Speaker 1: cook came over to you said what do you want?
Speaker 1: And everybody who's staying at the table, it was a
Speaker 1: small sale. Everyone who just came and sat at the table.
Speaker 1: It was that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Their intention was that they were recreating a Swedish home,
Speaker 1: family home of which you were a visitor and that's
Speaker 1: not what I want from every hotel. But no, they
Speaker 1: executed that intention beautifully. Yeah, that's what I cared about.
Speaker 3: I think listen, I think that every hotel wants to
Speaker 3: be welcoming, they want to be curated, they want to
Speaker 3: be you know, intentional in their design decisions. And most definitely,
Speaker 3: design does translate and communicate sort of what are you
Speaker 3: meant to feel chic and urban and you know free?
Speaker 3: Are you meant to feel relaxed and calm and sunburnt like?
Speaker 2: 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 1: I was wondering what was going to come out.
Speaker 2: No, brilliant, They're brilliant.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you said you want to be in there
Speaker 1: to the pause after incredibly that they are.
Speaker 3: They are wonderful and there they travel probably three hundred
Speaker 3: days a year. Yeah, and the goal was to create
Speaker 3: a home that they liked more than anywhere they've ever stayed.
Speaker 3: They can stay anywhere in the world, and they can
Speaker 3: stay in in five star rent A house, rent a villa.
Speaker 3: They can literally go anywhere they want to go. But
Speaker 3: my assignment was to make home feel better than that.
Speaker 3: So it's me against like man against the world.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: You know, did this make you nervous?
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: And it offered me an opportunity.
Speaker 3: To build that tile by tile, pillow by pillow, book
Speaker 3: by book, and create a space that dreamt a bigger
Speaker 3: dream for them as a family than they had even
Speaker 3: dreamt for themselves.
Speaker 1: How did you figure that out about We.
Speaker 3: Had the architectural framework there, We knew it was a house,
Speaker 3: we knew it had these many bedrooms and these many
Speaker 3: bathrooms and whatever. But we started with a lot of
Speaker 3: imagery and I just watched their eyes as they commented,
Speaker 3: and I would ask them, why are you smiling when
Speaker 3: you're talking about that fireplace. You've never picked a fireplace
Speaker 3: in your entire life, But what is it that you.
Speaker 2: 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 2: 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 and the marble and the countertops and the trim,
Speaker 3: but we'll just go around the baseboards and the doors.
Speaker 2: 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 it you know, the goal is
Speaker 3: not just to assemble something that's beautiful and meaningful, but
Speaker 3: it's to delight the people who have spent this time
Speaker 3: and money hiring you to do something. And I have
Speaker 3: to say, I get a text from them weekly. They
Speaker 3: moved in over a year ago. Yeah, and then they
Speaker 3: just we just love it here, like we just you know.
Speaker 1: The greatest thing would be if they stop traveling. Right,
Speaker 1: how much do you travel?
Speaker 2: I travel a lot?
Speaker 1: How much for fun and how much work? Or is
Speaker 1: there no distinction in the sense that you're always collecting.
Speaker 2: I, oh, yeah, I mean there is a distinction.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, I'm going to a beach trip with
Speaker 3: my kids, you know that I know what I'm doing there.
Speaker 3: But all the work trips, I mean I spent twenty
Speaker 3: five years doing makeovers in all these towns across the country,
Speaker 3: some time 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 wanted 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. You're like,
Speaker 3: you know, wearing the wrong shoes. Of course, you know,
Speaker 3: even though we're well traveled, we.
Speaker 2: Wanted to look cute. You want to look cute when
Speaker 2: you're in Madrid. So we got back to the hotel
Speaker 2: and he like had his.
Speaker 3: Feet in the bathtub and just sitting there like sort
Speaker 3: of softly moaning. And I was on the bed with
Speaker 3: one of the magazines that was in the hotel, and
Speaker 3: as I was reading this men's fashion story, I was
Speaker 3: looking intently at all these decorative boxes and objects and
Speaker 3: frames and like leather from the fifties and like all
Speaker 3: this like really cool stuff. And then I went to
Speaker 3: the back of the magazine and found the credit and
Speaker 3: it said the name of this store. And I called
Speaker 3: 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 the 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. I'm so exhausting.
Speaker 1: Describe to me when you encounter spaces for the first time,
Speaker 1: what's your process of judgment? Do you do you always
Speaker 1: have a kind of reaction to it?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself frequently appalls outraged?
Speaker 2: No, I'm never I'm never outraged.
Speaker 1: You know because you know I asked this question because
Speaker 1: my version of what you do is stories, and what
Speaker 1: a story is badly told.
Speaker 2: I am furious.
Speaker 1: I just parenthetically wasted a good three weeks of my
Speaker 1: life and I have no free time to smuntle watching Ozark,
Speaker 1: and after a season and a half, I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is absolutely indescribably appalling. How do they do this? I
Speaker 1: want to go after the showrunner and just say, you
Speaker 1: destroyed three weeks of my life. Do you have any
Speaker 1: idea out precious that is to me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't have this, so you don't know
Speaker 2: the rage. You know the rage?
Speaker 3: No, I mean I don't both virgos, I know. I
Speaker 3: mean I have rage about other things. I have rage
Speaker 3: about dirty laundry, but I don't rage about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I know. I mean. The answer to your question, though,
Speaker 2: 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? All right, Like, yeah, it's the
Speaker 3: same thing, it's the same scene every episode.
Speaker 1: Ozon if it's so much the ox.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, talk about travel, don't start another casino And.
Speaker 1: Then like in like in like at the end of
Speaker 1: episode one, you know Laurel Lenny Wendy says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a spot in Australia all picked out.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Floor there, move this doorway over three feet.
Speaker 3: And by the time, I mean most of our renovations
Speaker 3: actually and this is true, most of our renovations, and
Speaker 3: we've renovated everywhere we've ever lived We've never just walked
Speaker 3: in and been like, this is great, my little plant air,
Speaker 3: It's gonna be perfect. But every single renovation started with
Speaker 3: going home and writing out initial ideas and short and
Speaker 3: those initial ideas were eighty five percent of the final product.
Speaker 3: The instant knee jerk reaction of how the room should flow,
Speaker 3: how the space should be laid out. Not for furniture
Speaker 3: floor plans, because you know, we're two designers, like we
Speaker 3: move stuff around all the time, But in terms of
Speaker 3: the actual bones of a place, it's like a film
Speaker 3: just comes down and on the film I can see it.
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm reminded of as you talk about
Speaker 1: it's like a point guard describing what he or she
Speaker 1: sees on a basketball court.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And that is a logic 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.
Speaker 1: But let me try again. No, No, there is a
Speaker 1: kind of no. But what's what's funny about listening to
Speaker 1: you say that, which makes perfect sense to me, because
Speaker 1: that's that is your gift, right, that's The essence of
Speaker 1: what you do is being able to see a different,
Speaker 1: a different and more interesting version 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,
Speaker 3: but like it's going to be better for whoever lives there.
Speaker 1: But Nate, how does this? I want to go back
Speaker 1: to this question of why you don't feel rage? So
Speaker 1: if you go in and you can't change it, how
Speaker 1: do you cope? You come to my house for dinner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you walk in and you do that thing, and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh god, I was called like fifty things wrong.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, you're not going to change it.
Speaker 1: And now he's not a client.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna be here. So what do
Speaker 1: you do? You sit uncomfortably through dinner just thinking.
Speaker 2: Why is that there? Now? What do you think? You
Speaker 2: know what?
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's, 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 they're doing looks like, because my mother made
Speaker 3: nothing growing up, So I I mean that sounds delicious.
Speaker 2: I don't even care.
Speaker 1: I love how large your mother has loomed. I know,
Speaker 1: what's your mother's name, Nancy shout out to Nancy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. But yeah, she has been looming
Speaker 2: at large.
Speaker 1: And you know why it is because I my favorite
Speaker 1: thing is talking about people's parents. You do.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that I.
Speaker 1: Could talk about Peole's parents. If you told me I
Speaker 1: could do this, I would have made this the entire
Speaker 1: show about your mom.
Speaker 2: You would love that.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk. Let's just talk about your mom.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Get people think moms get like too much airtime. Wrong, yeah,
Speaker 1: way too little airtime. It's all about mom.
Speaker 2: My mom is aware of that.
Speaker 1: My mom actually is not, which is one of her charms.
Speaker 3: That is terming. I can't imagine. That's like a point
Speaker 3: guard too.
Speaker 2: My mother.
Speaker 1: If you if you talk on the phone with her
Speaker 1: too long, she will she'll remind you you of other
Speaker 1: things to do.
Speaker 2: 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 ragefull when I come for a
Speaker 3: meat loaf at someone's house.
Speaker 2: No, I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: I'm here and we're getting back to this series, okay,
Speaker 1: and that is I'm trying to understand how you manage
Speaker 1: your You have a powerful aesthetic sense, right, which dominates
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah, it's why you're who you are, why
Speaker 1: you're good at what you do.
Speaker 2: But I can't answer that. I know where we're doing,
Speaker 2: how you manage it. There's two things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, One, there's a time and a place for everything,
Speaker 3: and I believe that. And so if I'm looking at
Speaker 3: a property because I'm going to live there personally, then
Speaker 3: I 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 2: 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 2: Like? What really makes me Rageye? Actually good, I'm glad
Speaker 2: we're finally getting get you ready?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, here you go, mister Malcolm Gladwell, now, mom, you
Speaker 3: know why what makes me ragie is people who are
Speaker 3: really confident in their bad taste. Yeah, 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 2: 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 2: But that makes me insane.
Speaker 1: Do you want to name names at all of it?
Speaker 2: 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 2: I have my own convictions. I know what I think
Speaker 2: 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 was always like, what's the trend?
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Going to agree? Is he gonna whatever? And I've always.
Speaker 3: Felt like all these waves, these trends are designed to
Speaker 3: make people feel bad about what they didn't buy at
Speaker 3: the last trend. And so my whole philosophy has always
Speaker 3: been like, if you actually spend the time to get
Speaker 3: to know yourself well enough to know what you really do,
Speaker 3: enjoy what really like makes your heart sing when you
Speaker 3: look around a space, then you can shut out all
Speaker 3: that noise and build something that matters. Because the hit
Speaker 3: the interiors that I've been inspired by over the years,
Speaker 3: the ones that really mattered to me are the ones
Speaker 3: where people just like kind of busted a move.
Speaker 2: 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 and he put a
Speaker 3: royal blue rugged in the dining room with Kelly Green
Speaker 3: chairs because no one was doing that, and that's what
Speaker 3: he wanted to live in. And maybe it was because
Speaker 3: he was half from Mexico. Maybe it wasn't, who knows,
Speaker 3: but it was revolutionary. And you know, had he been
Speaker 3: worried about what color the sweaters on the mannequins and
Speaker 3: Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue, we're going to be like
Speaker 3: it was. You know, it was inconceivable. So am I
Speaker 3: like a real renegade? Am I breaking all these rules?
Speaker 3: Am I zahadde making buildings that look like they balance
Speaker 3: on the bottom of a pin?
Speaker 2: And you know, no, I'm not.
Speaker 3: My goal is to make like really livable spaces that
Speaker 3: if they're designed right now, twenty five years from now,
Speaker 3: they still look great and more importantly, they still feel great.
Speaker 3: So that's my niche. That's what matters. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the like, what all this loathing people with lots
Speaker 3: of money and bad tastes and being vehemently anti and
Speaker 3: you know you end up with.
Speaker 2: With some nice tyle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, last question, Yeah, not meant to be a
Speaker 1: downer question, but imagine that you were sad. You were
Speaker 1: melancholy over so Slumpsley and I came to you, Nate,
Speaker 1: and I said, I will fly you tonight to the
Speaker 1: one place in the world that will cure you of
Speaker 1: your melancholy. Where do I take you home? Oh? That's lovely.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Nate. This has thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this special live episode of Revision's History, brought to
Speaker 1: you by AC Hotels. It was produced by Tali Emlin
Speaker 1: with Nina Lawrence and ben adfh Haffrey, editing by Sarah Nis,
Speaker 1: mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Kira Posey, Joshua Crowley, Brion Moreno, Raya, Anthony,
Speaker 1: Benjaminjuster and the whole production crew at iHeartMedia. Not to
Speaker 1: mention Nate Berkus's shop, I'm Malcolm Gladwell.