People are often surprised to learn that I studied neuroscience. When Business of Home invited me to join its 50 States Project, a series of candid conversations with designers across the country, I finally had the chance to tell the whole winding story.
After college, I became a product manager at Nestlé, which hired only scientists for the role because it worked so closely with research and development. We launched new products from the ground up: the taste, the branding, the label, every piece of marketing. When we moved to Boston, I joined an internet firm that taught me to code, and in the late 1990s I designed and launched Sunglass Hut's first e-commerce site. Each of those jobs taught me a lesson I still use: understand the person on the other side completely, then give them exactly what they need to make a decision.
Design came later, through a friend from high school who had opened a design-build firm. She told me to come by anytime, so I did, two or three days a week, offering to help however I could. That unpaid internship became a job, and the job became my career.
Styling shaped me just as much. While we were on set together, Hilary Rose, the Chicago photographer and stylist, told me I could do her job. She brought me along on shoots, and I learned to see a room the way a camera does. Styling taught me something I have never forgotten: a room that is merely fine is not finished. When a client has invested in a beautiful space, it should feel extraordinary the day they walk in, which is why I often add a few vintage pieces as a surprise. Those small touches are the ones clients remember.
That attention is also why Twig & Trove is a boutique design firm by choice. I take on no more than three large-scale projects at a time, so each one receives my full focus, down to the last detail.
The conversation closed with a question about success, and my answer hasn't changed: it's about relationships. A beautiful room is satisfying, but it means far more when the client, the workroom, and the vendors all share in the excitement.
Read the full interview by Kaitlin Petersen, published in Business of Home in December 2023.