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John Edelman - The Furniture CEO Keeping Modern Alive
723 Plays2 years ago
It’s not very often that you can accredit somebody with keeping heritage alive. But today you’ll get to hear from John Edelman who we can attribute to doing just that. Formerly CEO of Design Within Reach, John and his business partner are reviving Heller Inc., a brand that since 1971 has worked with some of the most influential designers like Massimo Vignelli, Mario Bellini, and Frank Gehry, just to name a few. John’s a big believer in that “modern is forever”, which has truly helped pave the way for his success in the business world. But John didn’t just randomly fall into the world of design and furniture. It all started with his grandparents and parents, who had eyes for great design and courageous talent. They even hired a graphic designer back in the day who John describes as a man with white straight hair who didn’t talk much. If you know anything about art, you can probably guess who we’re talking about. All these experiences in John’s life have led him to be a collector of many things, of course starting out with furniture, moving into watches, cars, vintage TV’s and radios, you name it. Not only that, but he uses everything in his collection. But today we’re keeping it day one, talking about the collections that got him to where he is today. Without further adieu, John Edelman, for Collectors Gene Radio.
Heller Inc - https://www.hellerinc.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwh4ObBhAzEiwAHzZYU2BTPzxl1dMNXt-8lw_4TMCkNc2weM746NWUiQ1cD2TrVexYP3-KWhoCBroQAvD_BwE
John Edelman Talking Watches - https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/talking-watches-with-john-edelman
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
My father was creating these amazing stories, and he went into an editor's office and said, I need help with a graphic designer. She said, stay here. Wait a half an hour. This interesting guy is coming. And the guy walks in with white straight hair who didn't talk much, and he was introduced to Andy Warhol. What's going on, everybody? And welcome to Collector's Gene Radio. I'm your host, Cameron Steiner, and I'm joined by my co-hosts and brother, Ryan.
00:00:29
Speaker
This is all about diving into the nuances of collecting and ultimately finding out whether or not our guests have what we like to call the collector's gene. That's right. And as always, please subscribe and leave a review for us. It truly helps. We hope you enjoy the pod. Let's go.
John Edelman's Design Heritage
00:00:52
Speaker
It's not very often that you can accredit somebody with keeping heritage alive. Today, you'll get to hear from John Edelman, who we can attribute to doing just that. Formerly CEO of Design With Him Reach, John and his business partner are reviving Heller Inc., a brand that since 1971 has worked with some of the most influential designers like Massimo Vignelli, Mario Bellini, and Frank Gehry, just to name a few.
00:01:17
Speaker
John's a big believer in that modern is forever, which has truly helped pave the way for his success in the business world. But John didn't just randomly fall into the world of design and furniture. It actually all started with his grandparents and parents who had eyes for great design and courageous talent. They even hired a graphic designer back in the day who John describes as a man with white straight hair who didn't talk too much. And if you know anything about art, you could probably guess who we're talking about.
00:01:47
Speaker
All these experiences in John's life have led him to be a collector of many, many things. Of course, starting out with furniture, moving into watches, cars, vintage TVs and radios, you name it. Not only that, but John uses every single thing in every one of his collections. Today, we're keeping it day one, talking about the collections that got him to where he is today. So without further ado, John Edelman for Collectors Gene Radio.
00:02:14
Speaker
John, what an absolute pleasure to have you on collector's gene radio today. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here.
00:02:22
Speaker
Glad to hear it. We have quite a bit to talk about today because you're like me in a lot of senses, we collect things across multiple categories, but I think it's important for us to start where everything really began, design, leather, art,
Family Influence and Business Beginnings
00:02:37
Speaker
furniture. Your family has quite the history here and from what I understand, their dinner parties didn't necessarily include the next door neighbor. We didn't know who the neighbors were.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. So if you wouldn't mind getting everybody acclimated with day one and the previous generations of your family, I think that will paint the picture perfectly. Yeah. Well, I tell you, it's an interesting story because all my grandparents were born in Russia and came to this country with very little. And my grandfather started a small leather business by a chance encounter with a guy in the Empire stapling that was selling reptile skins. And he said, I'll take these reptile skins if I need 30 days to pay.
00:03:18
Speaker
So the guy said yes, and he started the original family business, which was filming Jeff. My father and mother met, and I just tell it quickly, in a liberal arts college called Sarah Lawrence College. And my father was the first man to ever go there. He left his kosher Bronx upbringing to go to the Navy, and then the Navy paid his way to go to college. And his uncle, who was a composer, said, this is the time you can change your life, do something different. And my dad did. He studied acting at Sarah Lawrence.
00:03:48
Speaker
My mother was a social worker and they graduated and three days later they got married. And then within four years they had their first three children. Now after those first four years, my father was a broke actor and my mother was a poor social worker. And so they needed to change gears. So they joined my grandfather's business. And this is where things got interesting. My grandfather had a tiny little business selling snake skins.
00:04:15
Speaker
And my father was an actor. My mother's social worker. They didn't know the business world. They knew promotion. And very quickly, they learned the business. And my father was creating these amazing stories. And he went into an editor's office and said, I need help with a graphic designer. And she said, stay here. Wait a half an hour. This interesting guy is coming. And the guy walks in with white straight hair who didn't talk much. And he was introduced to Andy Warhol.
00:04:43
Speaker
So in the beginning, it was Andy Warhol and doing all the graphic design for my grandparents' business, which was Fleming Joff. And I think that launched my parents into the world of design and opened up a whole new world there. They went to Italy and my father fell in love with a guy named Fornacetti, who does the most amazing plates and they're
The Philosophy of Collecting
00:05:03
Speaker
super collectible. And the Christmas gift for Fleming Joff was these custom plates representing the leather in interesting ways. And Ogden Nash wrote the pros on the plates.
00:05:14
Speaker
And my parents became collectors. They went from, my dad especially, from a Bronx, you know, moderate background to developing an eye. And he, they had a tannery in St. Louis, and when they were waiting for samples, he'd go antiquing. And they found Tiffany lamps, you know, for $50, $25 that, you know, in their estate and, you know, selling for real money at Sotheby's and Christie's and those kinds of things. So the house,
00:05:43
Speaker
where I grew up, I was six of six kids, was this world of representing the passions of two collectors, my mother and father. But as a kid growing up, you have no clue what's going on. Seeing old masters paintings next to Tiffany lamps, next to a Warhol, next to floss lights was normal. And I think I was infused with some of that without knowing what it was. That's really, if you want to know day one,
00:06:12
Speaker
It was really the inspiration by my parents and their friends that taught me that collecting is even possible, right? Sure. And we'll get into how your career began and when you started collecting, but do you feel like growing up around those things kind of just made you a natural collector and probably at some point just following in the family footsteps for lack of a better term? Yeah, probably without knowing it. It also gave me courage.
00:06:42
Speaker
And to be a collector, you must have courage. You have to buy something without a place to put it. You have to develop a passion for something, and then the rules don't apply anymore about doing the right thing or doing the... My father bought a car in 1971.
00:07:00
Speaker
when he first made his first kind of money. It was a 1971 Mercedes 280 SE 3.5 convertible triple black. Yeah, it was a $14,000 car, which was insane. And 71 I think a Ford Thunderbolt was, you know, $1,500, or $2,500. He didn't buy it because it was going to go up in value. He bought it because he loved it. And that car today is a 600 or $700,000 car. And there's I ended up buying it back. There's a whole story there. But
00:07:29
Speaker
You know, he taught me that you don't buy things to, to, to watch them go up in value by them because you love them. And then, you know, sometimes they go up in value. It's a, it's a bonus, but it's not the reason. Right. And you know, if a lot of times you have a good eye for something, you can pretty much guarantee that things will go up in value. Yeah, I guess so. But I think it can't be for me personally, I like getting a value.
00:07:57
Speaker
But I buy things because I love them, not because I'm hoping for them to take a spike, a COVID spike or whatever it's going to be. If you do it that way, I think it takes the fun out of it. Absolutely. You end up searching for the wrong thing. Yeah. I think you have to develop something that you love and become an expert, learn. It's how I learned about furniture and everything was through collecting. It's nurturing a passion versus setting a book.
00:08:27
Speaker
Most definitely. So tell us about how your career kind of began and then at what point you started collecting. I started off in the shoe business with my oldest brother, Sam. He's world famous now as a shoe designer, Sam Edelman shoes. And the first company he had when I came of age was a company called Sam and Libby. I graduated from college on a Saturday. I flew to Brazil Sunday to learn shoe making. And I worked there for seven years and that's my career started. And those days I had a nice watch my father gave me, but
00:08:57
Speaker
I was not a collector. And then when I transitioned from Sam and Libby to join the family business, which was Edelman leather, I didn't know the furniture world. My parents had an amazing friend named Alan Friedman Keene, Dr. Alvin Friedman Keene, who was the collector's collector. He from Narville tusks to old masters paintings to
00:09:22
Speaker
Mies van der Rohe furniture to, I think his collection of duck decoys was on the cover of the Christie's catalog.
Career Journey and Design Focus
00:09:32
Speaker
And I met my wife at the same time and he used to go to the New York City flea markets on 26th Street every weekend. And we were living in the city and he said, why don't you come alone? And my wife and I fell in love there, but also got addicted to the concept. And that's where I learned about modern furniture.
00:09:50
Speaker
I didn't go to the flea markets to shop modern, but it was like the power came over us. We just fell in love with it to the point where we were renting rider trucks on 11th Avenue to bring home our fines and keeping them. I ended up joining element leather, so I had a warehouse space to keep everything. I got so obsessive that the pickers that would go to the show their wares in New York would stop by my office in Connecticut on the way to the city, give me first look. I'd buy sometimes 150
00:10:21
Speaker
serenin chairs, you know, from an office that closed down for $10 each and I'd warehouse them and do all crazy stuff. But, you know, I didn't know about furniture and becoming an expert in modern through collecting. Let me go into a Gensler office and understand what they were talking about. When they said, well, that is right for a Mies van der Rohe type piece or for serenin or for heaps. I knew what to say.
00:10:47
Speaker
And eventually, I got us graded into Herman Miller with our leather, the first leather ever that was ever graded into Herman Miller. And when I went there, I knew as much about Miller and the products as they did. Probably more. Sometimes more. I knew when they changed from forecasters to five casters, you know, with the new Bittman requirements. I knew the inspiration for Charles and Ray. I knew about Cranbrook. I knew all that stuff because to be a good collector, you have to know the details. Absolutely. And to an extent, God is in the details.
00:11:17
Speaker
And in the other sense, running a business, you have to be a good salesman too. Yes. And he has to be authentic. And I always say, I've never sold anything in my life. I found out what people wanted and then given it to them. It's hard to know what people want if you don't know what's possible and the origins. And yeah, it was a huge, collecting definitely made me help my success in business. I think without that, as you call it, collector's gene,
00:11:47
Speaker
I wouldn't have gotten where I ended up. You were collecting a lot of modern furniture back then, and you mentioned that you didn't necessarily know much about it, but of course you're buying what you like as time went on and you keep going to these flea markets and whatnot. Were you after specific pieces, specific designers, all that sort of stuff? Yes. I got obsessive. To start off with everything.
00:12:10
Speaker
And then I also have short-term passions, unfortunately. I fell in love with Hayley Wakefield for a while. Hayley Wakefield didn't cut it long-term. And then I bought this chair at the flea market that was like a Danish modern recliner. No tags on it, nothing. And I fell in love with it. And then by chance, six months later, I found another one. Wow. And so I had these two chairs in my house forever. I covered them in edible leather.
00:12:39
Speaker
They were like a Danish modern recliner, which was unbelievable. And we did it in the best edible leather, which was Luke's calf. And then I was at the Armory Show. This must be 15 years later. And I found this great metal framed leather chair designed and produced by this guy named Milo Boffman. And I learned that the recliners were also Milo Boffman. I hadn't known until then.
00:13:06
Speaker
And I became arguably the world's largest collector of Milo Boffman furniture. And when I got to Design Within Reach, I started waking up at five in the morning and calling the family. I found a nephew in Colorado. Then I found Fairacog and the original factory, and I made friends with them. And we relaunched Milo Boffman. We were the first ones. It eventually got more people got involved later with the factory. Kind of a negative story for me, but it was that passion that actually brought back Milo Boffman.
00:13:35
Speaker
So yeah, I imagine 100 different things I started obsessively collecting. I got obsessed with 1950s portable televisions. My wife and I had a house in the Hamptons when we first met. It was a tiny little house and it came with this 1940s vintage stove and that's really all that was in the house.
00:13:57
Speaker
And so we decorated every inch of the house with flea market finds, literally nothing new from the melamine plates to the 1950s portable televisions to the furniture to everything with this. Melamine plates are the best. Yeah. Yeah. And Bakelite silverware, but it was, it was from everything from roadside stands to the flea market. But yeah, I got model 2001, well-trained radios were a thing. I probably have 50 of those. So yeah.
00:14:26
Speaker
I forget what the question was, but yes, it's easy to go on a rabbit hole. And if you're obsessive and have part of a warehouse space, you can buy a lot. When it comes to furniture, are you still collecting a lot of the same pieces today that you were back then? I don't collect furniture anymore. My time at Design Within Reach, where you do it for a living, took away a lot of my passion for collecting. And I got to the next stage, which is even cooler than collecting, which is
00:14:54
Speaker
helping people create. I'm not a designer, but I would nurture designers. I started collecting at that time more watches and things and smaller pieces. Also, once you have a family and start building a home and having it like making a beautiful home, there's no longer a place to put things. I had to shift gears. The storage room is now nurseries. Yeah, of course. And then
00:15:19
Speaker
I got into cars, I moved away from furniture, but I didn't stop learning about furniture, but it was more about hopefully creating the next generation of modern. So how did you come to join Design Within Reach?
Impact and Future of Design Within Reach
00:15:33
Speaker
Because you were with the family business at Edelman Leather, and again, it's not always common to make your passion, your career, and usually when you do, it's on a small scale, but you joined a massive company. Yeah. We had sold Edelman Leather.
00:15:49
Speaker
to Knoll. And I was ending my contract with Knoll for my second year. So I'd, you know, I had Edelman Leather graded into Herman Miller. I had sold a company to Knoll. So I actually, without knowing it, was an expert in those types of companies. And I had a retail background from the shoe business. And randomly, I'm a member of a group called Young Presidents Organization.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I was standing online to go to a Harlem Globetrotters game because my friend was the president of the Globetrotters. And I bumped into a guy and we started this conversation. It turns out he was friendly with an investor in New York that had just acquired the bulk of Design Within Reach and needed help. Now I had promised my wife I was taking six months off and being a better father and husband and helping with her business.
00:16:42
Speaker
And I went to the city to meet this guy that had acquired the company. And instead of taking six months off, I took six days off, John McPhee and I, my business partner. The New York Times article came out about us buying the company before we even started. So six days off, Mexican family trip, and then started in January 4th with Design Within Reach. It happened very, very quickly. All decisions were made. We invested a sizable amount of money into it.
00:17:10
Speaker
with very little due diligence. And we went to work. So it was really random. My experience with design with reach was I had my leather in there through her and Miller. And I used to go in there and shop just to talk about design and the pieces with the employees who were really experts. So it was kind of a strange way to enter, but I think that's how it should happen. It was never a plan.
00:17:34
Speaker
But collecting leather, shoes, picking a great business partner in John McPhee, all led to kind of taking over and being successful at Design Within Meach. Did anyone from your family stay at Ellermann Leather when you sold it? No. No one did. My parents left. They were getting old is one of the reasons we had to sell the company. My parents, I knew we're going to need a lot of care. My father had lost his leg.
00:18:03
Speaker
And in the shoe business, I learned Portuguese in Brazil. And I used to talk to all the guys in the warehouse when I was sorting hines. And, you know, I can say this with a straight face. I called a family meeting and said there was going to be a recession because the Brazilian guys were all buying these expensive houses they couldn't afford. And we sold Edelman leather. We closed on October 1st, 2007, literally days and weeks before the Great Recession. So
00:18:34
Speaker
No one stayed. Running a family business is one of the great experiences in life. It's really difficult. It's not usually possible to transfer that passion into working for somebody else. We became part of a publicly traded company, which is night and day from working with your mother and father and my sister when we first started and building a business like that. It wouldn't have been the right place for anybody.
00:19:04
Speaker
Understandable. As a furniture collector, whether it's past or present, what is your opinion on the recent merger of two of the biggest furniture companies now known as Miller & Oll? I'm hopeful. When Charles and Ray Eames won the design contest at the MoMA with the Chair of the Future, with the molded plywood,
00:19:28
Speaker
And George Nelson was the design director, and Bloomingdale said they would retail the furniture, and Herman Miller said they would produce it. That was like a magical moment, the whole Cranbrook influence. And Herman Miller was the purveyor of the next generation of modern. Noll had, you know, Florence Noll who went to Cranbrook and said, there's modern buildings and nothing to put in them, so let's do that. And they hired Jens Rism,
00:19:57
Speaker
serenade and all these amazing things. Can that happen today? I don't know. Like I really, really, really hope that they are still completely and totally in love with the concept of modern. Because modern is forever. And they have everything it takes to launch designers and launch product because they have Miller and Knoll, they have Design Within Reach.
00:20:25
Speaker
They have hay. They're international. They can do whatever they want. Will they stay true to modern? Will there be a constant passion to create the next iconic pieces, to find the next iconic designers? They certainly have the power. They have a lot of knowledgeable people. And I think they'll do it. I mean, they are the best bet. So I'm hopeful. I'm really hopeful.
00:20:55
Speaker
It will not be easy because they're not making family decisions. They're making publicly traded company decisions, which they don't have a choice, which is all fine and dandy. But they need to keep telling the stories and keep with all their heart and soul searching for the next great pieces.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you really just have to hope that there's team players on both sides who do really care about this stuff. And obviously, when it comes to being a publicly traded company, as you mentioned, you have other people to report to now, you have a ticker symbol. And it's not just about, you know, unfortunately, always making great product. It's a lot of times financial decisions. Yeah, but that should be one of the same, you know, great product should be a
00:21:40
Speaker
A great product should be a financial decision that is for the long-term. I'm very hopeful. I'm positive, but people will have to fight. No extra bows and whistles and no temporary stuff, you got to think long-term. Absolutely.
Appreciation for Patina and Diversity in Design
00:22:00
Speaker
Back to furniture collecting.
00:22:04
Speaker
When it comes to collecting anything, obviously, condition is very important and usually pricing reflects that, but is there some leniency when it comes to furniture for things like stains or tears for an asset class of this sort? Yeah, that's the coolest part. Great quality things wear in, cheap things wear out.
00:22:26
Speaker
So you learn the term patina. Sure. Patina is valuable in automobiles. Patina is really valuable in watches. And it's also really valuable in furniture. And, you know, if you find, you know, something from Mies van der Rohe and a leather disc I said, it's, it's cracked and aged and gorgeous. To me, that's worth more. And the market says it's worth a lot. I think things that have been restored oftentimes become pedestrian and
00:22:55
Speaker
Available to anyone yet something with true patina that has someone used it and put love into it and and and preserved it that's always more valuable. And it's the ultimate find. Right right it's always exciting finding something in the air great condition or with with great even patina.
00:23:16
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, look at the training people do in vintage Levi's 501s, and they rate the whiskers, and they rate where the hole is. The great things that we're in should be celebrated, and they are. They totally are.
00:23:31
Speaker
So you had mentioned that a lot of the furniture that you bought a long time ago at the flea markets and whatnot, you ended up reupholstering in your family's leather. Was that kind of a hard decision to make? Did you ever feel like you were maybe taking away some of the originality, obviously when it comes to things like cars and watches and replacing things or correcting things maybe? So I'll tell you something, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, there's never anything wrong.
00:24:00
Speaker
was putting, and I don't own the company, right? This is owned by Nolan Miller. I don't know whether it's been out of my life for a long time, but it was the best leather in the world. And when you put that on a piece of furniture, you said, okay, you're going to last now for the next hundred years. And you celebrate every inch of the design. And I think it's, I think I never felt bad about it at all. And I wouldn't have done it if it was in great condition, but I would buy, I have two chairs in my house now, maybe it's gorgeous.
00:24:29
Speaker
1950 swivel chairs. I bought them for $15 each. They were ripped. And I put, at the time, I remember buying dangia mohair. And they're still in my house. This is, I've been married for 24 years. This is 26 years ago. And they're even better. I have an Eames lounge and ottoman and element leather that, you know, I give it to my grandkids. I think, I think creating something that has longevity and becomes heirloom quality,
00:24:57
Speaker
augments the value, augments the vision. I think that if the designers were alive and somebody do it, they would applaud me, I think, not think poorly of it. So I never felt poorly about that. And if things had the right patina, you wouldn't reupholster them anyway. Right. Yeah. I've definitely seen some photos of different pieces of furniture that you've posted or sent out for different interviews and it definitely
00:25:23
Speaker
looks pretty awesome when you see some of these old furniture pieces, and then they're upholstered in different beautiful leathers and all that sort of stuff. So I'm with you there. My father and mother had this painting by Andy Warhol, and it was like a classic Fone chair, super simple. It said, this is the chair. Then they had this wild thing with snakes and reptiles coming off it. They said, this is the chair and have a little leather. And that was their vision way back when.
00:25:51
Speaker
But I think as long as you're always respectful, I think you're doing the right thing. Do you ever think back to how ahead of the times your parents were with recognizing talent like Warhol and subsequently, do you ever feel like that kind of shaped the way that you viewed things? Sure. I mean, they were so open-minded for their generation. They had friends that were almost all gay and that was unheard of.
00:26:20
Speaker
sixties and times like that where they grew up and all that and they loved the design scene and they were just open to different kinds of people and different kinds of ideas and I think that left me with almost no choice but to be the same way and to be excited by people that had different views or creatives or non-conformists and That's where great things get hatched, right? It's not gonna happen Usually in a boardroom. It's gonna happen from somebody that's different that people believe in
00:26:50
Speaker
If you finance a talented person and let them explore, you can do great things. So I think that's what they did and I think through osmosis, I got some of that. That's great. So you also mentioned that you keep a lot of the furniture that you collected over the years in your home and you've repulsed them, you've used them. Is there anything that you've ever bought that you just said, hey, this is going to sit in storage. I do not want to touch this. Maybe it was something super rare, just something objectively beautiful.
00:27:20
Speaker
or does everything get used? Everything gets used. I made a decision about 10 years ago to, I held a charity auction for DIFA, the Design Industry Foundation for Fighting AIDS, and I sold everything I wasn't using and gave the money to fight AIDS and help people with AIDS. Even with cars, same thing. Anything I wasn't using, anything I wasn't going to be jumping and go, I sold.
00:27:45
Speaker
I don't believe in that. I try to wear the watches. I try to wear a different watch every week and use them. That's a big transition. I don't want anything in a safe. I don't want anything on a pedestal. I ended up buying that Mercedes back that my parents bought in 71. Yeah, I want to hear about that. I'll try to tell it quickly. They bought the car in 71 when they had money. My father lost money. By 1981, they had to sell the car.
00:28:13
Speaker
They sold the car for $40,000, the car they bought for $14,000. Thirty years later, we go to sell element leather, and my friends, Boston Fellows, they sent me a note, said, I saw this car on eBay, I think it might resonate with you. And their first line of the eBay auction was, I bought this car from a hide dealer in 1981 in Connecticut. Like, oh my goodness. So I bought the car sight unseen. Did you get chills? Oh, yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
And we were having the go-in-the-way party for our sales force on a Thursday night. The car arrived Thursday, halfway through the party. Everybody come to the front of the house. My mother and father come to the front of the house. And I had the car driven down the driveway. And there wasn't a dry eye. And that's about a car. Who cares? It was about a car. And then I spent four years having the car meticulously, what they call a rotisserie restoration,
00:29:09
Speaker
where they put it on a rotisserie and blow every part off the car and then restore every nut and every bolt and put it back together. And what we had was one of the finest examples of a 1971 280 SE 3.5 in the world. Amazing. And I was scared to drive it. And that kind of bummed me out. It was so valuable, I was uncomfortable driving it. And then one day a guy came over to help me
00:29:38
Speaker
clean the stuff and work on the cars and he turned the car on and he heard a drip and then flame shot out of the motor and drip wouldn't stop and the car burned to the ground. Oh my goodness. And I thought to myself, well, why was I scared to drive it? You know, like it doesn't even exist anymore over something completely random. And I felt so silly for that, right? Like I had this amazing thing that should be used and I stopped
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think I could have jumped out, but no question. Everything works out for a reason, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, that's a pretty emotional story. I mean, it's definitely hard not to get emotional about that. And you just think about other things that your family left behind and how amazing it is that you just had somebody looking out for this stuff and thought of you when they saw it.
00:30:33
Speaker
I stopped putting things in glass boxes and just started using them.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, and just lovely. And because you share a path, like when you're a collector, so Scott Boss and Craig Fellows, they're really good friends of mine. They live in a Philip Johnson house in Connecticut, and they're Mercedes guys. So we didn't just bond about furniture because nobody, most people don't have a passion for one thing. I would say people that are passionate are passionate about many things. So here are two men that are amazing furniture designers. They just did a sit-stand desk for her and Miller, which I think is genius.
00:31:11
Speaker
But they love Mercedes as well. And so we talk about that stuff. And that's how life works. And then they saw something I would like. And they sent it to me. And I would send them or other people things. You develop this secondary community outside of your profession, which always kind of links back in. You go back and forth and creates opportunities for everybody. It's kind of thrilling. Those guys are very special to me. And that was a ridiculously cool thing they did.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Kind of hard to beat. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm never paying back. Yeah. So, you know, I think by now everybody knows that cars and watches are super important to you, and I think we'll definitely have to have another convo to chat about that. But just to give the listeners, I guess, something to hold on to until then, what watch are you wearing today and what car from your collection would you pair it with? Ooh. Okay, that's pretty cool. And my collection is very drivable now, right? So I'm wearing
00:32:10
Speaker
I'm going to tell the truth. I'm wearing a really cool Seiko called the Turtle. I'm in love with a green military strap. The Turtle has this beautiful pusher that they build the watch around on the lower right side. It's not centered. The watch makes me super happy. It's very distinctive. Yeah. It's a 70s watch. I have a 1974 Chevy Blazer convertible, full convertible.
00:32:39
Speaker
and I would say it's perfect for that car. That's a great pairing. What would you say it is about watches, cars, art, furniture, that you can be a gentleman like yourself and really collect all of them, but somehow they can all relate to each other, right? You find a lot of people who maybe collect some random things. For example, if you just collected these
00:33:05
Speaker
old TVs and radios, I wouldn't necessarily think that you're a car collector, watch collector, furniture collector. But there's like those four or five categories that really seem to all tie into each other. And do you think it's a design thing or? It's totally a design thing. And it was, your technology is separate. Technology is weird because it's temporary. Everything else is permanent. It's an aesthetic. I mean, who doesn't look at a classic bespa?
00:33:35
Speaker
or a Volkswagen bus, or a mini, and smile, right? Those are iconic designs. Who doesn't really love an Eames lounge and ottoman, or a Rolex Daytona, or a Porsche 911? There are certain things that I'm intrigued by the foreverness of the design, and that's what turns me on. So it can be in anything. It can be in architecture. I don't collect houses.
00:34:04
Speaker
but I can understand the language of design of a house that relates to the possessions that I own. As when they go in, they hold their own in the space. Every item I mentioned, you can put in a white box by itself and it's gorgeous. It doesn't need to be styled or merchandised and things like that. They all hold their own. And those kinds of items in the world are very rare. I'm not a fan. That's true with modern furniture. Exactly.
00:34:33
Speaker
And I'm not a fan of contemporary or even a lot of modern art. It's not my thing. I never understand what's forever. It's just that I don't understand it, but it doesn't mean it's not right. I don't like contemporary furniture. I think it's contemporary to me. It's temporary. Architecture, it doesn't have to be modern. Modern architecture is extremely difficult to achieve, to be real modern. But who doesn't love a great barn?
00:35:03
Speaker
And a great barn can house all those things I mentioned, right? Because it's timeless design. The glass house is so iconic because it's a glass house. There's nothing to it. The simplicity and the transportability of the design is kind of unbelievable. We take the glass house and drop it in Alaska or Hawaii, and it fits in equally in each place.
Modern Design and Heller Inc.
00:35:26
Speaker
You can't say that about most designs.
00:35:29
Speaker
Right. And I think that's kind of the best thing about modern furniture is that it is past, present and future and it really can work anywhere. Exactly. Yeah. I was just in South France and my wife and I stayed a couple of nights at this little chateau and the rooms were outfitted, you know, old herringbone
00:35:50
Speaker
You know brought down to the original stained floors, which were incredible the dressers Or I guess wardrobes were these old Louis Vuitton trunks, which was amazing but then you go then you go into the Common area and they have all these other you know Louis Vuitton trunks kind of scattered around and they have this super modern Chrome lounge chair, and I just thought it was the coolest mix of furniture and goods to have in one building and
00:36:20
Speaker
I knew that from growing up, and then I didn't see it in the United States. Then the second you start traveling in Europe, you see that eclectic mix, just like that, a classic armoire with maybe a Mies van der Rohe chair next to it. And you're like, wow, yeah, that's cool. Both of those things are forever. It's objectively cool. You can't not appreciate it. Right. You don't have to love classic French architecture.
00:36:49
Speaker
It goes forever. You're in Italy, and you're in this plastered wall with this and that, and you see an Oriental rug mixed with an Inghzah Jadavan. You're like, wow, yeah, these things are all forever. And it's rare. I think through technology today and through Pinterest, I think people are opening their eyes to being more eclectic. But eclectic's hard. It's really hard. Eclectic without passion or without a reason looks silly sometimes.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Again, got to have an eye for it. I think it's also, like you said, the courage and the confidence level too, right? Yeah, and the love. And the love. If you could put an Eames lounge chair, like you said, in an old barn with old master's paintings hanging around. I mean, that's pretty damn cool.
00:37:38
Speaker
Welcome to Alligator Farm where I grew up. That's right. So, Heller Inc. is where you're at now. You're back in furniture, ready to make another splash. Again, another brand with a great design history, just like the products from DWR. How did you come to join Heller after your stint at DWR? Yeah, I took some time off, which was great. Got my head clear.
00:38:08
Speaker
And I wanted to go back to my roots of business. And I've learned, you know, it's hard making shoes. You make them overseas. It takes forever. You have four times a year. The styles change and et cetera, et cetera. Fashion is oftentimes quite temporary. To leather, which was forever. Great quality leather and leather will last forever. We did iconic colors. And I really loved that business. And then design and then reach was great, but retail is really hard and a little bit overwhelming at times.
00:38:39
Speaker
So Heller was this amazing company making modern furniture. Definition of modern is aesthetically beautiful, highly functional, and no ego in the design, right? So no bows and things like that, right? Nothing for the designer. This has to be beautiful and function. And then I added one thing to it. When I say go anywhere, I mean inside and outside as well. So Heller fit all those characteristics, you know, Mario Bellini, Frank Gehry, Massimole Vignelli,
00:39:09
Speaker
And Alan Heller was a friend of mine. And unfortunately, I've been trying to buy the company for a long time. And when he passed away, his widow and I, there was nobody else that was going to take on the legacy of Alan Heller except me. I was the only guy stupid enough to jump in. But it fits everything that I love. I get to work with iconic designers and the next generation of young designers to create what we think could be the next modern pieces. And we're doing it.
00:39:39
Speaker
You know, that's thrilling. We can story tell about the Vignellis. And I can't talk about some of the designers, but I can tell the next generation of designer stories. We're not open seven days a week. We don't have retail stores. We're simple. We're going to outsource as much as possible and make this kind of beautiful treasure chest of the company. I know it sounds weird, but I feel like I was every decision that we've had to date has brought me to the
00:40:09
Speaker
position where I'm at today. I get to work with amazing young people. My right hand is 27 years old. He's as smart as anybody and keeps me thinking. It's the right place to be. Amazing. What are the plans, I guess, to keep Heller's heritage alive? Aside from the things that you just mentioned, Heller's been around for a long time. There's been a lot of products. I noticed recently you're getting back into Hellerware I saw on the website.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yes, we're leveraging social media to tell the stories of iconic designers. We're bringing back Hellaware, which people love. Two years ago, Supreme did this incredible promotion with Hellaware, and then Alan never called them back. He knew who they were. So we'll bring Hellaware to a whole new audience through people like Supreme. We're doing photo shoots to bring back all the images are decades old, so we need fresh images.
00:41:05
Speaker
And we're working with today's generation of designers aggressively to create new designs. And we'll probably also take a look back at some other iconic designers and pieces that got forgotten about that lend themselves, that should be modern, but, you know, got mishandled or the company got sold and then we paid attention. And we're going to bring back some of those pieces. So we'll just have a business to business sales force put together.
00:41:34
Speaker
across America to sell to architects and designers. We'll work on residential designers, and we'll work to the consumer through places like Room and Board, Too Modern, and author our own website, While Living, to get the message out there. So hopefully, if you love design, it will be hard to miss. But you have so many different channels to go through today, which really opens up a lot of opportunity. Amazing. Looking forward to a long success with it. Thank you. Me too.
00:42:04
Speaker
This is going to be a company that I stay with hopefully the rest of my life. That's great. Well, again, doing modern furniture and design is forever, so that sounds like a pretty darn good plan. Thank you. Hope it works out.
00:42:20
Speaker
All right, John, I want to finish up here with the collector's gene rundown. It's a short little list of questions that we ask all of our guests at the end of every episode. You can answer them however you'd like, short or long form, and you can base it on any of the collections that you have, whether it's furniture, cars, watches, TVs, radios. Sound good? Sure. All right.
Collecting Unique and Rare Watches
00:42:44
Speaker
What's the one that got away? The piece that you missed, you can't get over. Yeah.
00:42:50
Speaker
Mark Newsom, I was in London in, I don't know, 25 years ago, and he was showing his iconic aircraft-inspired Chez. And I knew he was special, and I knew it was a thing to buy, and I think it was like $2,000. I didn't have the money at the time. I just joined Edelman Leather and I was broke, and I should have bought that piece. I think, not because it's so valuable today, but because it's so valuable, I can't get it again, right?
00:43:20
Speaker
I think one sold for a million and a half dollars or something. But I knew he was talented. I knew it was something different. And I should have just done anything to get that piece got away. Yeah, everything he's touched is pretty special. And he was nice. That was the other thing. I met him there and he was like a sweetheart. And that plays a big role in that kind of thing as well. How about the on deck circle? What's next for you in your collecting?
00:43:50
Speaker
For me, it's watches. I don't know what it is yet, but the fun thing about the watches that I collect is that they're weird, and there are not many books about them. I'm a big 1970s Seiko collector, and that's just luck, or a blue-faced Breitling that's no one's seen, or there's all very few, and they've probably changed ownership many times. It doesn't take up a lot of space.
00:44:20
Speaker
Um, it's not necessarily expensive and you can do it. You can hunt for that without leaving the house, right? It's all in the computer now, but it's, it's, it's a hunt. I mean, it is a hunt and, and then I get, then I get to find, you know, uh, the time appropriate box.
00:44:38
Speaker
the original time appropriate band and put together the full package. And I love that. I love buying just something out of a drawer. You go to the flea markets, the guy sells watches in a drawer. Right. And then pairing it with everything correct, all of a sudden it's a collectible. But that to me would be what's next. I'm always looking at cars, but I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. Watches can definitely be a little bit more obtainable.
00:45:04
Speaker
Totally. For $200, you can get a beautiful wearable timepiece that no one else has for the most part. You're not going to see, if you collect 1970 Seikos, you're not going to show up anywhere and someone else has the same watch, unless you go to a Seiko convention or a bullet convention or a tuning fork collection. It's yours. That's great. How about the unobtainable? I know you mentioned the Mark Newsom chair.
00:45:33
Speaker
lounge chair, but what's another piece that you have? Maybe it's too expensive or in a museum or private collection? It's a really tough question. The Paul Newman Rolex Daytona is one of those things that's unobtainable. I can't remember what it sold for, but it sold over a million dollars. The one he had
00:45:59
Speaker
Right. The one, his wife engraved it back, something like, take care of yourself or don't get hurt or something like that. Oh yeah. Drive carefully me. Drive carefully. And that, because it has provenance, I think would be an amazing thing to own that I will not ever own, but spectacular. That's just a thing. That's another one that will give you chills. Right. If I could fit into a goal with Mercedes, I would have put that in the list. I can't fit.
00:46:28
Speaker
that breaks the rule of usability. Furniture, besides Mark Newsom, basically is affordable and obtainable compared to these other things. There's a limit to the value. I don't have any pieces that I really can't get there besides the Mark Newsom pieces. That's it. Not much. I'm good. If someone recreated the Mark Newsom chair today and maybe it's
00:46:53
Speaker
pricey, but not nearly as much as the vintage ones are selling for on the auction market, if you will. Would you go for one? No. It was an art piece. And if anybody recreated it, it wouldn't be to make the world better. I think it would be to cash in. He's just so good. It's interesting that I would not. But if I could have one that he touched, that he riveted, that he didn't think that would be a no-brainer.
00:47:24
Speaker
It's like if someone recreates an Andy Warhol, right? You don't really want to buy it. Not the same. It's not an Andy Warhol. It's someone else's thing. I guess I'm saying it because it was never mass produced and it wasn't really meant for mass production. It was built like a Gaetano Pesci. Like if you buy a Gaetano Pesci piece, it has to be made by him. If someone else did it, it would be more cartoonish. It wouldn't really work.
00:47:47
Speaker
Understood. All right. How about the page one
Broader Collecting Interests and Aesthetics
00:47:50
Speaker
rewrite? If, uh, if you could collect one thing besides your current, what would it be and why? Tough, but like, uh, wooden boats, like cool wooden Chris craft, uh, Italian.
00:48:04
Speaker
all those different kinds. There's a whole genre of those, just like James Bondy, not really meant for salt water, gorgeous boats, all made by hand. You know, they had to maintain like crazy every year. I'll say just rot. If you had unlimited budget, that would be a really, really cool place to collect and have a place, you know, have a place where you're on the water, we can actually use them. That would be really, really cool.
00:48:30
Speaker
I don't know if you saw, but the book company, Aceline, who makes those really nice coffee table books, they just came out with, I believe it's part of their impossible collection, so it's already got a price tag of 1,000 or 1,500 bucks or whatever it is, but four, I think it's Reva is one of the... Yeah, Reva. Yeah, four Reva boats and the front covers, like the polished wood, like the back of the boats have, you gotta check it out, it's right up your alley.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, there's that gorgeous hotel in Venice where the outdoor dining area is all done by Reva. Is it the Gritty Palace? Yeah, the Gritty Palace, right? Yeah. With the Revas out front, you get that whole... I'm going to try to buy that book. Yeah, it's incredible. How about the goat? Who do you look up to in the collecting world? I'm going to list a couple of people. The first was Dr. Alan Friedman-Kean who taught me how to collect, who
00:49:24
Speaker
collected what he loved. It didn't matter if he found it, you know, under a dirt pile at a flea market in the middle of nowhere or at at Sotheby's. He had a passion and he knew what he wanted. And that is a guy, Stuart Parr. He's a very interesting guy. He's probably put together one of the best Italian motorcycle collections, and now Italian cars in the world. And he celebrates like the the Vespa pickup truck, as well as a
00:49:54
Speaker
Ferrari right to him it was in the same language and just as collectible and I really have always Really really respected how he picked up like how cool delivery vans were from the 50s in Italy You know, and I thought he has some kind of genius With his collecting and I respect that a lot. He's what he does. I think he's a goat
00:50:16
Speaker
Delivery vans are funny because, you know, like you said, it's one of those things back then they were so cool and they're so cool now. And usually a lot of things get better over time with design, but delivery vans got so much worse over time. They're coming back. Like I happened to love, I think what the Sprinter did for like, yeah, they're just so cool enough. Ford makes a cool one. So yeah, like, but you know, you compare that to a 1960 Citroen.
00:50:44
Speaker
delivery van. That was one of the most beautiful cars ever made. You look at campers. Why can't campers be beautiful? Why was the Airstream so perfect? Why is the Airstream basically still being produced today unchanged? The simple things should be beautiful. As America and the world becomes more and more educated and designed, my mother always said it doesn't cost anything more to make something that's ugly versus something that's beautiful.
00:51:14
Speaker
And people just have to appreciate design to get back to that. And delivery vans should be celebrated. Everything you do should have an aesthetic that makes people happy. It's part of sustainability, too. Making things that are beautiful makes them more sustainable in many ways. Makes you want to preserve them, keep them forever, and trade them. Ugly things go away. They go to landfills.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, I have a hard time imagining that we'll be seeing any of the delivery events from the last 15, 20 years at auction one day. I know, and I'm just hoping. How about the chase or the sale? Do you enjoy the hunt or the ownership more? Probably the hunt. You'll never get over being at the 26th Street flea market, digging through a bowl of watches and finding a boulevard that I wear to this day.
00:52:05
Speaker
the hunt, once you learn about what makes a womb chair perfect and you find one that's worn in but not worn out, that you can keep for 20 years, whatever it's going to be, the hunt is totally more fun than the ownership. Ownership's great. Then I find the exit of a product, selling a product, sad. That's the least enjoyable part. Even if you've done well on it, it's sad.
00:52:36
Speaker
You don't collect the cell, like I don't. So that's the sad part. Yeah, it's always sad. And unfortunately, sometimes you got to move pieces to move into something else. But yeah, we've all done it. We've all done it. But it's the least fun part. All right. Last but most important. Do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene?
00:52:56
Speaker
Yes, I was 100% born with a collector's gene. It's real. It exists. You can't escape it. There's no rehab, right? You can't get it. You can't go 28 days without collecting and it goes away. You're stuck with it. Yes, I was born with it. It's in my DNA. I can't shoot hoops. That's also a gene, but I definitely can collect. I was born with it.
00:53:18
Speaker
There you have it, John. Thank you so much again. I truly can't wait to chop it up more on all the other collections that you have, but anything else that you want to toss in here before signing off? No, no, no. Just not that people are looking for advice, but find something you love and learn about it. And that's the thrill. That's why the hunt is more fun than the ownership is because in order to collect, you have to learn what you're collecting. And learning is always a thrill.
00:53:47
Speaker
And the day that you stop learning is a day pretty much you die. So collecting should be a way to stay relevant and keep your brain moving for your life. You're the man. Thank you so much again, and looking forward to chatting again soon. Thank you so much. You made it easy. All right, that does it for this episode. Thanks for listening, everybody. This has been Collectors Gene Radio, signing off.