After being confined to our homes for months, we’ve all become intimately acquainted with what works in our homes—and what doesn’t. The new demands imposed by the Coronavirus-crisis are prompting changes, and we’ve all become aware of shortcomings in the way our homes function. So what does this mean for design in the future? In this episode Sarah Ramsey, a partner at the firm Cullman and Kravis, and Tom Kligerman, a founder of the architectural firm Ike Kligerman Barkley, explore how even the most traditional of American homes are likely to adapt, with innovations from layouts that allow greater flexibility to more home office space to “Cotsco closets” and more.
Additional resources:
- Sarah Ramsey of Cullman & Kravis via Newel
- When Traditional Interiors Meet Bold Contemporary Art and Design via Galerie Magazine
- Tom Kligerman on the ‘double-edged sword’ of being known for a specific style via Business of Home
- An Interview with Thomas A. Kligerman via Traditional Building
Connect with Chairish and our guests on Instagram:
- Chairish: @chairishco
- Michael Boodro: @michaelboodro
- Sarah Ramsey: @sarah.rams
- Thomas Kligerman: @tomkligerman
READ AND LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE EPISODE:
Michael Boodro 0:00
After three and a half months and counting, confined to our homes, it’s become pretty clear what works at home and what doesn’t. We are all coping with new demands staying six feet apart, creating a functional quiet space to Zoom and even trying to find a place to hang up our newly washed face mask to dry. So what does the changed reality the Corona crisis has imposed on us mean for the design of homes in the future? More home offices, probably more doors and private areas, possibly larger pantries and storage areas decontamination zones. Who knows. Fortunately, I have with me today two experts in how Americans want to live. They’re both skilled in traditional design, but understand that tradition needs to adapt to stay relevant and powerful, and perhaps even more so than at this moment.
First up is Sarah Ramsey, a design partner at the firm Cullman and Kravis which she joined in 2004. After an extensive background in the auction world, Sarah has crafted numerous apartments and residences in New York City, and is currently working on a home in Palm Beach among several other projects. Welcome, Sarah.
Sarah Ramsey 1:31
Thank you. Hello.
Michael Boodro 1:34
Thomas Kligerman is a founding partner of the architectural firm Ike Kligerman Barkley where his extensive knowledge of the history of American residential architecture and garden design, and especially his passion for the Shingle style, so popular at the turn of the century, and today, has inspired him in the creation of some of those beautiful residences of the past quarter century. Hello, Tom. So glad you both could be with me today. So I wanted to talk about a little pre COVID crisis and then post COVID crisis. I’ve wanted to get a sense from you about how you’ve felt people were feeling about their homes before they were confined. And what the difference is, now that they’ve spent three, almost four months at home generally without an office to escape, you know? Theater and restaurants. So how has that changed in the way people are reacting with their homes? Why don’t we start with you, Sarah. Ladies first.
Sarah Ramsey 2:29
I think people are looking at things much more closely than they used to. You know, what we’ve gotten a lot of, service calls. People calling and saying, there’s a mark on the fabric, can someone come clean this when this is all over? Or that the nitpicking?
Michael Boodro 2:49
That’s their concern? Interesting.
Sarah Ramsey 2:51
But also, I mean, I haven’t spent this much time in my own apartment in one fell swoop. And so I’m looking at things too very closely in my own apartment. I think I need to change that. I think I need to change this.
Michael Boodro 3:07
Tom, it’s a little different with you, because generally, you don’t call the architect back to redo their poetry. That’s not your job. And you know, maybe they call you back and say, we want to add on a room or whatever. But have your clients since the crisis, I know you had projects in the works – are they rethinking them now?
Thomas Kligerman 3:24
Some are and some aren’t. It depends on a lot of different things. One is, it depends on the size of the house you’re doing or the size of the apartment. So on some of the projects that are smaller, we have had at least one call where they want to add on to one that we’re designing right now and one that is actually under construction. And they want to add on another room that’s just sort of a place they can go not to literally isolate from the biological germ perspective, but a place where they can have quiet. So that’s one thing we’re seeing. The other thing is, we’re doing a house in East Hampton, and we got a call that they wanted to create this space, and we’re doing it in the attic. But the third floor was added before and the third floor is now this large flex space, probably for the kids to play. But it could be a place to have a gathering where you can have fun at the park and it’s actually a very big room. So there’s a lot of talk about expansion in that way, whether it’s under design or construction. The other thing I’m hearing, probably more so, is about the mechanical systems, you know, how do we filter the air? And this is something we’ve never dealt with before. So we’re now talking about HEPA filters, and all these kinds of things that have come up. They are easy to do when you’re planning and it’s tougher to do when the house is three quarters complete. So those are the things that we’re hearing, among others, but those are the major things we’re hearing.
Michael Boodro 4:46
Well, we’ve been hearing a lot about health and wellness even before the Corona crisis. But I think people felt that was like going to a spa, but now I think they want to bring that home. And how do you adapt that? Like have you been hearing about that from your clients, Sarah?
Sarah Ramsey 5:02
So I think now that clients are at home, they’re realizing that their homes have to be really flexible, because it’s school for the kids, it’s a restaurant, it’s a sickbay, a playground, an office. So they’re wanting to create more flexibility in the house. And this is actually funny. I have a client who wanted to redo his entire master suite in his house. His kids are grown. They’re in their 20s. We spent so much time on the plans, every nook and cranny right before Corona hit. We had it all sealed, signed, sealed and delivered. Three weeks in, he sent an email and he said, we gotta move the master suite to the other side of the house. His kids came home with one brother and girlfriend who brought a dog. And he said, it’s way too noisy over on the side of the house where everyone gathers. And there’s no way we should put the master bedroom here. We have to move it to the other side of the house. So it’s back to the drawing board.
Michael Boodro 6:11
Right. Well, I think there’s a lot of cases where the drawing board is going to be rethought, you know, and come back into play. I was joking about this the other day, but when you’re home, like in the mornings, and in the evenings, maybe then you do things that annoy you or don’t work, maybe you’re only there for a couple of hours, really. And then most of your time you’re asleep. But when you’re in your house every day, and some little thing that annoys you and that happens to you multiple times a day, every day of the week, it’s going to really annoy you and prompt you to rethink things and change things.
Thomas Kligerman 6:46
That’s true. My goal is, this whole thing has brought about an intensity that we weren’t used to before. And it starts with Zoom, you know. I click off one Zoom and I had to make this new rule. I need 15 minutes between these calls, but it still doesn’t happen. I will click off at one and instantly off to another. So there’s an intensity about how you’re involved in everything. And as Sarah was saying, it makes you kind of pick up things because first of all, you get a little bit irritated a fair amount of the time because of just the difficulty in normal conversation. But then you think of – I look at you and I look at my background, and I think that I really should paint this room. So all kinds of things. You’re right, Sarah, things are starting to get to us. And I think everybody has to. And so they’re thinking and thinking and thinking and wondering how they can make things better and easier than the confines of what we’re living now.
Sarah Ramsey 7:40
It seems like the favorite backdrop on Zoom is a bookshelf, bookcases with books. And just watching TV and watching people on the news and elsewhere, I want to rearrange and redo the bookshelves in probably 90% of them.
Michael Boodro 7:57
Because I think people get annoyed when you use those fantasy backgrounds. So that was fine but now it’s like enough. But it’s interesting to me. This is the flip side. I mean, the good part of this is that people are more involved in their homes and more caring about their homes. The bad side is they’re more demanding. And there’s nothing more exhausting than Zoom call after Zoom call Tom, so believe me, I’m sympathetic with that but I guess it does show a level of engagement with the process that maybe it’s more so than previously?
Thomas Kligerman 8:24
I think so. I think I can tell you that my meetings are longer. And a lot of it is just more thinking and turning it over. Is this right? Well, you know, where will we sit? What if there’s 10 of us? It’s funny how, in a way, there’s almost this implication that this will never end. The way people are thinking now is, you know, we will always be living like this to some degree or another or we have to be prepared for the next one, whether it’s the next wave or the next outbreak or next pandemic. But there is a lot of rehashing which makes it sound terrible. It’s not that negative, but things have become more thoughtful. Conversations are longer.
Michael Boodro 9:05
And that can be good. But it’s at the moment, much more exhausting. I have no doubt. And one of the things that as you know, I was spending the quarantine in my weekend house in Connecticut. So I’m here seven days a week. I mean, I’ve been back to the city a couple of times, so I know about what’s annoying and more annoying and you wish you had more space. But you know, I love New York City. I can’t wait to get back to New York City. Well, those friends who are there have said the city that you love isn’t here. But you know, you’re reading all this stuff and I was as I said listen to real estate blogs. They say according to the paper and real estate experts, people are dying to leave the city and buy second homes or first homes. They want to go to someplace where there’s a school, but at the same time, one of the great things I thought about the last few years and design was we were finally over the sprawling mansions and these biggest estates they seem not to be selling. Certainly in Connecticutand some in Westchester, there was a glut out in the market. Bow they’re apparently all being snapped up. So is this going to be a retrograde moment where we go back to big estates, commuting, more gas, more driving? What do you think, Tom? How do you see it?
Thomas Kligerman 10:11
It’s funny because it seems like an opportunity. There’s so many things that this Coronavirus has brought around from an environmental point of view. You know, in New York City, there are people delivering things in little electric cars rather than a big diesel powered truck. So on the one hand, that’s how the business runs and people are talking about it. They can hear the birds, or their arms being planted. It’s quieter. So there’s this awareness that our life up until March was a little crazy, sort of environmental. And the flip side of it is, as you say, they want bigger houses. And so there’s that sort of the yang to the yin. It may be environmental electric bicycles. But if your house is 6,000 square feet bigger, your heating, air conditioning, your carbon footprint is not shrunk.
Michael Boodro 10:56
No, it’s probably expanded.
Thomas Kligerman 10:58
It might have. So there are weird things going on from that point of view. There’s contradictions.
Michael Boodro 11:05
Right, right. And Sarah, how do you see it in your practice and Cullman and Kravis there? Do you think that people now necessarily want more space? Do they want more outdoor space? Are they looking for more privacy? I mean, one of the trends that people have been talking about, I don’t know if it’s true or not. The idea is that people don’t want open floor plans anymore. Tell me.
Sarah Ramsey 11:28
Well, it was all the rage, the open floor plans. And now everybody wants to be able to shut a door and go into another room and be alone. And also, like kids who always had their own rooms, they’re sharing rooms, so they have an extra room to be a playroom or a homework room to turn a bedroom into something else functional.
Michael Boodro 11:54
Right.
Thomas Kligerman 11:54
That’s funny, Sarah. I have not found that to be true. We’re starting a house in Texas. It is wide open.
Michael Boodro 12:03
Interesting.
Thomas Kligerman 12:04
Well, everybody has their own bedrooms. There’s always a place to go. And there’s a library and there’s a couple other little rooms you can escape to. But if you leave all the doors open, actually, I guess your point, there are doors. You can see from the living room to the dining room into the kitchen all the way up to the screen porch. But I’m sort of saying two things. I realized you can close it off. So there’s always this tension, you want to close the property or do you want it open and modern. And there’s ways to have both.
Michael Boodro 12:31
Well, I guess if you’re homeschooling the kids, after about a month, you probably want to close it off a little bit more. But it’s interesting that as you said, there are doors now, because for a while there were no doors other than maybe the bathroom, or maybe the bedroom and kitchen was right in the living room. And I have a feeling that might change. What do you see happening, Sarah, in terms of kitchens and entertaining spaces?
Sarah Ramsey 12:52
I mean, we’ve always still had a formal dining room or even a casual breakfast room. And that is where the meeting point of families is typically. But you know, now, I think that people are now wanting offices that are not just your occasional office in your house. I had a client tell me he wants to build a guesthouse/office on his property now.
Michael Boodro 13:25
To leave the house and go.
Sarah Ramsey 13:27
To actually leave the house and go somewhere. And then we had another client who bought a small house structure next door and wants to make it into his office, like immediately. So just to have somewhere to go, that’s not, you know, that not the whole family is on top off each other.
Michael Boodro 13:46
And I imagine some clients want multiple offices. I mean, both partners in a relationship are probably working. So is that a difficulty in terms of finding space for that? I mean, it used to be in the 80s and 90s, that the wife’s office was like, adjacent to the kitchen. She would have little desks, with a laptop. You know, I think those days are probably over.
Sarah Ramsey 14:08
Definitely. We used to call that the telephone table. So they could sit down and make a reservation at a nearby restaurant. It’s not like that anymore. Now, the double computer screens and whatnot.
Thomas Kligerman 14:22
You’re calling for home delivery and you’re not going to the restaurant.
Michael Boodro 14:25
Sadly, it’s all about delivery for the moment.
Thomas Kligerman 14:29
Michael, just to jump in, you’re asking about other kinds of spaces. It’s occurring to me and one thing that we’re doing that I didn’t bring up, is we are doing a lot of outdoor spaces that can be closed off. What happens is, you know, they have these visit screens or something and they can be like 18 feet wide. So we’re doing a number of projects now where open porches, literally at the press of a button, become a screened porch. So you keep out the bugs and stuff like that. And then you can open up the house. We’re doing that in a lot of areas. Some of it started before this, and one house, they just requested that to have a whole south terrace, they could open up and really become a parallel set of rooms to the main living rooms of the house. So they could go outside. So they got to get more people over and not worry.
Michael Boodro 15:15
Interesting. Because again, outdoor spaces seem to be the thing at the moment. If you can’t have a second house, apparently, what is a hot property, even in cities, and especially in New York City is any apartment with an outdoor space.You know, it’s always been a premium, and you paid extra for that. But it seems like that’s considered more valuable than ever. I don’t know about Juliet balconies. Those went out of style and I think are kind of useless, but outdoor spaces. And people spend a lot of money on their outdoor spaces now and fill them out with kitchens and expensive planters and plantings. Do you think that’s going to help save the city environment for a lot of people? I mean, just the density of New York City – most people cannot have private outdoor space.
I went to Central park this weekend, and it was mobbed. Because all of us who don’t have outdoor space are desperate to be outside, especially now that the weather’s so good. So I’ve always thought that outdoor space is a major premium of an apartment.
Michael Boodro 16:02
Were you able to social distance?
Sarah Ramsey 16:14
Yes we were. But I did see a lot of groups of people that were pushing it. We put as much thought into an outdoor space to make it an outdoor living room when we lay out the furniture so that it’s literally like a room that is comfortable and as functional as we would do in a house.
Thomas Kligerman 16:37
Right. You know, it’s funny about outdoor spaces. In the past, if people wanted balconies on their master bedrooms or balconies. I always said, you know, that’s just the leaf catcher. You go out for the first two weeks that you live there, and you never go out again. Then you gotta clean it. At the moment my wife and I are living in a rental apartment because we’re redoing our apartment, and it has a really big balcony. It’s big for me. It’s like 10 by 18.
Michael Boodro 17:03
That’s substantial.
Thomas Kligerman 17:05
I live out there. And it’s probably because we’re otherwise in the apartment. You know, I didn’t leave the apartment for three weeks at first. It has completely changed my mind about outside space. And I’m really sorry that the apartment we’re renovating doesn’t have a balcony. We made a mistake. So I think that, if you’re asking about things in the future, I had a feeling that’ll be it. If you have a guest suite, the guests can go out, sit outside. Certainly in an apartment, but even in the house.
Michael Boodro 17:32
Right. Yeah. It’s interesting. My apartment in the city doesn’t have outdoor space, private outdoor space, believe me. But we have a communal roof, which we planted in a very nice way and whatever. And for the last couple of years, hardly anybody went up on the roof. Now the roof is packed. I think somehow being forced inside, even when you’re comfortable inside, the idea that you are not allowed psychologically, has an impact. And I think that it will have an effect on the way people live in the future. They want to have access, even if it’s just five feet outside, or a courtyard in your apartment building. I think developers really have got to start paying attention to this because I think it’s a very important thing.
Thomas Kligerman 18:16
You see a lot of new skyscrapers. I don’t know if you follow some of these, you know, Yimby and some of these things. A lot of these skyscrapers are green and they have balconies and hanging plants. And that was happening before Coronavirus. We have to think that that’s just going to be more so and that the city hopefully will become a little softer, a little greener. It’s like that book Manahatta. And if you’ve read that, it shows the future of Manhattan where it’s interwoven with parks and stuff like that. Hopefully that’s going to happen.
Michael Boodro 19:21
I want to ask a little bit about the practicalities of lessons that we’ve learned. I was talking to a designer and she was saying the one thing that everybody is now interested in is larger pantries, you know storage space. I think that people got really freaked out when they couldn’t get toilet paper. And I think there’s a lingering effect to that. Have you noticed that in your practices?
Sarah Ramsey 19:51
Yes. Do you know what clients ask for, they call it the Amazon closet? So everything they shop for on Amazon and the Costco closet? Absolutely, yeah. The clothing closet now is not the focus since we all – I mean, I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been wearing the same sneakers for three months.
Michael Boodro 20:13
Nobody sees you.
Sarah Ramsey 20:14
Yeah. Nobody sees me so, but definitely the Costco closet is the request.
Thomas Kligerman 20:21
Michael, we’re doing a new house, and we just shrank the mudroom so you have a bigger pantry. The pantry has an island. It has a sink. I mean, we have another pantry already. We have two other pantries. But this is now a place to wrap presents. You know, it’s more than a present room. It is bigger than the gift wrap room. And we’re shifting the plan to make this work. We’re actually moving the houses this way to make this room happen.
Michael Boodro 20:47
It’s interesting, because pre Corona crisis, there were all these reports about, you know, the billionaires buying land in New Zealand to have a bunker. And it’s almost like that idea has filtered down to everybody else. But you can’t have a bunker, or you can’t have a remote island. But you do have your pantry and you have your toilet paper. I guess that that’s reassuring, although, you know, there was a very funny video about how much toilet paper you can use in a year. But I guess psychologically, it seems like people need reassurance and how do they find that and design? I guess it’s a larger question here. And how are they expressing that to you guys in terms of what they’re asking for besides fixing the spot and the upholstery or whatever? Because as you were saying Tom, you don’t want to overreact and act as if we’re going to be living this way forever. But how do you do it in a realistic way that’s sensitive to their concerns, but isn’t going to distort your vision?
Thomas Kligerman 21:45
I just think a lot about flexibility. And you know, maybe that’s the key. Maybe the big lesson here is you don’t know what the next thing is going to be like, right? Right now we’re doing Coronavirus, but in 15 years or five years, it could be some other thing where people actually need to have smaller or they need to have two families where there’s currently one fruit for a reason. We don’t know yet. The lesson is not just flexibility in that you have three places you can go to pick up the phone call, but that the whole house is designed in a way that this can become that room or that can become this or that, you know. Maybe it’s about being less rigid about what a house is, or designing things on how you do this, with the thought that what works today will not work tomorrow. And it may be the exact opposite. It may be totally the opposite than what we’re doing right now. So all this effort about HEPA filters and screen porches and giant pantries. 10 years ago, what were we thinking?
Michael Boodro 22:43
Well, I could see the HEPA filters and the giant pantries. But I do think a screen porch is a wonderful thing. Sarah, how about your clients?
Sarah Ramsey 22:54
I mean, you’re right, Tom. I mean, we used to say that decorating the two key pillars were form and function. Like you can have a beautiful room but if it doesn’t function, what’s the point? And now, just flexibility. It’s all about flexibility.
Michael Boodro 23:11
But is that going to be a hard sell to some people? Because I mean, Tom, I’m sure people come to you and they said they’ve seen your houses. They’ve seen these beautiful shinglehouse houses, in Newport or in the Hamptons and the beaches. And those dreams are very potent. And how do you combine the two?
Thomas Kligerman 23:28
I don’t know how you combine the two. But it’s true that the thing that we haven’t spoken about is that people still want a beautiful house and they still want to look like a home. There’s certain things.
Michael Boodro 23:41
And I think beauty is important.
Thomas Kligerman 23:43
Absolutely. You know, they come to us for a specific thing. They go to other architects for other things. And when we veer from that for whatever reason, they say, oh, we like those chimneys. And we want this kind of shape. And can’t you do a curve? I didn’t answer your question more specifically, which I forget what it was.
Michael Boodro 24:02
Is it a hard sell in terms of an idea of flexibility and being responsive to the possibilities of the future?
Thomas Kligerman 24:09
I think maybe what you started to say was we have to think about what this has to be like and what life is gonna be like in 10 years or 20 years, and maybe more than just your kids living here and your grandchildren. You know, maybe the big lesson is flexibility. And can you imagine down the road, if we’d be thinking about this office, becoming a first floor bedroom suite or this office becoming two offices, you may want to work with your wife in the same room, but 10 years from now you may want to. I think you can sell flexibility in a way that makes people not think it’s a terrible thing to talk about and not think it’s too nerdy.
Sarah Ramsey 24:01
Right? And I feel like we kind of do that already. Because when we’ve designed we call them ghost babies. Well, your grandkids one day, I mean, when you have grandkids, here’s where they can stay and so we kind of do that already.
Michael Boodro 25:02
You’re looking ahead. Yeah, I love the idea of a ghost baby. I think that’s a great term. But I guess the idea is, and I think this idea of flexibility, Tom could be a partly the answer to what we were saying about ever giant, more houses. Less ecologically aware, less good for the environment. Because if you switch your room around, you’re not adding a room, you’re not tearing things down, you’re not adding to landfills, and all of that stuff. So I think flexibility is probably a really important aspect of that. But I can see it’s kind of an abstract thing. Like, Sarah, when you talk about the ghost babies, do people get it? Are they open to think about that?
Sarah Ramsey 25:42
They do.
Michael Boodro 25:42
Okay, I find that very reassuring. That’s good. And Tom, do you feel the same? Because I know your clients are very high end clients. And for both of you, they want what they want, right? And they’re used to getting what they want.
Thomas Kligerman 25:54
They want what they want but all good clients, and all of us are good, they do listen to you, and they want your ideas. I think there’s gonna be nothing wrong with starting off a meeting or a very early conversation, say, let’s think about flexibility. Think about what this room could be and one of the things I always say, you know, don’t build the house or don’t build the store for Christmas. Because even before Coronavirus, if you could use one room for two functions, like if the family could also be the media room, instead of building a whole media room, you can build smaller and better and the same amount of dollars. You could use it for better materials. I think it’s sort of the same attitude, like Sarah says, you kind of already talked about it. So maybe we need to bring it more to the fore. We talk about it without saying flexibility. We talk about without saying the house has to be able to change, right? We say it would be nice if the kitchen could also have a breakfast room or something like that. But the idea of saying, you know, we should think about this, because life could be different in the year.
Michael Boodro 26:56
Right. And one of the things that I find fascinating about this, how we’re going to respond to this crisis and building. It’s like all the things that were so fashionable a year ago, like I’m thinking urban development, you know, all those apartment towers. It was all about shared spaces. The apartments were smaller, because you would have a library in another room that you could use if you want to have a dinner party. You have a gym in the building. Now, that’s all been thrown out the window.
Thomas Kligerman 27:28
Absolutely true. And when we were looking to rent while we do our renovation, it was shocking how tiny a one bedroom apartment is now. The answer already is you have the roof, you have the gym, you have the pool, you have the meeting rooms. Now who wants to go there? So what do these guys do? They build a whole financial model and building that’s 60 stories tall and this model, which may, you know, they kind of roll the dice that didn’t come up right.
Michael Boodro 27:57
Right. And how are they going to adapt those spaces?
Thomas Kligerman 28:01
When we do, you poke through to the next apartment. Now, you know, or something like that. You split one apartment into two. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it’s not going to be inexpensive.
Michael Boodro 28:12
Right. Right. I think a lot of developers are going to be eating their shirts for a while. Sarah, you obviously don’t deal with many one bedroom apartments?
Sarah Ramsey 28:21
I have first hand experience and I actually made my own mistake. A couple years ago, I was going through a divorce and I was looking for a new apartment. I called my broker. I have bought two other apartments with her. I’ve known her for 15 years. She knows me well. I saw this apartment online. It was a studio and I said, it looks cute. I’m gonna see it. I went and I was charmed. And I was like, I want to live here, make an offer. And she said I can’t make that offer. You cannot live in a studio. You need a one bedroom. And I said make the offer. And now I get it. I am like what was I thinking? But who ever thought you’d be inside in New York City for three months? I would have told someone they were crazy if they told me this was gonna happen. But I’ve definitely looked back and I think, you know, because New Yorkers we live so out all the time. Like, I don’t need a big apartment. I’m never home. But right now I am.
Michael Boodro 29:24
Right. And I think speaking of that, I do think that this idea of working from home is one of the things that’s not going away. Maybe you won’t work from home as much as we all have had to. But I think the flexibility of it and even though the Zoom calls are exhausting, Tom we all know, it’s a great thing.
Thomas Kligerman 29:42
I live 20 minutes from the office, which is not far. I have 40 minutes extra a day to work or have longer breakfasts. And when you multiply that by the millions of people and people who come in from New Jersey. What a waste of time and energy. I was just thinking as you guys are talking about flexibility and stuff. You know, we’re talking about houses. But what about the office? And I think what may happen is to relieve the pressure, Sarah of you being in a small apartment, your office almost becomes an extension of your apartment. So the office is smaller than it used to be because people are also using their apartments as an extension of the office. And so this is sort of an interesting integration of workspace and home space that might happen, where things begin to overlap more.
Sarah Ramsey 30:31
Right, that makes total sense.
Thomas Kligerman 30:32
Each one is an escape from the other.
Michael Boodro 30:35
Well, it’s interesting. I mean, I have to say, I’m glad I’m not an apartment developer at this moment, but I’m also kind of glad I’m not in the commercial real estate business, because I think they’re gonna go through a hard time. And again, they’re gonna have to rethink how offices operate. You know, the whole idea of We Work or Soho House or Neuehouse, where people go together and hang out and, you know, you have a small space for six people to work together, that isn’t going to function anymore.
Thomas Kligerman 31:04
You know, we are going to be moving at some point. We were looking at spaces we were within an hour of signing the lease, when all this Coronavirus took place. Everyone in the office is worried that we were moving to too small an office. And now I’m realizing, first of all, I am glad we didn’t sign it because the rates are gonna come down. But I am realizing that that quote, smaller space is probably too big. And I call my staff and architects and stuff. And we talked about, you know, you want to be at home, you know, would you share a desk if you’re gonna be home three days a week, but you know we don’t need to spend that kind of rent or build that much cabinetry.
Michael Boodro 31:45
Right. But I do think it’s hard to collaborate on a creative project at a distance.
Sarah Ramsey 31:51
It’s really hard. And I have to say, shopping online for fabrics, and then you open the package, and it looks nothing like it. You’re like, huh. It just makes everything a lot more drawn out and waiting for samples whereas in my office, I have my sample library. And one thing I think that’s interesting is when we do design meetings, and we’re showing fabrics and whatnot, and the client says I think I’d rather have a velvet. We can run in the other room and grab a box and have 10 velvets to show them. And so that’s going to be hard interacting with clients. It’s really hard in our business. It’s so tactile for us.
Michael Boodro 32:35
And what about the collaboration between the architect and the designer? Has that been an issue so far via Zoom or whatever? Because do you think that’s going to be better or worse? The same?
Sarah Ramsey 32:48
I think, I mean, Tom, don’t you agree, you might say, Oh, I have the perfect wood sample here for it. And so and so has the perfect wood sample. Is that going to be harder for you too?
Thomas Kligerman 33:02
That has been the hardest thing. I’ve got to say that I think you’re an interior designer, which is much, much harder. That is so tactile. It involves not just the color, but the feel, the hand, whatever you call it. And I don’t know how you do that remotely. We are designing a lot of houses right now. You know, it works for architecture, because you know, it’s geometry, and you can put it on the screen. And if you have a stylist you can draw the screen. And so we’ve had new clients, and we’ve designed houses with a presentation and we’ve never been in the same room together. And it works. The houses are coming out and I think they’re going to be really great houses. We’re just now getting on those houses. They’re just now getting materials. And that’s where it becomes an issue. And so one of the reasons I came into the office today was to look at all these stone samples. I got FedEx to collaborate with us. If you can’t put your hands on the material, it’s really a problem.
Michael Boodro 33:57
Yeah, yeah. And I think that will diminish over time as people become more mobile and less worried about the virus. And the design centers will be reopening and different sources. But the distance thing I think is I mean, I’m old fashioned. I like sitting around a room and discussing things with everybody. That’s how my entire work life was like, you know, getting ideas and everything and the idea of setting an appointment, I think that’s got to be hard. I mean, clearly you would make an appointment with the client but with your team, that spontaneity I think it’s going to go away. Or it’s going to be harder to create.
Thomas Kligerman 34:35
Yes, that sort of serendipitous stuff that happens in an office. You’re walking by and someone’s actually seeing something and they come in, they bring you a cup of coffee and they sort of freak remember something. You miss those little tiny synapse-like moments that happen when you’re together.
Sarah Ramsey 34:49
Absolutely. We have an eye on a big island in our office and that’s where we make and lay out some fabrics and someone will walk by and say oh, who’s scheme is that? That’s pretty. I have fabric that would look great in here. And also the asking opinions of each other. You know, what do you think about this? That’s going to be hard. That is hard now.
Michael Boodro 35:13
Yeah, yeah. But I think that will get better. I guess what I would love to get a sense from you guys is what do you think will last after the crisis is resolved? Hopefully the beauty which we talked about will last, but what else? What lessons are being learned from here? And what do you think the changes that we’re going through now will continue? Flexibility, I would assume and this idea of thinking, but what else do you think it’s going to be? I mean, we’ve hopefully learned something from these four months. We’ve been confined to home. What do you think that is?
Thomas Kligerman 35:49
The thing I hoped for is some thought and more thought about the environment. And now we’ve talked about it, sort of, you know, on the one hand, environmental things are happening, on the other hand, they’re not. I hope that you know, when people realize what quiet is like, they’ll buy electric cars. I just hope that people will realize how nice it is to be on a screened porch or some room that can be common outdoor space, and the fresh air is better than I don’t care how many HEPA filters you have. A nice breeze off the water is better than recirculated HEPA filtered air. I’m hoping that those are some of the things that stick. I’m a little skeptical, because as this thing starts lifting, I’m hearing more and more motorcycles and more and more trucks already. But I’m hoping some aspects stay. We are getting more requests, for example, for electric charging cables for cars in their garages. Everybody’s suddenly calling about that. That’s my big hope, that there’s an environmental shift.
Sarah Ramsey 36:49
Having been in the city during this entire shutdown, the air is cleaner. It’s crisper. It’s really been interesting. I agree with you, Tom. Yeah.
Thomas Kligerman 37:02
What about the noise? Have you noticed?
Sarah Ramsey 37:04
When Michael mentioned hearing birds chirp, it’s true. I hear the birds chirping outside my window now. And I think about it. And I was sitting in a backyard socially distanced with a friend in my neighborhood. And we saw a cardinal and we saw all these birds. And we were like, wow, like we had never seen one before. It was really fun.
Michael Boodro 37:28
Right. No, I think that connection with the outdoors is something that will also last. I think once people have experienced that in a quiet way – I’m not saying everyday people. Human nature is human nature. People are going to want to go out. They want to go have a rowdy time at a bar, whatever, which is all good. We love that. But I do think there will be moments that people want to revert to the quiet moment.
Thomas Kligerman 37:55
I think that that’s true around their own home. I live in Midtown. So it may be quiet where they live. I don’t know where it is, in New Jersey or Queens. You know, it’s a little different when they come into their workplace. Will they realize that other people live? Will that desire for quiet spillover to their behavior when they go into other people’s neighborhoods? That’s one of my hopes, not to sound like a crank.
Michael Boodro 38:21
I hope you don’t have to move Tom. After you’ve done that big renovation.
Thomas Kligerman 38:24
I have to. Here’s one odd thing that’s happened, Sarah if you’ve noticed it. Because there’s no cars on the streets, you get these fleets of Ferraris, literally Lamborghinis and Ferraris and these special Porsches that race around. Off the subject of our conversation, but New York has become a bit of a Grand Prix.
Michael Boodro 38:45
I had no idea. I have not read about that.
Thomas Kligerman 38:48
It is so noisy. I love cars. I love Lamborghinis. They are loud.
Sarah Ramsey 38:55
I have to say my two and a half mile walk to the office has gotten faster because I don’t have to stop at every corner. Because there’s not as many cars and people to maneuver around.
Michael Boodro 39:09
Right. I mean, that’s one of the good things I’m enjoying too. When we go into the city, you know, what used to take two hours takes less than an hour and a half. I mean, but I don’t think that’s one of the things that’s gonna last after Corona. I think that’s, you know, I think if you live in LA, I don’t think the 405 is going away. But I do think maybe people are going to think more about how often they drive, the kind of car they drive, as you were saying Tom, that kind of thing. I think there’s an awareness that silence can be a good thing and I expect it’ll be an overreaction once we can go out more and go to restaurants. You know, pent up demand. That will all happen but maybe people will have gotten from this an increased respect for what their homes can do for them and give them and shelter them and nourish them. And I think that would be a great, great thing. Thank you both so much for taking part in this and it’s been really informative and fun, and I really appreciate it. Thank you, Tom. And thank you, Sarah. Thanks for listening to the Chairish podcast.
Lead image courtesy of William Waldron