It wasn’t as though you could stop me from being a
designer---I was re-arranging the furniture in my parents’ house from
childhood. I had very early interests in
art, architecture, and all things relating to design. On summer afternoons my mother would pack me
down to the local park, where I would eschew the other organized children’s
activities to ask the other kids what they’d want their dream houses to be (even
young children already have ideas as to how they might want to live), then I’d
draw up their dreams and sell the sketches for a penny a story---ten cents got
you an elaborate fantasy tower or a cathedral.
My parents provided for me a subscription to Architectural Digest when
it was published in black and white, twice a year (this was truly a long time
ago). Being raised in a small town in
Kansas, my imagined world of palaces and mansions remained for me fascinating
but elusive, as experienced only in books and magazines. But I
found the siren song of beautiful architectural settings ever seductive, and I
sought out the images of refined buildings and interiors in every source I
could find. As I progressed up the
educational ladder, my interest in the built environment became more
sophisticated through my studies of architecture and historic design. As I
began to travel in my later youth, great architectural sites were always my
destinations of choice, places where I could hone my eye for detail and
experience three dimensionally the spaces I had so long admired only from the
pages of books. A study trip to Europe
upon finishing high school was a life-changer for me, opening up my world ever
further to the possibilities of art and design.
I studied architecture and interior design in Chicago, and at
age 24 opened my first independent design studio in New Orleans. Both of these cities were immensely
influential in broadening and shaping my appreciation of architecture and
design. Based now in Los Angeles for
twenty-five years, my career has afforded me many, many opportunities to turn
those childhood yearnings for beauty into very three dimensional hotels and resorts, spas, country clubs,
grand residences and yes, even palaces, in far flung destinations around the
world. I have never tired of the quest
to create beautiful places---the impulse and the challenge remain as fresh for
me today as they were in the dreams of my youth. What has changed for me, though, is my
attitude toward the significance of the role of architects and designers. I have come to more fully understand the
enormous psychological and cultural impact the built environment has on all of
society, for better or for worse, in benefitting or deterring the progress of
civilization and its effects on the inhabitants of all environments. For me the practice of design is far more
than the conscious arrangement of spaces, furnishings, objects, and light,
though it is all of that; it is, most importantly, the exercise of bringing
order, harmony, and well-being to the lives of my clients, to make their dreams
come alive in a way that enhances how they move through life by creating
environments for them that set the stage for their life passages. I find this a huge but very gratifying responsibility,
one that has lent vitality and purpose to all of the work I have done. As I have come to understand that the built
environment is responsible, by far, for the consumption of energy and resources
in this country and elsewhere, through the construction and operation of
buildings, in a manner of ever escalating consumption of resources over the
past century, I have tried to apply my work to the larger goal of working
within sustainable practices and design possessing longevity of purpose and quality. The need for beautiful, uplifting, and
responsible design is great in our rapidly evolving world, a challenge I find even
more stimulating today than when I started down the path of design
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