Hello and welcome to episode 148 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast, we have a great interview with Steve Saeed
of Furnished Quarters. It's a really interesting
conversation. I was quite curious about the
topic and let me tell you a little bit more about him.
With a successful 30 year career as a lawyer before making a bold
pivot into interior design, Steve brings a unique
perspective on the intersection of hospitality, creativity and
functionality. Since joining Furnished
Quarters, he has played a pivotal role in defining the
company's signature design aesthetic, ensuring that each
residence provides A stylish, comfortable and genuinely
elevated stay for corporate travellers.
Furnished Quarters does a lot of furnished apartments for
travelers. But really interesting talking
to him about multifamily, just the difference of doing design
for a single family and doing it more on a corporate level,
hospitality level, and I think you're going to really like the
conversation. So let's get into it.
You're now listening to Design Curious, the place where you,
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be an interior designer, and I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca
Ward. If you're worried about how to
succeed in a creative career, if you're ready to learn your next
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let's dig into today's episode. Hey Steve, welcome to Design
Curious podcast. It's great to have you here
today. Great to be here.
Thank you. Yeah.
So as I understand it, your career started in law and then
you transition to interior design and you're working in
hospitality design. Is that correct?
More or less. I say more or less because we
are an interesting combination. We are hospitality, but we're
not hospitality in the sense that we aren't running a
traditional hotel. People who stay with us
generally have to stay no less than 30 days.
So it really becomes a home rather than a hotel room and
that's the way I view it. We did at one point have a hotel
and we designed it somewhat differently because we
understood that people might just be staying 3 or 4 nights,
but in our units they're staying for longer periods of time.
So I'm trying to convey a sense of home rather than typical
hospitality, stay for a night or two and then move on to next.
So what's an interesting combination?
Yeah, Yeah, for sure, definitely when you're considering that
it's a still kind of a transient living situation, but that
they're there for so long months maybe at a time and.
Believe me, we have people who have been with us for a couple
years. Oh wow.
Some are so transient. OK, but.
The average stay is about 60 or 90 days.
Wow. OK, so let's back it up a little
bit and 1st talk about how you got into designing in the first
place. Well, I guess I should start
from the beginning, so to speak. My dad hobby was arts, he was a
painter, ceramics, and when he retired he got into calligraphy
and other forms of art. So that head was always there,
though my mother had no interest in any of that.
That was not her talents. I considered what I did in law
creative in the sense that you had a problem and you had to
come up with a solution. And I was very good in saying,
if you don't like solution A, I'll give you here solution B,
you know, B doesn't work. I can come up with CI mean that
was sort of my talent. And I, I guess I always had an
affinity to surround myself friend wise, to get client wise
for a moment with people who were in the arts, whether it be
floral designers or interior designers or painters or chefs.
And they did ultimately become clients of mine.
And what really got my interest going was I had a German client
who wanted to open a series of fashion shops around the world.
And he asked me and my partner, we were his lawyers, for help in
recommending a store designer. And right at that time an
article appeared in the New York Times about the hottest young
store designers in New York. I got intrigued by the group
that designed Studio 54, Ron Dowd, Scott Bromley, Rennie
Reynolds, Bird Malice, all of these people who were all
friendly but also doing business together.
And I arranged a meeting with them, ultimately became they
were ultimately hired. We travelled around the world.
The deal ultimately fell through but we became good friends and
they really piqued my interest in design and learning what they
really did. You don't really know how
involved a process it is and I got more and more involved in
having clients who were in various aspects of the design
world, fashion world, etcetera. And ultimately I met Steve Brown
who is one of the Co owners of Furnished Quarters and he said
why don't you join us? You've always said you'd like to
do something other than law. Why don't you come join us?
We're going to open a furniture store.
This is how it's all started and you can run the store now.
I knew nothing about running this.
I did had traveled the world with Steve at that point.
We would go to Milan, we'd go to Frankfurt looking at furniture
for furnished quarters, apartments and things that we
could buy in bulk containers, etcetera, until I was familiar
with what was out in the marketplace.
And about couple weeks before the store was scheduled to open,
Steve's brother Gary called and said, you know, I've thought
about it and I think you're right.
We shouldn't be opening a furniture store.
We don't know anything about it. It's crazy.
I said, well, that's great. I think that's terrific.
I agree with that idea. But I've already given my law
firm notice telling him I'm leaving.
And he said, well, don't worry about it, Come join us and we'll
find something for you to do. And initially they put me into
operations, and that didn't work at all.
I didn't know anything about operations, and the operations
people were not too thrilled to have a new boss who knew nothing
about operations. I found my way into design and
we all soon all realized this was an actual that I had finally
found my home and my niche and something I always wanted to do
and here I had an opportunity to do it.
So that's how it all came about in short version.
Wow. Yeah.
So you never really knew from the beginning that design was
where you wanted to land. You just see that creativity
was. Was the guiding feature not
designed per SE? Although I didn't think I had
any talent in the fashion area, frankly, although I spent a lot
of time with clients of mine who are in the business, people like
Susan Dennis and Warren Edwards, etcetera, but that was not my
thing. Interior design was something I
drifted to and liked and spent time reading the shelter
magazines and so on and so forth.
So it was always an interest, but it was never my idea to be
at a material design. Wow, how interesting.
And then do you miss law at all, or if you never looked back?
Not one bit. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
I mean your. Design is challenging, I have to
say. I love law and I love practicing
law. But what I didn't like at the
end is the business of law. It's changed dramatically to
it's eat what you kill and it's very doggy dog and it's a
constant chase for clients. And once you get the client, you
got to get them billed and then you got to collect the bill.
Forgetta, I'm much happy in my new world.
Yeah, yeah. So then you went into the
interior design segment of this company, but you weren't really
involved with any of the business side of it as well as
the larger company, right. So in.
The beginning I was because it wasn't as big OK was involved in
various aspects. But today, although I'm on the
exact, to me I'm pretty much involved just in the design
world. It's enough to keep me busy.
I don't need some of the other problem.
I have these to deal with. Yeah.
Well, I'm not extremely familiar with furnished quarters because
it's not anything that I've ever had need of.
But why don't you explain to our audience as well?
So what furnished corners? Because you've been with them
for a while now and you definitely have a lot of
projects that you've worked on over the years.
So tell us what you guys do. Essentially what furnished
quarters is, is it is providing furnished apartments primarily
to corporate travellers, but some individuals as well.
It started out as almost exclusively individuals.
When they opened the company, they didn't have one corporate
client and over the years they developed an extensive portfolio
of companies that they serve really around the world.
Their primary thrust is in New York, New Jersey, White Plains,
Boston and San Francisco. But that being said, booking,
it's all over the world. A lot of clients want what we
call one stop shopping. I come to you, you book my needs
in cities. Even if you don't have your own
inventory in those cities, you have partners and you deal with
all the work particulars that I don't have to get involved.
So we do a lot of global work. What we've heard of is global.
Yeah. Do you design from afar or do
you have to visit these sites? It's a mix.
When we partner with other
companies, they have their unit, they're furnished and we've done
our due diligence and agreed that they meet or have to meet
certain standards that we have which our clients expect.
And we don't normally travel to those.
For all your own units, whether they be in Boston or San
Francisco or whatever, we travel when we're sending them out.
After we set them up and we're satisfied, then locals can
maintain them. But the original setup is US,
and it also enters into the way we design these units.
When Steve is Brown is contemplating taking a new
building or units in a building, either myself or my assistant go
to that building and we look at the lobby, we look at the
hallways, we look at the apartment and that tour
generally tells us what that apartment should look like.
Should it be very modern stealing glass or should it be
more towards the traditional side?
Does it need a lot of color or is there too much going on in
the hallways that this needs to be very subdued and very calm?
We really go building by building.
Unlike I always had a lot of our competitors, most of our
buildings do not look like our other buildings.
They're very the visualized based on where the building's
located, what the lobby looks like, what the kitchen looks
like, what the bathrooms, what the feel of it.
Your apartment talks to you or talks to it tells us what it
should look like. Yeah.
And then do you typically have multiple apartment units within
that building or is it just one or two?
OK. It doesn't pay for us.
It's not economic to take one or two units.
We try not to take less than generally 5 is the least,
usually 10 at least because of the minute of the ability to
service them in terms of any repairs or cleanings or any of
that. You need some mass to make it
anomic to do that. So we don't take a 1 here and a
one there. That's very, very rare, except
we have what we call FQ Select. There's always an exception to
everything, right? FQ Select is a collection of
higher and luxury apartments. Luxury in terms of the buildings
and maybe where they are located.
There may be on 5th Ave. or Park Ave. or they may be in Tribeca.
They are in high end buildings with white glove service.
We furnished these units with high end furnishings and art.
And while we don't customize units to each individual, people
who take these FQ Select units usually give us some ideas of
what they would like to see. And if the unit's not already
furnished, then we're going to be furnishing it for them and
we'll consult with them just to get a feel of, you know, we show
them what we do and they're generally pretty happy with it.
So in those cases, we may just have one or two units in a
building, but that's not typical for us.
So then the other cases where you have like 5 to 10 maybe
units, do you come up with a plan specific for a unit within
that building and then all 5 or 10 have that design we come up?
With a scheme. Yeah, OK.
Each even though we have let's say 10 units, they'll be broken
Cam between studios, 1 bedrooms and two bedrooms and even within
the one bedrooms or say let's say not all one bedrooms would
say they may have two or three lines.
So you come up with a scheme. This is the overall scheme of
what is going to look like the colors, the materials, etcetera.
And then we'll adjust it per apartment.
OK. And then you're mainly just
doing the furnishings right, not like changing any of the
finishes that already come with the apartment.
We. Can't change the finishes OK,
although I would love to sometimes, I really sometimes
don't like them. We are stuck with more, and we
take that into account before we take a building.
We generally would not go into a building where we intensely
dislike the finishes. I mean, sometimes you'd
compromise and you'd say, well, I'd rather have that white than
black or vice versa. But generally we're OK with the
finishes. Where it really becomes
problematic is how do you deal with things like wallpaper if
you want to use it. And we have been very fortunate
to discover a wallpaper that peels right off, doesn't take
the sheetrock off. And we use that quite a bit to
give some texture and warmth to our apartments.
One of the problems in doing corporate housing, and I'll use
that as a generic term for what we do, is you can't use in the
apartments some of those things you typically use for warmth.
For example, you can't put plants in the apartment, but
who's going to water them? Books tend to disappear,
unfortunately, and everybody wants to read something
different. So the one of the ways that
we've come up with in trying to create some warmth is to add a
wallpaper that brings a pattern and one that's brings warmth
into the room and some interest without being offensive to
anyone. Well, we do use that.
And traditionally we had also used accent walls to bring some
color and land into rooms, and we still do that.
Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about.
That those are the problems of a corporate housing company or a
company that has people who only stay for 30 days.
I'd love to put plants and flowers and all that in, but
it's not practical. Right.
I have a terrible aversion to plastic plants.
Yeah, well, because then he's going to, I mean, first of all,
they don't look real, and then he's going to maintain that
dusty. Yeah, exactly.
Dust collectors. Yeah, yeah.
No, that's, that's a good point because a lot of those, the
plans and the books, those are like the homey finishing touches
that we'll typically do in a home where it doesn't feel quite
ready to move in until you get those things in there.
But without being able to do that, yeah.
But we do try to find other accessories like candlesticks or
bowls or things that add warmth and color and a sense of home.
It says that that's what you need.
OK, so we do add that. So you're pretty much an expert
on furnishings because that's basically what you have to focus
on is like bringing it all out with those furnishings because
you can't really touch except for the wallpaper, but yeah.
And to do that, we do a good bit of travelling.
Stephen and I do. And when we travel, like we just
came back from Paris, what we like to do is walk the streets,
go into the design stores, go into the antique stores.
Not that we're necessarily buying anything, but just to get
a feel of what are the trends, what's out there in the
marketplace, what are people turning to in terms of interior
design that we get a sense of what's happening in the market.
And we go to High Point, NC, which you may or may not know is
the center of the furniture industry in the US.
And twice a year they have the showrooms open and they have a
market. We used to go twice a year.
We now go once a year unless the need arises, and then we'll let
we go twice. As far as the economy and
everything that's been happening and coming through Covic, did
that affect your business a lot because people maybe weren't
traveling so much or? Yes.
And I think we are all on, if I may, tender hooks waiting to see
what the effect of the towers is going to be.
I think we're in. I can't speak for Steve.
I'm anticipating A slowdown, people traveling less
individually. We've got a sense of a lot of
people in Europe, very anti American feelings developing,
but they don't want to come to this country.
Certainly Canadians are not coming to this country.
That's going to affect travel, particularly to New York.
I think companies are sitting on cash waiting to see what's going
to happen. Should they build a new factory?
Should they do this? Should they do that?
Should they take new offices and move people around?
I think it's going to impact all of everybody's business.
Now, whether that's permanent or just temporary, I don't think
anybody else, but I think we're all waiting to see what's going
to happen. Some of our vendors in North
Carolina have sent us notice saying they're raising their
prices because the tariffs, because most of them don't
manufacture in the US, although they have offices and warehouses
here, they don't manufacture here.
They manufacture either in the Far East or in Europe, mostly in
the Far East and they're adding 10 or 15%.
And during COVID it was worse because of the transportation
tie up. Most of our vendors added like
20% surcharge. To cover the increased cost of
shipping, which made merchandise very, very, very expensive and
difficult for us. Yeah, in certain times, but it
seems like French quarters has been navigating it pretty well
so. Far so good.
I here I'd knock on it, but I, I think it's fair to say we're all
concerned. We're watching the marketplace
to see what demand is and at the same time keeping tabs on what
our vendors are telling us. The next furniture market, which
we're not planning to go to is in April, and I'm very anxious
to hear from some of the vendors that we're close to.
How many people attended market and how many people actually
placed orders or were people lookers and saying I'll let you
know I'm thinking about it and not ordering merchandise.
So we'll get a sense after this market what's happening in the
industry, but I'm nervous about it.
Yeah. So besides High Point, do you go
to the shows like in Milan and then Maison up J or anything
like that in Paris or? We used to do all of them.
OK. Maison is primarily an object
show and it's really not a furniture show.
Frankfurt's a primarily the tabletop show though we used to
go and it did some furniture. Milan is the one that I really
intrigues me and I really like. What happened is we stopped
going because the dollar lira that now euro ratio got out of
whack. So things became so expensive
that they were not affordable. The dollar euro exchange rate
was improving in our favor. It was almost 1 to 1.
And Steven and I talked about, oh, well, maybe we should go
back to Italy. It's now one to one, except that
that rate is now falling full through the floor.
It's like $1.15 to 1. So it's become very expensive
again. That's a 15% increase when you
get to shipping or anything else.
So I'm not sure how much we're going to do now.
Most of a lot of the Italian companies we deal with show at
High Point, so we don't need to necessarily go to Milan to see
what the new introductions are. Then of course, there are a lot
of companies that don't show. And if I had, my job is, mind
you, not that I wouldn't like a trip to Italy, but who would
complain about that exactly? But it's.
I mean, I love going to Milan. The energy of that city, the
people who don't know what they think, It's not this disgusting,
ugly city. What do you like about it,
really? It's an incredible design city
with great energy behind the walls.
But I think we were looking to get back to going to Milan.
I'm just not sure it's feasible, again because of the euro dollar
exchange rate. Yeah, yeah.
Do you ever come out West to I'm?
I'm in California so I usually go to Las Vegas market.
We used to go to the Las Vegas market and what we found was it
was hardly worth it because 90% are making that number of the
vendors who show at the Vegas market show in High Point.
So we were seeing exactly the same vendors with the virtually
the same furnishings. They were dairy few
introductions in the biggest market, but the majority of new
introductions tend to be in the high port fall market.
But to be honest there have been very few new introductions in
the last few years. Most of the vendors got caught
literally with their pants down during COVID.
They brought furniture in with high shipping costs and then all
of that, the shipping costs went away and they were stuck with
this high-priced merchandise in their warehouse.
And fortunately at least one of the vendors that we had dealt
with for years went out of business because of what
happened to him with being stuck with high price inventory.
So we don't go to Vegas unless some of our vendors gave us a
reason and said they were doing introductions there that they
were not bringing to the High Point market.
It really doesn't make sense for us to do that.
Yeah, that makes sense. So you said you like to get
inspiration. You did a trip to Paris recently
and just kind of visit those. What other ways do you get
inspiration for your designs? You know, I was thinking about
that because I was assuming you were going to ask me the
question and I was could say really inspiration comes from
anything and everything. Walking down the street seeing,
but we're in Miami and it's pretty sophisticated here and
you walk down the street and you see people well dressed and that
gives you inspiration. Fashion gives you inspiration.
Art. Steven and I, our favorite
things to do is to go to museums and to go to art galleries, not
necessarily to buy, but to be inspired by colors or patterns.
When we were in Paris, we went to the LVMH gallery, which was
having a show about flowers. And I'm not particularly into
flowers, that's just not my thing in art.
But it was terrific and it really was very inspiring and
made me rethink what I think about floral Wallpapers, prints
or stuff. It was terrific.
So you get inspired by everything.
I can't say. That it's any one thing and it
doesn't be a particular design thing.
Although I do thumb through the design magazines, I don't find I
really get much ideas. I do see what others are doing,
but I don't get any ideas from the ideas come from the street,
comes from fashion, comes from art, or any.
Because. Anything can be an inspiration.
A plate in a restaurant that's beautifully presented can be an
inspiration for sure. I really, we were out the other
night in a new restaurant here in Miami and the food was so
beautifully arranged. I want you to take, I said to
see, let's take a picture of that.
I like that color combinations and you know, you never know
where inspiration comes from. You have to be open to it.
And I think I've learned that from all of the creative people
I've associated myself with, or I've been around people like
Benjamin Noriega Ortiz, and it really just be inspired by
whatever you see. It doesn't be piece of
furniture. Yeah, well, that's great advice.
So what else would you advise young and up and coming
designers who maybe are thinking they might want to get into the
hospitality area? Do you have advice for someone
who's considering this Ave. of design?
If you think that that's something you'd like to do, what
I strongly advise young friends and family members etcetera, get
an internship and they are available with well known
designers. No, you're not going to make a
lot of money and if that's what you're looking to do, you're
wasting your time. But you will get a sense A you
really like it, B if you have any talent for it, and C you'll
see what the business is really like.
It's not just sitting down with little fabric swatches and
designing something. It's quite the opposite.
And you better develop your computer skills because more and
more designed to is being done using various computer programs.
And you really need to know that in order to get a job today.
And people that I have met, young people coming out of FIT,
and the other designs school all have had that background.
And you need it. You can't just get in it without
that talent. Even if you hate it, you need to
learn it. Do it.
Yeah. And practice it because that's
what's required. For sure.
Yeah. Well, that's great advice.
Thank you so much, Steve, for coming on today and sharing your
journey. It's.
Been a pleasure, thank you and if I can provide any more info
don't hesitate to call me. Yeah, I'll put your information
in the show notes so people can reach out to you.
It's just really fun getting to know you today.
Stay here. Thank you.
Take care. Bye.
So I hope that sparked some
interest for you. Maybe that is an Ave. that you
could look into doing some interior design for.
There's something out there for everyone.
And you know what? I think it's so inspiring with
Steve's transition from his career as a an attorney into
being an interior designer. That just shows that anybody can
do it. And so don't be afraid of making
the switch. And if you need help with that,
I have a great program for you called My Design Mentor.
You can check out the links for that in the show notes.
But it's an online mentorship platform and anywhere in the
country you can meet with me and I can help you get your career
started the right way. All right, that's all I have for
you this week. Next week we'll have another
great episode and until then, stay creative.
Thanks for listening. If you love this episode, please
leave a rating and a review. This helps me reach other
curious creatives like you. If you have a topic request or
would like to contact me, simply head over to my website
arworddesign.com or e-mail me at podcast at our War design.com.