Ep. 120: Interior Architect Jamie Bush
Interior architect Jamie Bush grew up on a Long Island farm with machines, animals and free rein to explore. With farmers and eccentric creatives as his scrappy role models, he was always encouraged to make things, and to make his own way. After high school he ventured to New Orleans to find himself, come out, and study architecture. Now, having migrated further west to Los Angeles, he’s made a name designing organic modernist interiors for some of the most historically significant homes in the US.
Read the full transcript here.
Jamie Bush: Everybody has their own internal demons and strife and what you have to live with yourself with and that was something that was important to me.
Amy Devers: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers. And this is Clever. Today I’m talking to interior architect Jamie Bush. Jaime had a magical childhood in New York with his time spent going in between a family of eccentric creatives in Manhattan and dairy farmers on Long Island. He studied architecture at Tulane in New Orleans and then headed west to study unsung heroes of mid century modern residential architecture in Los Angeles. After stints at Marmol Radziner and Kelly Wearstler, he founded his own interior architecture and design firm in 2002 and since then has worked on some of the most significant historical residential modernist homes in the US. Recognized for his organic modernist sensibility and his ability to blur the lines between architecture and interior design, he’s worked up with some of the most respected names in the business, racked up tons of press and is featured on big lists of top designers and architects. Here’s Jaime.
JB: My name is Jamie Bush, I’m an interior designer located in Los Angeles, California. And I’ve been doing this for around 20 years and it’s really just an integral part of who I am and luckily how I get to spend my time.
AD: Yes, that does sound like you’ve carved out a pretty good life for yourself. We always like to learn about our guests and how they got to be the adults they are by going back to their childhood. And I did a little reading up on you and it sounds like your childhood is just incredible (laughs). I mean I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, so why don’t you tell us, paint the picture for us.
JB: You know, when you’re in something you don’t really sort of see it as being unusual and as I’ve gotten older I realized that I really, I did, I had a magical childhood. My family is from New York, we grew up on Long Island, Manhattan and I went back and forth between the city and sort of a city and country life. But really grew up in this little seafaring town on Long Island on the south shore called Bay Port.
And half of my family were farmers, they were dairy farmers on Long Island, which farming on Long Island has a rich history and really The Hamptons were, you know, just filled with farms, sort of growing up and why so many people went out there. But we had a dairy farm in East Hampton, in Holtsville. We had a huge vegetable farm and tractors and trucks and horses and ponies and dogs and rabbits and cats.
AD: Oh my gosh, wide open spaces, machines and animals (laughs).
JB: Yeah, amazing and we really worked on the farm. It was a hobby for my father and his inklings, you know, it wasn’t his career. So we didn’t live on the farm, but we spent a ton of time on the farm and so that was this bucolic, idyllic life of a child, you know, sort of growing up, growing and making things and then half of my other family, who actually grew up on the farm and moåved to the city, were in fashion and design and photography and painters and very, all creatives.
So I was sort of surrounded by people that made things, you know, whether growing things or creating things in sort of art and design. And so it was really this magical sort of duality of the sophistication and culture that Manhattan, you know, would bring. And also being very rooted in nature and working with your hands and sort of just literal hard work. Probably people now would call it child labor (laughs), but it was something that really taught me about makers and people that work with their hands and sort of creating something from nothing.
AD: It gives you a real tangible sense of, yeah, something from nothing, which is different than a cognitive or intellectual sense of something from nothing. When you actually put your body into it, it informs your world view, in a way.
JB: Oh, completely and the overlapping of that, because a lot of times these are segregated things as far as manual labor and the physicality of actually creating something versus the sort of more of a highfalutin, academic world of you know, which could be sort of design or the art world. We didn’t grow up in means necessarily. It was sort of acquired over time with people from their success of whatever endeavours that they were working with.
But a lot of my family did both, that I have a crazy story, like I had a great-aunt who was a mentor of mine. She was a very famous shoe designer and had like, you know, she has like 250 pairs of shoes in the Met and they had this, they did shoes for everybody in the day and won Coty Awards and all of this stuff. But she grew up on this farm and they were very jet set in the 50s and had a Rolls Royce and she would drive out in the Rolls Royce from Manhattan -
AD: Oh my gosh! (Laughs)
JB: Pop the trunk, get a pitch fork out of the trunk with a potato sack, go dig up potatoes and carrots and like weed in the garden, throw it in the back of the truck, in the Rolls and drive into the city.
AD: Whoa (laughs).
JB: And it’s like the sort of scrappy, these are like, you know, these Jewish intellectuals that it’s weird to have also Jewish farmers, aren’t something that you typically think of, but they were really these you know, hardworking Jewish almost like a blue collar family that sort of really worked their way up into these upper echelons of sort of art and design. And that really informed a certain work ethic, but also the interconnectedness of having an idea and then seeing it into fruition, if that makes sense, you know. So it’s not just a conceptual thing.
AD: Yeah, it totally makes sense because you’re seeing, you’re witnessing before you probably even have the verbal skills to articulate it, you’re witnessing people both working hard for fun and for pleasure, so much of what I struggle with in today’s society is that we’re still kind of telling our kids not to pursue creative professions because they’re not secure, economically.
JB: Sure.
AD: But if you have a window into that as a child, and then you also have a family system that supports it, and there’s interconnectedness between what hard work and the tangible fruits of the labor, like that sounds like it would really help your brain compute, how to make something out of that (laughs) for yourself.
JB: Yeah, yeah, no it did and we, as kids, we were surrounded by people that just worked. Nobody retired, you die. You basically work and then you die, but you work at things that you’re sort of either compelled to do or love to do, hopefully both. But, but I sort of, we were encouraged to sort of create our own jobs essentially. Starting at, I don’t know, six or seven until like, you paint shells and then you sell them on the side of the boardwalk or you would like, I seriously would like catch frogs at the beach and sell them (laughs).
And like, you know, and we had farm stands. I used to sort of, you know, pick vegetables and put them in a wagon and deliver them door-to-door and sort of sell them with my friends and you know. I mean you just make shit up and it was just a freedom that rather than a prescribed idea of what a job is, it’s just, I don’t know, if you want something, you wanna make some money, you sort of figure it out.
And it’s, that sort of scrappy attitude, I think that my whole family had, that gives you a certain amount of freedom, that you know, I was never fearful of failing or you know, something not working or, you know, you just, I don’t, were encouraged to problem solve on your own. You know, you weren’t babied or sort of led to anything, cause you see all these other people surrounded by you that are just making stuff up as well.
AD: Yeah.
JB: And now I see that as a very unusual sort of upbringing. But everybody in my family sculpted or painted or drew and a lot of people were just amateurs. Like they did it because it wasn’t a career move, it’s just something that they liked to do. And it was both sides of my family, my mother and my father. On my mom’s side, my grandfather made furniture and my grandmother was a potter and she painted.
And my dad sculpted out of farm machinery and made animal sculptures and my sister is a painter and like it just goes on and on. But not to any critical acclaim or financial stability, it was just more like you do that and some people found success and fame with some of it and some didn’t, but it was always, everybody had their hands in the pot as far as making stuff, which was quite unusual.
AD: Yes and it sounds like you were living pretty close to the earth too. You were catching frogs and selling them -
JB: Yes (laughs).
AD: Your aunt was digging up potatoes and throwing them in her Rolls Royce -
JB: Yeah.
AD: And how did that imprint on your psyche?
JB: Huge, I mean we didn’t have tremendous wealth necessarily, but besides the farm we always had a little beach house on Fire Island. My parents bought their beach house for $7,000, it was like one of these wooden shacks that was just set in nature and it was just a ferry ride away, but as a child being on Fire Island, that you basically hardly wear any clothes and you come home when it’s dark out.
And you’re digging up bones in the forest and bleaching them from the year before of the animals that have died there and sort of collecting bones and fishing and again, making things out of nothing. So we would spend summers tie-dying clothing and selling that or we would grow things on the island or you know, so many things, I was just surrounded by nature and a love of animals.
And the seasons, it was a very unscripted sort of Huck Finn type existence that was truly, hugely influential in the way I see design in the world. Like hopefully some of my work expresses a type of sort of organic modernism, something that really is about using natural materials and expressing their irregularities and inherent character with materials and forms, but it’s something that, it’s nothing that I even thought about. It’s just something that made sense to me as far as an aesthetic and how I sort of see the world and what I want to create.
AD: Yeah, there’s a rawness to your sophistication that makes it feel organic and of the earth, as opposed to hyper polished and over produced.
JB: Thank you, thank you.
AD: Yeah, so it feels, there’s a warmth there, I think -
JB: Yeah.
AD: There’s a depth that really allows somebody to kind of get intimate and connected to it, which is powerful.
JB: I think so much of it wanna channel their childhood, that’s essentially what I’m doing. You know, growing up in these wooden beach houses and my family were always gifted in finding interesting real estate. So people would live in like, literally would build these amazing tree houses or would have these old broken down cottages or you know, charming shingle style homes or camps in the Adirondacks or like magical sort of fairy-tale setting type places that they would inhabit.
Some would be falling apart (laughs) in a very like world of interiors way, but I always feel that channelling the freedom and the joy that I had as a child through my work and what I would play with and dream of, that sort of raw materiality in a grounded, very, almost like base level connection to people making things and hand-craftedness and a tangible sense of the handmade, to a certain extent.
And then also I really enjoyed contrasting that with something that is, you know, hyper saturated in tone or you know, something that is maybe seemingly synthetic but transcendent in its sort of light and space and form. Cause I think once you learn how to sort of create a language, then I think it’s almost irresistible not to contrast that in a certain sort of sense.
AD: Well, and the contrasts sort of celebrates both of them a little bit more, right?
JB: It does, yeah, no, it’s true because if you’re immersed in too much of the same all the time, you don’t see its inherent qualities because it’s sort of, it permeates everything and you’re completely surrounded… But it is true. By highlighting that as a contrast you do get to understand it better, I think.
AD: So back to your childhood, now your adolescence, I’m kind of wondering if you had all of this creative outlet and room to sort of run around and make your own path, did you have any angst or did you need to rebel at all? It doesn’t sound like there was even any sort of box for you to pull against (laughs).
JB: You know, I didn’t. My sister was super rebellious, so I think she took care of both of us (laughs).
AD: Okay, you got to have one of those! (Laughter) iconoclasts and anarchists -
JB: Yeah, yeah, she was a little more A type personality than I was (laughs). But I think I didn’t rebel necessarily, but at the end of high school I realized that I needed to sort of move away because I was closeted and, which seemed normal at the time and I didn’t have sort of any experience with my sexuality and I felt like I needed to get out of the north east and sort of plant myself in a completely foreign location where I knew nobody so I could sort of deal with that.
So that was more of a moment where I had to break from that life that I had previously, so I could sort of get my bearings. And I also, I knew early on that if I stayed in New York, that I would get help from relatives, career-wise and you know, just because of people that you know or connections or whatever. And I had a chip on my shoulder. I was really concerned about my own talents or lack of talent and I needed to sort of prove to myself that I could do it on my own.
So I decided to move away cause I just, I knew in a weird sense that if I got help, that I would never know if I could have made it on my own.
AD: It sounds like you made a pretty bold choice in order to support an identity that you could feel needed to grow from you, but couldn’t in the current environment?
JB: Yeah and you know, it sounds courageous, but it was more like fear (laughter). It was more the idea, one is like, I needed to you know, deal with being gay and what that meant on my own terms and not being surrounded by anybody that I knew. You know, cause I just, I don’t know, I just couldn’t deal. My family was not homophobic at all, I mean we have gay friends and gay relatives, it was just my own sort of like neuroses trying to like figure my own self out.
But I did, I don’t know, there’s some people in my family that have had great sort of critical success in their careers and they had no help. Everybody gets help at some point, but it’s more like they did it on their own, they weren’t sort of, you know, coming from a wealthy background or had, you know, family connections to their industry. It was sort of like starting from nothing. And so, it just felt like what you do -
AD: It sounds like that scrappiness is part of your value system and you needed to go prove yourself to yourself before you could, you know, fully enmesh yourself with a supportive network that you were privileged to have access to.
JB: Everybody has their own internal demons and strife and what you have to live with yourself with and that was something that was important to me. Because, I don’t know, it might not have worked, I might have become a, you know, an appliance salesman somewhere and been perfectly happy because I realized like, you know, I wasn’t good at what I wanted to do. Who knows, you know.
AD: But you went off to find yourself. Where did you go?
JB: For school, for schooling I went to the south, I went to New Orleans, a school called Tulane and I was so paranoid of getting, because I didn’t know where I was gonna end up and I literally, I applied to 13 colleges, just like (laughs), so freaked out because of, I was closeted and where I was gonna end up and I visited all these places and mostly in the north east and whatever. And I got in to Tulane thinking I was gonna be an artist.
Not that they have a great art school or anything, but I literally was, after I cut my places where I got accepted and denied, I got a map out and I measured on a ruler the furthest distance from my house (laughter) and I went there, sight unseen, had no idea what New Orleans was, never been there. Thought I would like swim in the Mississippi every day and like, you know, just clueless. And it was the best thing I ever did.
AD: Oh, I feel it, I’m sure!
JB: It was like, I knew nobody, it was a magical city, the school was great and beautiful and historic and celebratory and I started there. I went to undergrad and art school, taking art classes. And then just by chance, a bunch of my friends were in the architecture school and I used to hang out there and it just clicked. And earlier on my mother was like, you know, you’re good at math, you’re creative, why don’t you look at architecture. And I was like, that’s ridiculous, like you have no idea what you’re talking about (laughter), like that’s a terrible idea, it makes no sense.
And then, of course, I just, it was like I found myself, honestly, I just was like, my eyes, something just clicked. You know, my eyes just grew and I started hanging out there and all of a sudden it just made sense and so I transferred. And then just ate it up. It was just, they have a really good architecture school and I did my undergrad and my grad, I got my graduate degree in architecture. And it was, it was just, you know, luck, honestly, it was luck that I you know, landed there. And being in this sort of beautiful and relevant historical environment that New Orleans is, with such a history of
AD: It’s so rich
JB: And like they call it genius loci, like this very specific place on earth with its physical environment and historical nature and the urban fabric that was built around that was just an incredible laboratory to sort of study design and architecture in. And the school was, you know, it’s a modernist school, it’s not, you know, this historical sort of based design school. But that contrast just gave such an incredible sort of foundation to sort of work in and it was incredible fun.
I mean it was just such a, it was a very rigorous school, but then to have the outlet of the city itself was just brilliant.
AD: I wanna be there, I wanna be your friend, childhood, college, all of it (laughter), I’ll buy a frog!
JB: (Laughs) But what’s amazing is that, you know, fast forward to now, I was so fortunate to be sort of asked to be on the board of the school. So now I’m on the Board of Regions, on the university and so I go down there several times a year for board meetings that always correspond with jazz fests (laughs).
AD: Oh, that’s wonderful, how nice just to be continually embraced by an institution that also fostered such growth in yourself.
JB: Huge, it’s huge, you know, this year I lectured down there and it’s just a full circle. I mean it’s a homecoming to me and I feel so strongly connected to, not only the city but the school itself and then also to, you know, I’ve hired people from the school since. You know, I have people who were students there that are now in my office and you know, it is giving back, but I feel like gives to me because you, again, get to experience that time of your life and be reminded of you know, what it felt to be down there.
It was really such a fortunate time of my life and the background and all of that sort of, just taught me so much about, not only who I am, but the sort of freedom, again, to sort of create in such a rigorous manner, you know, this architecture school… Architecture schools are tough, you know. And you know, three quarters of the school doesn’t make it, so you’re graduating class (laughs) gets very boiled down to just a few. And yeah, it really informed my practice, hugely.
AD: So I have to ask a couple of major, and obvious questions. Did you also find yourself sexually, were you able, were you comforted and safe enough to come out?
JB: Yeah, you know, well, at first I joined, you know, cause I was totally closeted and I joined a fraternity because I just didn’t even know how to deal with this like lady killer fraternity on campus and it was the perfect guise for me just to not even, you know, have to deal with it. Except, you know, these guys were just total hunks that were just on a conquest. So you would have to like report your like weekly antics (laughs) at the sort of fraternity sort of Sunday evening dinners.
And I was just the token stoner. I would always be like in a tie dye t-shirt and sort of, people, would just easily pass over me, so I wouldn’t really have to deal (laughs). And that had a short sort of lifespan and then I eventually deactivated from that and hence met a bunch of gay guys from that fraternity afterwards, like that were closeted too but (laughs) - But New Orleans was like, you know, it was overload. I mean, because everything is decadent down there. The university provided this great shelter, but once you ventured out, I mean it was like, it was an amazing place to come out because it was super fun and there was no shame in any of it. And it was, you know, straight or gay, so many people are like sexually over the top and just letting it all hang out. So it was a really liberating place to sort of just find yourself.
AD: Yeah, liberating, no shame in any of it, that sounds like ideal conditions.
JB: Yeah and there were so many more extremes than you -
AD: Yeah (laughter), you weren’t gonna stand out.
JB: No, no, no, my friend, I had a lesbian friend who sort of went back and forth and she would hang out at this bar called the Double Play. So it’s basically for transsexuals that flip both ways. That was, you know, when you like are like surrounded by like every walk of life, you know, you just sort of blend in. It’s like what you’re dealing with is so no big deal, which was really sort of comforting. And also like, it just never became an issue, so.
AD: Well, the other question I have to ask is, contextually when were you there, what was your time in college?
JB: I went the late 80s, so I went from ’87 to ’93, so I was there six years.
AD: So well before Hurricane Katrina.
JB: Yeah, oh yeah.
AD: I’m sure it broke your heart on a number of levels.
JB: Yeah, you know, I mean, look, it was just a mess and a lot of my friends never left, so people lived down there fulltime and you know, if this was Boston or Philadelphia, some sort of, you know, centralized city that was more sort of connected to the rest of the US, it would have been a very different reaction. But things were still fucked up 10 years later, you know, and still are.
It was a mess to begin with, before Katrina (laughs), you know. Government was corrupt, city streets were like riddled with pot holes, there were so many things that never worked about New Orleans and that was part of its charm. You know, you get these cities that are really well run and get all gentrified and a lot of the character is sort of taken away. That never happened to New Orleans -
AD: No, it’s so rich in flavor.
JB: Yeah, and you know, so it was screwed up to begin with, but then Katrina just exasperated everything so much and the recovery, you know, I went down after Katrina and I would always go down, I would always spend time and you know, it was rough, you know, for so many people, for so long. And you know, the cities, I don’t know what you could say about it. I mean it’s come back to a level playing field of more of where it was; I guess if that’s what you call level playing field.
But it still floods; still these pumping stations don’t work. I mean there’s still so many problems with it, even after the army corps of engineers got involved. I mean so many things are still screwed up. It’s sort of laissez-faire attitude. People are just used to things not working (laughs) in the big scheme of things.
AD: Well, it’s still a place, I mean this is, I’m not close enough to New Orleans to really comment, but from a distance it seems to me like it’s a place where nature is still really winning.
JB: Yes, yes.
AD: And there’s a beauty in that too because man is sort of consistently in opposition and in harmony with nature there.
JB: It’s completely true. I mean you go there, it’s sub-tropical, so like wood rots constantly. You know, I lived in this house where we had, we lived upstairs and we had these, this couple that lived below us named Mildred and Top Cat (laughs) and I would come home from school and the whole front yard would be on fire because there’d be these ant piles that would be towering and they’d fill them with gasoline and light them on fire and sit in the rocking chair and like listen to them pop (laughter). But you’re like invaded by really this like relentless nature there, where everything is overgrown and sort of insects and plants will just destroy a house. And the floods and you know, it’s very much part of it, plus things are allowed to grow old. You know, I live in Los Angeles where like they’ll ‘trim a tree’ and it’s basically a stub. They like annihilate anything that actually will have an age or a patina or be allowed to sort of mature and like there you’re surrounded by hundred year old oak trees and just overgrown vegetation that’s so romantic and damaging (laughs) and -
AD: And powerful and -
JB: It’s all of that, but you just have to give into it. I mean it’s like -
AD: So back to you, you were there from ’87 to ’93 -
JB: Hmm-mm.
AD: Eventually we all have to graduate and leave school and step into the professional world, what did that transition look like for you? Where did you, your first few jobs, how did it feel?
JB: You know, I, I went home, I went back to New York and it was winter and I was doing some manual labor, I was literally digging a septic tank on a property that I was managing and I was just miserable. It was just like, I didn’t wanna be there (laughs) and it was freezing and I just realized I needed to sort of look elsewhere and a friend of mine, this artist, who I grew up with on Fire Island, this girl that I’ve known since I was four years old, she was in LA. And I didn’t really know about LA and what it was, but I studied a lot of modernist architecture in college.
And Manhattan for me, you know, you would really be doing interiors and this is when I, you know, I graduated with an architecture degree and I was interested in building. And at the same time there was a previous graduate named Bob Hale who was, he ran Frank Gehry’s office for years. And he just went on his own, he was a graduate and just starting out and he tentatively offered me a job. I don’t even know how I came out, but got wind I was maybe moving out there.
So I just picked up and with an older roommate of mine, or a friend from architecture school, I just moved out to LA thinking I’d be there for a year or two and try it out. I didn’t have a job yet. And it was great. I moved to Silver Lake, all my friends were living in Schindler apartments and Neutra houses, it was super cheap. You know, this is 25 years ago -
AD: Yeah, this would be like the mid-90s?
JB: Yeah, this was like ’94, literally I moved out a week before the Northridge earthquake (laughs). So we literally like had a little place in Silver Lake and within the week the earthquake hit and our place was like wrecked and you know, we were freaking out cause we just thought this is how it is. (Laughter) You know, this is like normal life in LA and that was a really strange sort of welcoming because Freeway Overpass collapsed and traffic was weird, everybody was like up on end.
But all of that said, I mean it was a really great time for me because Silver Lake at the time, there were just artists and architects and it was like very gay at the time, but like leather daddies, it was super Latino and sort of rough, you know? And -
AD: Silver Lake, yeah.
JB: It’s a long time and really fun and it opened my eyes. Like I just experienced all of this modernist architecture that was very much in tune with my sensibility of like simple buildings made of wood and steel and very much sort of indoor/outdoor living. That’s such a cliché now, but at the time you know, a lot of these sort of modernists were not, either known very well or revelled in. So when you’re an architecture nerd, or an artist, you know, these are the people that lived in these homes or maybe you were an academic.
But you know, for the most part nobody knew Schindler’s name or Lautner, maybe Neutra if you’re sort of like an art curator somewhere. And they were cheap and you know, and I became sort of a picker. I used to go to flea markets and buy furniture and go to these stores that were selling some mid-century stuff and selling stuff once in a while and hanging out there.
But I really, I got a job with Bob Hale knowing nothing. I just was useless, as a kid and just sort of starting to work with him and then I ended up, over time, working for some different architects. I worked for this firm, Marmol Radziner, a well-known firm at the time and they, when I was hired they were just finishing up Neutra’s Kauffman house in Palm Springs, which is sort of his most famous home that he created.
And that was sort of a big deal. And they were, it was these sort of homes were just really being sort of valued and preserved and considered relevant to look at. So I worked for Marmol Radziner and I worked for a couple of other architects and then I ended up starting my own firm with two guys from Marmol Radziner, an architecture firm. We had a little firm called Tight 4 and we would buy and sell houses and move into the garage and physically remodel them or do additions and then we had some clients of our own. But we were just, again, super scrappy, making stuff up and sort of moved to the West Side and sort of flipped places and did everything wrong you could possibly imagine running a business. Like having no idea how to do any of it.
AD: That’s the best way to learn how to do things right cause it hurts when you do it wrong (laughs).
JB: No, you know, like we had to figure it out and the stakes were low. It was still cheap and we were, you know, just making it up. And then I ended up befriending a woman who my boyfriend at the time was teaching her kids piano lessons. And she was a client of Kelly Wearstler’s and I went to a birthday party for her and Kelly was there and we met. I actually wrapped her present in this chinoiserie wallpaper and Kelly was like, is that wallpaper? (Laughs)
And then we sort of became friendly and one thing led to another and I got a job there. I realized I didn’t want to do architecture anymore, I tried a stint at doing interiors by myself for one job, which turned out well, but I realized I didn’t really know what I was doing.
AD: Okay.
JB: And then I worked for Kelly for about a year and that was amazing. That was such a great experience.
AD: So that’s gonna be the late 90s that you worked for Kelly?
JB: And this is before 9/11, it was probably 2000 and I worked on what was then called the [Astrayer?]. So that was a hotel that became the Viceroy -
AD: Palm Springs.
JB: Palm Springs, yeah, that was my project.
AD: I got married there (laughs).
JB: No! Oh my god that’s so crazy, that’s so funny. And so simultaneously I was doing that project and then Trina Turk’s, her shop in Palm Springs as well, so those were my jobs.
AD: Oh, I feel even more connected to you now.
JB: That’s so funny. Yes, so we did that hotel for like $12 (laughter), that was such a shoestring budget. We literally would like, you know, we needed art work so Kelly and I would paint paintings on the plaster walls and then get molding and then frame it directly on the wall with like, you know, door casing -
AD: Yeah (laughter).
JB: It was just sort of made up.
AD: I visited several times while it was under construction - it made me feel really connected to the property because I could kind of see it as it was coming together and respond to the choices that were being made and it was, it was pretty special.
JB: That’s so funny! She really opened my eyes to somebody who was completely fearless and also scrappy. I mean you know, Kelly has this sort of aura about her now because she’s, you know, a world famous character that she’s sort of untouchable and above it all. And she was so scrappy and super hands-on and again, just sort of somebody that just made things up. And I so respected that and she created a magical world where she had a bungalow at the time that was her office, that was just this dreamland.
Like other characters have created before, like Tony Duquette or these sort of fantasy environments that are completely immersive in a sensibility. She really sort of taught me about that and I don’t know. Again, just sort of making your own pathway to sort of how you want to spend your time and what you want to create. And also being multidisciplinary because some of what she did, you know, she would obviously use vintage, but then sort of make up new things and design things and design fabrics and rugs and what have you.
And still a lot of these budgets that we were working with at the time were nothing. So you would just have to be super creative to sort of make the impact that you were looking for. But that was incredibly informative and influential for me. I still really value that time so much and -
AD: Nice!
JB: And I cut it short because we ended up buying a house in Venice that was a total fixer and I realized I couldn’t stay there and work on the house at the same time. So I really left before I probably should have, career-wise because I still needed to learn so much, just about the business. But I sort of didn’t have a choice, I just, we ended up buying this place and I had to redo it. So I just ended up having to leave and that’s really what started me starting my own business.
AD: Oh, interesting, it was definitely out of personal necessity and then you just sort of went from your home project into projects for other people under your own name.
JB: Yeah, hmm-mm, yeah. Again, looking back it was just an amazing happenstance to sort of what ended up transpiring. But we bought this tiny little duplex in Venice that was still like rough and tumble, it was like the cheapest thing that we could afford and tiny. Each side was like a thousand square feet but we remodelled it. And I did it in this sort of crazy over the top way; it was like Liberace’s beach house.
Super like right off the heels of Kelly and it was, you know, marble floors and lacquered surfaces and all this retro sort of hardware. But it was this fantasy little beach house thing and my partner at the time was a piano teacher to the sort of wealthy West Side families and they would come to our house and hang out and you know, be with the kids and take piano lessons and they’d see the house. And then inevitably they would hire me to work on their homes.
And it was just this sort of byproduct that was never planned. It was just sort of a really sort of fortunate sort of way of meeting people and getting work. And it worked. And that’s really sort of what enabled me to sort of get clients and meet people and start my practice.
AD: So, not quite 20 years into it, you’ve been doing it for a while now and you’ve got some impressive projects under your belt. Do you wanna tell me and our listeners about one of your favorites and maybe also tell us why it’s so dear to your heart?
JB: You know, the physical outcome of places, clearly I have favorites, but there’s also an emotional, or challenging outcome to a lot of these things. And you know, but I will say, you know, off the top of my head, one that was a huge turning point for me was this house called The Butterfly House in Carmel that was this historic mid-century, really small house. It’s less than 3,000 square feet, small in comparison to you know, projects that we’re working on now. Originally designed by this architect named Frank Wynkoop in 1951, for himself and his family and it’s this, sort of total fetish object of a house.
The roof looks like a wingspan or open butterfly wings. And jutting out in this rocky outcropping, into the Pacific and this devastating coastline. I mean it was just a dream project. And this couple from London was looking to move to the States and the wife, Hannah, like so many outsiders, looks at Carmel as being just this dream place in California, which is what it is. And sometimes it does take an outsider to really appreciate sort of what is there.
And she found this house and she determined to sort of uproot her entire family, move them from London, two little kids and recreate her life there because she was so taken by the scenery and the nature and the sort of connectedness to the earth. And sort of a very healthy lifestyle that she really wasn’t finding in London. And then we embarked on this three year journey that was definitely wrought with challenges and it was tumultuous.
This house that was redone previously was just sanitized. It looked like a condo in Boca, everything was like dry wall and 100,000 can lights and polished limestone floors and just, it was remodelled to sell, to the lowest common denominator. And devoid of all of the sort of original character of the building. But the structure itself was intact and so they hired, they looked at lots of people and we ended up, you know, I fell hard and we did everything we could to get his job.
I ended up sort of designing the entire house pretty much before we got the job. We ended up making the sort of inspiration look book that I had bound in this sort of handmade linen box. I hired a graphic designer to make a logo of the house and have it embossed. I had letterhead printed with the logo of the house, with the handwritten note, sent the whole thing to London. I needed to get this house (laughter). I did everything I could to sort of seduce them into this vision -
AD: I was gonna say, it sounds like a courtship, it’s definitely a seduction.
JB: And you know, cause I knew what I wanted to do to it and it worked. And they hired me and what we thought was going to be a relatively straightforward remodel ended up really becoming a three year endeavour that was, you know, very difficult because I didn’t realize it was so expensive to do work up there, quality work.
I thought, for some reason, because it was a smaller town it would be less expensive than LA and it proved to be the opposite because -
AD: Not as much supply?
JB: Not as much supply or talent -
AD: Yeah.
JB: And we ended up really crafting that entire house. That entire house was made of teak and stone and plaster, we hand molded bricks. Everything was sort of made by hand. I mean the woodworking alone, it’s built like a ship, you know, and the stone floors go indoor and outdoor, there’s sort of quartzsite flagstone doors, we hand cast bronze hardware, like everything was made of cork and horn and bronze and brick and stone and plaster. It’s all about materiality and to do that well cost a fortune. And -
AD: It’s not off the shelf stuff, yeah.
JB: No and because there was such little storage in the house, everything was sort of, again, made like a ship. So every little nook and cranny had to be studied and maximized for its function. And then there were structural issues, there were columns that were being sort of eroded by the sea, the salt of the sea and so we had to undermine the foundation and jack up the house. And we had to, everything was you know, an endeavour and the amazing thing about this is that we came out of it and they love it.
You know, and so it’s really, we’re doing some work on it right now cause the kids are getting older and so we’re remodelling some of the bedrooms now because they can’t fit in the beds anymore. But coming back to a project after really having sleepless nights and countless problems and then coming back to it and having clients that love the house and revisiting and spending time there again is really sort of incredibly rewarding.
AD: I love this story and I also think in society, in this podcast we’ve talked to so many people who the houses that they grew up in, imprinted on their psyches in such powerful and meaningful ways that they went out into the world and felt like they needed to contribute to the building of the world in some way. And if we don’t celebrate that, if we don’t acknowledge it, if we do, like you said, sanitize everything in these generic boxes, how can we possibly have an appreciation for that?
JB: The fact that they allowed me to sort of reinterpret what I think Frank Wynkoop, the original architects vision could have been, you know, I look back and I think that he would have approved of this interpretation to this house that he’d designed. And you know, and the fact that they allowed me to do it was something that just becomes a part of you. Because when you’re entrusted with somebody’s time and treasure, you know, it becomes very personal.
AD: Yeah.
JB: And it might not work, you know, that’s the thing. All of this stuff is a risk, you know and luckily this one did.
AD: Yes and they’re still in it, which is meaningful and kind of magical too. It’s a long term relationship. Interpreting Frank Wynkoop’s original intentions, was that part of the process that you enjoyed?
JB: You know, there wasn’t a lot of documentation about, you know, we didn’t have the original drawings of the house and you know, at that time, this was a relatively modest house, even though it was dramatic in its setting and its expression of a building. You know, this was not made with high quality sort of finishes, it’s just not really what was done at the time with these homes that were built, unless you had a really good budget. So he built the thing for $30,000 we found out -
AD: Oh wow!
JB: Which, well, you know, that’s in 1951 dollars, but at the same time it wasn’t, you know, an astronomical number of finishes. So what my intention was, was to channel what he might have done if he had a bigger budget. So these sort of rough cut, sort of quartzsite flagstone floors that run throughout the house, it really takes its clue off of the rocky outcropping that literally the house is perched on.
So it looks like these stones are sort of, it’s sort of sitting on this stone bed, essentially that was just sort of dug up from the earth and all of the wood detailing was completely added. None of that was there, it was all, you know, drywall. So I think again, there was wood on the exterior eaves, and so we took that clue with these full height windows to bring that wood inside the house as well, to sort of blur that interior/exterior vision.
So all of this was sort of interpreting a language that had an indication of wanting to be there, but sort of carrying it through to its, I think, full potential.
AD: It sounds to me like your direct connection with the earth and with materials that come from the earth and your alacrity, is that a word? Agility with being able to translate them from raw organic material into building materials and design elements, might be one of your superpowers (laughs). Would you say that’s one of the things that maybe sets you apart?
JB: I think, you know, first of all, having an architectural background and practicing architecture has definitely informed our practice because half of what we do is interior architecture. A lot of times we’ll, you know, we don’t build from the ground up, maybe one day I’ll have that sort of appetite, but we’re, I think, one of our strong suits is creating either an envelope or the pallet and language of the house through materiality that sets the tone for the interiors.
You know, most projects that we work on, we work on the interior architecture, it’s just what we do. And we, everybody knows how to do construction documents and detailing and overseeing construction. So we’re not, you know, decorating per se, we’re really sort of building interior architecture. And so I think we’re very good at problem solving and sort of analyzing existing structures and what potential they have. And we get along well with architects because we’re not, we know the rigor of the practice and so we create the same documents that their office will create, or very similar and coordinate.
We know how to play the game as far as working with contractors and getting things done and built. So you know, and then -
AD: Designed so that it can be build and if you know how it can be built and they don’t, you can communicate in the same language.
JB: Yeah, so you know, it levels the playing field as far as the rigor of our practice and I think it helps elevate our interior s because you know, once in a while we’ll furnish a place that we’re not involved with construction. Most of our projects we’re involved with some type of construction. If not, you know, all of it and sometimes we run the projects, we’re the architect as well, it just depends.
Yeah, it’s really fortunate that we have, not my background, but we have great people in the office that have a ton of experience running big projects and commercial jobs and really are more talented than I am with detailing and executing sort of really complex things. We just finished a job in Tahoe where we designed every single piece of hardware in this 14,000 square foot house.
And we designed them, we had them cast and fabricated and milled and you know, and complex hardware, this wasn’t just a bunch of door knobs and hinges. You know, and when we’re able to go to that extra extent of really informing a design language that permeates through an entire building, to that detail, it really, you know, it’s a rarity and it’s a luxury that we’re able to be involved with, with some of our projects.
But it makes a difference, it makes it very personal and special to the home owner and it’s more of a sort of complete piece of art versus just shopping for, you know, everything.
AD: I mean this makes me wonder if we were to open your skull and look at your brain, if your brain was like a warehouse, what does it look like inside? I’m asking because I kind of want to know how you organize your thoughts and how, is it a scramble, is it aisles of like (laughs) information and titbits all organized and filed away pretty systematically?
JB: No, no, it will look like some random warehouse sale that is just picked over and with piles in every corner (laughter). Look -
AD: A Rolls Royce with shoes (laughter).
JB: I’m very good at multitasking, but I think that having a somewhat mathematical sort of inclination, like I have a fairly organized systematic way of doing projects and I have an analytical approach to things, but on the creative side I’m all over the place because a project may start from, I don’t know, like some photograph that I see that has this amazing chartreuse color and it’s sort of like, you know, it sets something off and then a room becomes sort of like immersed in that tone of that, from that photograph.
But I don’t know. I find my process very, it’s not a linear process. The practice forces it to be, which I like because it forces your hand to make decisions and then move on. So that that helps me sort of have to stop and commit. But I know well enough getting older that once you commit to something, it’s never the right answer, it’s one of the right answers. And then other answers will follow in its pathway.
AD: Oh, that’s a beautiful way to look at it, yeah, and it helps you get over any sort of perfectionism because there’s not one right answer ever.
JB: Left to my own devices, I’ll never decide on anything (laughter), so nothing will get done, it’ll be like in constant flux. But again, the practice and deadlines and my staff and you know, us as an office, you’re constantly having to make decisions and move on. And usually working long enough on these things, your gut instincts are typically a solid enough sort of way forward to sort of like move that chess piece.
But to answer your first question, I have no idea what the inside of my brain looks like. I’m just scared to even sort of look at that. I think it’s just a humble-jumble.
AD: a fabulous estate sale (laughter).
JB: Yeah, perhaps.
AD: You mentioned your adolescence transitioned to college, you had to go find yourself essentially because you needed to make sure for yourself that you could make it on your own, without help. And you also needed to get comfortable with your identity, your sexual identity and it sounds like you’ve done that successfully. Are you feeling good and solid inside and you know, after having made your way in this world, I wonder what, if any, are the insecurities or moments of disconnection you might feel at this stage in life?
JB: I feel very sort of secure and at peace with myself and having sort of been able to do a lot of things that I set out to do and very like, feel super fortunate to have the success I’ve had. Now, you know, I just turned 50, so at that point, like so many of us, I think you’re on this sort of train and everything is going well and the thing that you sort of crave is time to actually, one, enjoy what you’ve created, which is always a challenge for me to sort of like be able to sit with something for a while, which doesn’t seem to happen often.
And also trying to figure out that balance between moving forward and stopping still (laughs). So you know, now that we have a firm, we have 15 people in our office and it’s a family of people that I really care about and that really support me and our clients and to sort of, to feed that environment, you know, creatively but also financially, you know, is that there’s a constant struggle of, constantly looking for the new and the next and bringing work in while also being able to spend an excess of time on the projects that we currently have.
Because as I’m sure you know, these things, nobody works normal hours in our office. Like usually people are there until 8:00 at night or 9:00 or 10:00, myself included, everything, things that you care about, it just takes time. And it might be the simplest thing, it might be you’re figuring out some like, coordinating pillow fabric on this guest room apartment headboard and it takes three weeks and it’s just like you scrutinize it and go over it and so it’s that balance of being able to spend enough time on the things that you need to work on and always sort of looking to the next.
And that’s a constant challenge because I would prefer to be a little bit more of a dreamer and design and take a nap (laughs) and wake up and it’s a fortunate position. We have some amazing projects that we’re working on and -
AD: It’s good problems, but it’s also like how do you take care of your humanity -
JB: Yeah.
AD: So you can keep doing it, yeah.
JB: Well, and to, you know, how do you have a life as well, and exercise and make time for yourself and your family and I think that’s a struggle we all have, myself included. And it is a good problem and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it would be nice to sort of stop the clock for a minute.
AD: Well, you’ve mentioned being a dreamer, are there any dreams on the horizon that you’re chasing after still?
JB: Well, we bought a place for ourselves that’s an amazing old 1930s Spanish house that’s in complete disrepair that we’ll one day call home. That’s really exciting. I never thought I’d sort of live in a real house in Los Angeles, myself. You know, it’s something that you do for other people, so that’s something that’s really sort of exciting for us and to plant trees. So that’s great.
And then you know, I would love to make more product and furnishings and sort of have more time for my artwork and have a show or two and make a book. You know, there’s lots of things that I still wanna do, for sure. You know and it’s something where, I don’t think I’ll ever retire or stop, you know, unless I’m forced to by health or extraneous circumstances.
But I don’t know, I think there’s so much more to do and fortunately you know, we’re able to have the opportunities to do a lot of these things, so I feel very fortunate.
AD: Do you have a project that you can talk about that’s either recent or upcoming that you want our listeners to be able to check out?
JB: We just finished an apartment in Manhattan, in this big tower in lower Manhattan that has extraordinary views that that just got published. And we’re finishing this amazing house on the lake, on four acres in Nevada on Lake Tahoe we’re about to shoot that’s this sort of brutalist modernist structure that’s filled with natural materials, but also saturated color against them.
So there’s like tons of sort of jewel tones among this super organic landscape of the lake and the mountains. So that’s coming out and we’re just finishing up this other house that’s completely different. It’s a huge, like a 20,000 square foot house in Mandeville Canyon on top of this hillside that’s all super muted. It’s all limestone and washed out cedar and pale plaster and seal. It’s almost the sort of modernist farmhouse with this architect, Noah Walker, that’s, everything is super natural and woven, lots of woven materials and pale, pale finishes with contemporary and sort of period sort of furnishings.
But super serene and huge open spaces, it’s almost like a grand modernist country house.
AD: Wow, it sounds beautiful and I just wanna say, as another creative project that I think you should do, it’s serene and jewel toned and I’d love you to make a podcast that just describes these sensual places that’s meant to lull you into dreamland.
JB: Right, that’s so funny. But yeah, we’re fortunate, we have a lot of projects and some, some that are intimate and that are on the smaller scale but sort of magical. I’ll just [leave?] you, we’re doing this 1950s sort of restoration, reimagining of a pure konaig sort of case study house that has a paper fold roof in Rancho Palos Verdes that overlooks the ocean, that’s just this like beautiful folly of a space.
AD: Wow.
JB: And that’s really filled with sort of select patina’d sort of rarefied objects and furnishings in a very sort of casual California sort of sensibility. But with a smaller house like this you can really sort of be incredibly edited and almost fetishizing these sort of, these pieces as objects and objectifying these sort of works of art that are sort of functional and you know, prized sort of design at this point. So that’s been a pleasure. And it’s a secondary house for somebody. This family from DC, so they get to actually have it left functional than it typically would need to be, which is sort of a treat.
AD: Oh, that is a treat, nice. Well, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of magic in your life still and it makes me feel like I wanna go out there and grab some more magic for myself. So thank you for inspiring us with your story.
JB: No, thank you for having me, this has been a pleasure.
AD: Thanks for listening! For more information on Jaime and to read the show notes just click the link in the details of this episode on your podcast app, or go to Cleverpodcast.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. Subscribe to Clever on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you would please rate and review, it really does help us out. We love chatting with you on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you can find us at Clever Podcast and you can find me at Amy Devers. Clever is produced by 2VDE Media with editing by Rich Stroffolino, and music by El Ten Eleven. Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk.
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Photo by Joshua Bobrove
Jamie featured in a Dillard’s catalog
The college years
Photo by Joshua Bobrove
Photo by Joshua Bobrove
Photo by Joshua Bobrove
Celebrating Black Creativity & Design
Revision Path is an award-winning weekly showcase of Black designers, developers, and digital creatives from all over the world. Creator Maurice Cherry has been doing Revision Path since 2013 so there is an enormous back catalog of episodes for you to devour. Learn more at revisionpath.com
Black Artists + Designers Guild is a global platform, founded by Malene Barnett, representing a curated collective of independent Black artists, makers, and designers across various art and design disciplines who are at the top of their respective fields. Find the directory and learn more about the mission at badguild.info
Black Interior Designers Network, founded by Kimberly Ward, is a nonprofit organization with a focus is on creating a rich network and resource for members, clients, suppliers, manufacturers and the interior design industry, at large that showcases the breadth of black interior designers’ creativity, influence, and professional contributions. Go to blackinteriordesignersnetwork.com to learn more.
Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Music in this episode courtesy of El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
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