Anyway. This week’s article, “Letting Go of the Rest,” is a personal essay by Helena Madden. I first met Helena—and have seen her many times over the years since—at design “market” showcases: tile shows, furniture fairs, brand dinners, and so on. As a writer, historically, her remit has been to cover what’s new. But the novelty of something, of course, is only a part of the story when it comes to the spaces we live in. In today’s tale, that newness enters the frame through a basement renovation her parents carried out during her adolescent years. Below, Helena reaches deep into the couch cushions to pull out some loose change around identity, class, and coming of age in the Midwest.

—Lila Allen

⌂ ⌂ ⌂
Like what you see here? Want to support independent design media? Wrong House compensates its contributors, and your support goes directly toward producing more stories. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

By Helena Madden

When I was in the fifth grade, my parents announced their plans to renovate the basement. They had bought our square-shaped St. Louis home in the ’90s, a year or two before I was born. At the time, they had grand plans for it, but raising two young girls solely on my father’s professor salary didn’t leave them with much extra cash for an ambitious remodel.

As the years passed and finances steadied, my mom began working part-time again, which meant it was finally time to reimagine the basement that they’d grown to resent, with yellow-brown wood that clad just about every wall. My mother said it felt embarrassingly stuck in the ’70s, and made the already-old house look even older. They hated the worn-down blue futon that let out a loud creak whenever you sat on it. What they imagined in its place was a cleaner, beige-and-white design—with an added bathroom where my dad could get ready for work or daily Mass in the wee hours of the morning. A sanctuary, you could say.

I disagreed, not caring much about the supposed aesthetic or functional upgrades—for me, the basement was an all-important dumping ground for my favorite toys. It was where my sister, Melinda, stashed her pastel dollhouses, and where I would hop aboard my enormous plastic rocking horse for a mid-afternoon joyride, galloping with a squeak even louder than the futon.

It was where Melinda, two years my junior, discovered the wonder of television. We spent months living abroad in a woefully TV-less Venice apartment when she was less than a year old. By the time we returned to St. Louis—or “the big house,” as I called it as a toddler—I was very eager to watch my favorite shows again. My mom put on a Teletubbies cassette, and our miniscule television sparked to life. Mel waddled toward it rapturously, arms outstretched, like Carol Anne from Poltergeist. It was as if she discovered fire.

Mom took the renovation as an opportunity to part with many of our childhood relics. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but my parents didn’t care much for the wisdom of an awkward Catholic school kid. The loud rocking horse was tossed without further thought; a particularly somber farewell was paid to our old Sit n’ Spin. Admittedly, my sister and I hadn’t used the latter in years, but we fought over it constantly when we were young.

In their place was an all-white bathroom, and numerous built-in shelves and small closets for my dad’s burgeoning board game collection. (Many years later, he amassed over 350 of them.) It was a hobby that he and I shared, swelling into an obsession—we’d spend entire afternoons playing the Cold War–themed Twilight Struggle or the Tolkien epic War of the Ring. Prior to the renovation, the games lived on an overstuffed shelf upstairs that can at best be described as careening, and at worst as a blatant safety hazard.

I became fascinated with the renovation process. Trading Spaces was on at the time, so it felt a bit like I was in an episode of reality television. Melinda and I would huddle around the upstairs air vent so we could eavesdrop on the contractors below, as if we were catching up on a new episode—it was especially exhilarating when they would use swear words. I pored over the stone swatches that my parents were surveying for the new bathroom; I selected bold, colorful options that they immediately vetoed. I went with my parents to Ashley Furniture to pick out a new beige sofa. Months later, I crouched next to my dad’s office and listened to him bark at a customer service agent about the whereabouts of our new sofa, demanding to know why it was taking so damn long to arrive.

The purchase that I remember the most, however, was our new television. My mom put my dad in charge of it, as he’s always been the more tech-savvy one in the relationship. Her one request was that the new screen not “dominate the room.” Dad ignored this rule and chose the biggest one he could possibly cram into the space—a 52-inch dynamo that was grander than just about anyone else’s in the neighborhood. Mom hated it, and would tell any and all houseguests that the TV was absolutely not her idea. It was as if my sister and I had discovered fire again—only this time it had surround sound.

The renovated basement had decidedly less character than the old one. The new furniture was all sourced from big-box stores, and it had a slickness to it that felt a bit devoid of life. I didn’t care. It became the go-to hangout spot for me and my friends throughout middle school, high school, and even when I came home from college.

It was the nucleus of our home. We had family movie nights there every Friday or Saturday—the VCR upgraded to a DVD player we’d use to play the Netflix discs that came in the mail. Tornado warnings were common, and we’d often rush down to the basement when the sirens would start. My parents would grab our dog and cats along the way, then turn on the enormous TV. We’d huddle together and anxiously await the latest weather report as rain pummeled the windows outside.

Our basement wasn’t the stuff of magazine spreads. Even after it was renovated, it had few trappings of luxury (beyond the giant TV). There were no vintage cocktail tables, no Murano glass sconces, no elegant candles or trays. It was where my dad showered in the morning, and where my mother did the laundry. It was simple; it was like countless others; and it was loved.

My parents, now in their 60s, are preparing to sell the house. Every time I call my mom, I’m confronted with evidence of the years we spent there. Can I part with my Nintendo Wii? When am I going to pick up more of the board games and take them back to New York? And how will I really feel when the house is no longer ours? The moment doesn’t feel as seismic as it did when they announced their plans to renovate all those years ago.

The space wasn’t supposed to be there forever—neither were its workaday furnishings or the room-dominating television. There’s a freedom in that. The pieces of the basement that I care about the most, I carry with me. I’ve learned to let go of the rest. ⌂

Helena Madden is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn. She has written about architecture and interiors for Robb Report and Elite Traveler, and she was the market editor at Elle Decor.

This is the third story from our 11th issue, themed “HOME ECONOMICS.”
Read the editor’s note here.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER ⌂ ISSUE 10: HOLDOUTS

This week, Megan C. Reynolds—author of the Your Home Is Not Ugly Substack and the writer of the story “Does a Chair Need to Be Comfortable?” from our ninth issue—returns to Wrong House for a dressing-down of the term “patina.” Speaking with Michael Diaz-Griffith and the pseudonymous Grumpy Decorator, and taking swipes at a few particularly egregious examples from brands (oop!), she makes the case that this cosplaying of history is actually the marker of a much sadder state of affairs.

—Lila Allen

⌂ ⌂ ⌂
Like what you see here? Want to support independent design media? Wrong House compensates its contributors, and your support goes directly toward producing more stories. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Written by Megan C. Reynolds

The table in my kitchen is not really a dining table—it’s a two-top from a restaurant somewhere on Martha’s Vineyard, salvaged through a friend. As a dining table, it’s not great: only big enough for one person, and square when round would probably work better. Like most things in my apartment, it’s not new; its surface is marred with water marks, stains, and divots, all signs of a life well-lived. It was also free; had it been purchased new, it’d have cost me $800 or more. And if I were to scroll on TikTok for longer than one cigarette, I feel certain that my table, or something like it, would show up in a design influencer’s video as an embodiment of “patina,” the term we’ve assigned to describe a state of having aged over time.

Depending on the material, patination can mean a few different things, all of which are the alteration of surface. For wood, it can be varnish that’s deepened in color; in metal, it can mean oxidation or even rust. The Statue of Liberty is one prominent example of patina in the wild: In 1886, when the old gal was unveiled, she was the color of a bright and shiny copper penny; by 1920, natural oxidation had cast her into a fetching shade of seafoam green. (That patinated color has taken on a life of its own, becoming so synonymous with the statue that it inspired the uniforms of the city’s WNBA team, the New York Liberty.) But in the buzzword-driven environment of mediated interiors—Instagram, magazines, TikToks—the concept of “patina” itself has transformed, becoming shorthand for an aesthetic that is inherently difficult to templatize, but implies good taste, a well-traveled life, and an appreciation and understanding of antiques.

An interior that embodies “patina” is probably also described as layered, classic, collected, eclectic, or “English.” Think a “curiosity cabinet” from kitchen brand deVol—a bespoke article of (new) furniture designed to resemble something quite old. For $1,200, you can get a botanical design applied to the back of the cupboard—digitally printed but hand-finished, complete with craquelure throughout, so that you can trick your guests into thinking it’s old, when really, it is brand spanking new. There seems to be an understanding now that our living rooms should carry a sense of personal history and showcase objects that are a reflection of our interests, lifestyle, and personality. There’s nothing wrong with that—but it’s also so self-explanatory that I’m confused as to why it’s a trend in the first place. It is also remarkably difficult to replicate: My yum is very likely someone else’s yuck, and that’s perfectly fine. But there’s no universal eclectic and collected interior that works for everybody, and it cannot be standardized. So why are we even trying?

Michael Diaz-Griffith, the author of The New Antiquarians: At Home with the New Collectors, has a refreshing take on this notion—and in his experience as a writer, historian, and vice chair of The Winter Show, the country’s longest-running arts and antiques fair, “nobody talks about patina.” He says that what we’re really talking about when we talk about patina is “surface,” a metric valued by collectors that prioritizes history over perfection. And those characteristics are also what gives the object a sense of narrative and context, two crucial components that the current craze for “patina” is missing. “What’s frustrating about ‘patina’ is that it’s a word that has become slop. It doesn’t actually mean much,” he says. If you start to scroll Instagram with this in mind, the endless carousels of moody, dark, walnut-forward interiors that mix overstuffed chintz sectionals with some sort of milking stool and a bunch of oil paintings of someone else’s grandparents will all start to look like AI. The layered, heritage interior of 2026 is just a refresh of another trend from the recent past: a maximalist Ralph Lauren living room, swapping the overt Americana for a more European flair. It is not timeless by any stretch. And yet, that’s what people are asking for, without understanding why.

“For the first time ever I have clients saying they want ‘patina’ and ‘layers’ when they absolutely do not,” says The Grumpy Decorator, a pseudonymous Substack author who designs at an AD100-listed firm in New York City. In a recent post, they shared the tale of a client who kept their family dog in the garage following a home renovation so its nails wouldn’t ruin the newly refreshed floors. A lived-in interior is one that people actually spend time in, and the wear and tear on the objects in it is earned charm, argues the Grumpy Decorator. “I think this patina craze is a product of all the interior design ‘influencers’ latching onto some of the good stuff they’ve seen shared, and it snowballs,” they tell me. “I think it could also be a way these influencers are trying to gain some sense of legitimacy.”

Legitimacy, in this case, presumably means the authority or the lived experience to dictate what’s in and what’s out. Unlike protein powders, lip oils, or a pair of jeans from TikTok shop, though, authority in this space requires not only an understanding of what you’re telling your followers to buy, but also why. To be clear, an intimate understanding of the decorative arts is not a prerequisite for making interior design content, but maybe it helps a little. Context is just as important as content, and patina for patina’s sake usually strips the context from the item in question. Joon Loloi’s recent collection with Drew Michael Scott, the content creator behind Lone Fox, features a polyester rug digitally printed with a design allegedly inspired by a 17th-century Belgian tapestry that hangs in Scott’s living room. “Like something out of a French chateau,” the copy screams, citing “vintage-inspired fading” as a selling point. There’s little information about the actual source material beyond its age (very old) and provenance (Europe!), but the consumer is meant to understand that that information is the point. Because the tapestry is both old and European, that’s all the context you need—and that becomes irrelevant once the new iteration of the old thing is in your living room.

“Patina,” I would argue, goes hand in hand with “piece,” a word used increasingly to describe any old item when there are other, more specific words available for use. (“I got this piece at the Rose Bowl Flea Market” could mean anything from a Danish teak credenza to a lumpen folk art vase.) Both feel full of themselves—and both are usefully vague, romanticizing the past for its own sake. And they often appear in design content that dictates rules, like the many, many videos I’ve seen where a young person green screens in front of a Jake Arnold kitchen and says that your space has to have something old in it to feel complete. To this point, Diaz-Griffith is clear: “Anyone who talks about rules is also just a con artist.”

Patina might be a proxy for age—a stand-in for the notion that a chair made in the 1900s, no matter its condition, is something worth holding onto. But at some point, the thing that you’re cherishing, in part because of its age, was just another unremarkable piece of furniture that started its life new. “These objects were once all new together,” Diaz-Griffith says. “They just happen to have aged. Fetishizing them for that quality and recruiting them into an interior to provide it with this arbitrary sense of depth is specious.” Age alone doesn’t make something better than its newer counterpart, but history still matters: An antique spindle chair, imprinted with the memory of hundreds of butts, reads as less declassé than the same thing made and purchased new. Functionally, they are the same chair—but one tells a story and the other doesn’t. History trumps potential every time.

These biases aside, there are other reasons why someone would want the older thing over the new: Contemporary furniture can be astonishingly poor quality, and dupe culture has made provenance worthy of following. Sometimes, the vintage sofa isn’t superior because it’s vintage, but because it won’t crumble under the weight of your body—already, it has held the weight of countless others before you, and lived to tell the tale.

But that state of affairs might also be useful for examining why “patina” has become little more than a marketing term. The cost of furniture has been rising steadily since 2020 and tariffs have increased the price of imported goods, including furniture, kitchen cabinetry, and other upholstered pieces, all in an attempt to move production and industry back into the United States. The housing crisis has made it incredibly difficult to buy a home and renters are staying in their rental apartments for longer. And our culture is now one of convenience—our stuff is designed for a good time, not a long time, making it all the easier to dispose of your futon guilt-free when you move to yet another apartment. Oldness, of the sort that “patina” evokes, feels like a relic of an era when people could buy homes and really settle in. But now, when the very nature of living can feel transient, maybe there’s a desire for stuff that looks or feels old because of what it represents: maybe above all, staying in place long enough to accumulate something to be handed down to your children. If you can’t buy a character-filled home replete with original millwork and pocket doors, then you can make your builder-grade one-bedroom feel like it. ⌂

Megan C. Reynolds is a writer, editor, and author. She runs Your Home Is Not Ugly, a semi-frequent newsletter about design for normies.

This is the second story from our 11th issue, themed “HOME ECONOMICS.”
Read the editor’s note here.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER ⌂ ISSUE 10: HOLDOUTS

Jaqueline Cedar, the artist and gallerist behind SPLIT LEVEL, is not afraid to embrace a scrappy solution, as Adrian Madlener explores in the reported feature below. She’s also cultivating a fair environment that’s accessible to those of us just starting our own collections. Read on for Adrian’s take on why this kind of fair resonates now, its cross-disciplinary exhibition approach, and what to expect from this year’s edition.

Speaking of which! We will be gathering a group for a Wrong House-exclusive tour of the show:

⌂ ⌂ ⌂ JOIN WRONG HOUSE FOR A VIP TOUR OF SPLIT LEVEL ⌂ ⌂ ⌂

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3 at 11:30 AM

RSVP REQUIRED - EMAIL LILA@WRONG-HOUSE.COM TO SIGN UP
_{(or just reply to this email, hey!)}

I’ll be there—see you then!

—Lila Allen

⌂ ⌂ ⌂
Like what you see here? Want to support independent design media? Wrong House compensates its contributors, and your support goes directly toward producing more stories. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Written by Adrian Madlener

There’s no doubt that the art market has hit a rough patch. At last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach fair, the slowdown was clear, with a number of regular blue-chip galleries presenting mid-priced pieces rather than the trophy eight-figure works that sold there during the post-Covid boomtimes. Smaller platforms have struggled to keep their doors open; many have closed. The reason: escalating operational costs; high interest rates and inflation nudging wealthy buyers toward caution; older collectors downsizing; and younger ones spending their smaller budgets on other types of collectibles.

But like most periods of upheaval, there’s opportunity to shake things up. For artist-turned gallerist-turned-fair director Jaqueline Cedar, the current moment isn’t one of doom and gloom—unless, of course, that’s what an artist exhibiting at SPLIT LEVEL, the fair she is bringing back for its second edition this year, has chosen to explore.

“The art market is always expanding and contracting,” she says, gently assuaging the loudest among the alarmists. “Emerging talents and galleries are uniquely positioned to succeed in moments where collectors are being more conservative with big purchases.” In establishing the fair in New York City last fall, Cedar set out to turn the traditional “convention center art fair” format on its head, championing a more dynamic and resourceful approach that bypasses the cost-prohibitive barriers that have long kept smaller, fledgling players out of the game.

She does it by staging a tight yet diverse roster of galleries in the “split-level” NoMad showroom of Rimadesio, an Italian brand best known for its high-end, modular architectural systems. Works of various scales, styles, and disciplinary definitions are cleverly staged throughout the sleek monochromatic setting, creating a visually intriguing contrast of different shapes, colors, and textures.

Among the 16 exhibitors that are part of the second edition this year—on view October 1 to 3—there are artist-run platforms as well as ones focused on research, archives, and stewardship. SPILL 180, for instance, evolved from a domestic, informal setting into an interdisciplinary platform that fosters inquiry and publishing through projects like BEANS, an online publication. 95 Gallon, another exhibitor, embraces a playful approach by operating out of a trash can, prompting the question of what is necessary, really, to draw people to see art. In contrast, Artist Estate Studio shifts the focus away from exhibition-making entirely, prioritizing the long-term archival, strategic, and promotional infrastructure required to sustain an artist’s career beyond sales. Despite these differing operational models, each platform is unified by a commitment to building resilient support systems that expand upon, rather than replace, traditional gallery frameworks.

What Cedar has structured with SPLIT LEVEL could, in fact, take place in any number of settings. Why Rimadesio, then? With the brand offering up the space for free, there’s much less overhead. The fair activates the sleek interior in a different way and draws in visitors that might not otherwise come in. It’s a win-win. It would also seem that a furniture showroom is more approachable than a gussied-up tent—the annual Frieze fair in London’s Regent’s Park—or an austere white cube—the many venerated galleries situated in the nearby Mayfair neighborhood.

“I’ve found the itinerant model is most beneficial in its ability to facilitate overlapping dialogues between cities and art contexts,” she says. “Rather than asking audiences to come to a single permanent destination, these projects can move into different regions and introduce artists to new communities.” There are challenges of course—shipping costs and safety issues—but in an age of digital fatigue and detached visual overstimulation, the possibility of experiencing art in person outweighs these risks.

At Rimadesio, nothing can be drilled into the walls. All works need to be arranged on tables or pre-existing shelves: the brand’s signature Zenit System post and beam storage product, perhaps. “The advantage is that most limitations tend to yield creative workarounds and seeing art in these unconventional placements can really influence the way one imagines living with work in their own homes,” says Cedar. She’s also incorporated lessons from her own venture, Good Naked Gallery, which operated out of an extra room in her apartment. “People tend to stay longer and have more engaged conversations,” she explains. “We saw that happening last year at Rimadesio for our first run—over the course of three days, visitors sat down, spoke with artists, returned, and brought friends.” The boost to Rimadesio of potential new customers doesn’t hurt, either.

Cedar believes there should be as little as possible in the way of a gallerist or dealer doing what they do best: finding artists whose work they believe in, and matching them with audiences who hold their work in similar esteem. “That relationship is ultimately about creating context and trust, not facilitating a transaction,” she says. Operating with this approach rather than a bottom-line mindset, the works on view at SPLIT LEVEL are accessible to entry-level collectors.

For her, the safest bet is not acquiring a piece of art—a recognizable “masterpiece”—that can quickly turn over merely as a shrewd speculative investment. “If it’s something you love, it’ll inform the way you spend time in your space every day, and potentially influence the way you see things when you go out in the world,” she says. When buying at lower price points, “Move intuitively and responsively toward the objects that move you,” she advises. “There’s also something really exciting about collecting at this scale because you can take a chance on an emerging artist or a new idea without the intense pressure of return or how the market may shift.”

In this spirit, SPLIT LEVEL does away with the disciplinary hierarchies that’ve hardened art-world evangelists for centuries. Painting, sculpture, furniture, objects—all are fair game. “We’re interested in where they overlap,” she says, noting that she thinks the distinctions between art and design will continue to blur as the fair develops: “A lot of artists and collectors are already thinking beyond traditional categories.”

There’s sincerity in how she operates across her ventures; pulling back the veil that normally shrouds the art world in favor of transparency. She sees levity as important, too. “The world is often absurd,” she says. “It helps to laugh about it.” Rather than approaching the art milieu with genuflecting reverence, Cedar aspires for something different: “Creating an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions, spending time with the work, and speaking with the people involved.” That, she believes, is when collecting becomes truly accessible. ⌂

Adrian Madlener is a Brussels-born, New York-based journalist specializing in collectible and sustainable design. He is the cofounder of the design criticism Substack EXT.RUDE.D.

This is the first story from our 11th issue, themed “HOME ECONOMICS.”
Read the editor’s note here.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER ⌂ ISSUE 10: HOLDOUTS

Mmmmmm, you smell that? That crisp air with a soupçon of wool and melancholy? That’s fall, baby. We’re in it now. Gather thy scarves, all ye who enter here.

In Design Land, where I have been a full-time resident since the beginning of this month, things are BUSY. One could even say too busy? There is no shortage of interesting talks, openings, product launches, and parties this September—for you West Coasters, LA Design Weekend is just around the corner; in New York, we’ve been staying occupied with Fashion Week (not my scene but maybe yours?), industry talks at What’s New What’s Next, outings with Club Collectible, and more. And a few lucky globetrotters among you got to attend Paris Design Week, which just wrapped a few days ago.

All this to say: I’m a little late getting this note out to you. But we have a great new issue of Wrong House—our 11th!—lined up around the theme of “Home Economics.”

This issue of the mag (with a cover by zinemaster and poetfriend Anna Elise Anderson) is all about how we cultivate value (and values) at home—whether through art and design objects, an interior renovation, or a personal brand. We’ll also interrogate how “patina” became the ultimate slopword of the design industry—and what it says about the way we live now.

Later this week, we kick things off with a reported feature from Adrian Madlener on a new art and design showcase that’s bucking conventions of traditional fairs, and in doing so, creating a new entry point for collectors. See you then.

Happy equinox,

Lila

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER ⌂ ISSUE 10: HOLDOUTS

This time a year ago, I was bleary-eyed from the all-nighter I had pulled prepping the first issue of Wrong House—tweaking social posts, finessing words here or there in my own writing, and all the other things that keep me up when I really care about something. Despite the lack of sleep, my husband and I piled in our van and hit the roads towards Vitra, who generously hosted our launch event with zero proof of concept, beyond goodwill I’d somehow accumulated through years of working at “real” publications and the unwavering support of my friend Sara Griffin, who got me in the door with her client. (I learned during that process that Vitra actually has a pretty impressive history of supporting creative up-and-comers—kudos to them for that.)

A lot of you showed up to support this thing, that night and ever since. I can’t tell you what it’s meant to me. I take my professional work personally, which is both a superpower and a hazard. But also, I think this is just what it means to make creative work—I had just never bothered to consider myself a creative person; I was someone who helped other people be creative. That’s changing, and if anything, it’s only made me appreciate what so many of you—writers, artists, filmmakers, designers, photographers—put into your work every day.

In the last 12 months, we’ve produced 10 issues I’m incredibly proud of, on themes ranging from antiques and inheritance to technology to rules and permission to pastoral comfort to resistance. Christmas too. In the heat of design’s busy season, we also delivered special dispatches on the (surprisingly sensible!) footwear worn by the design crowd during Salone del Mobile, and produced a choral report on New York Design Week. We had an art-filled, flower-filled party at a farm. We feted the holidays in a collectible car showroom. We returned to Vitra for a conversation on improvisation and play; presented at the DLN; rapped with designers on the Hudson Valley art scene; shared aperitivi and ciggies with sexy people in Milan; and more.

And here we are. Next week, we launch our 11th issue, “Home Economics.” And we’re gearing up for several in-person events, details of which you’ll find below. Until next week, thanks to all of you who have read us, pitched us, shared our work, invited us to speak, subscribed, or supported us in other ways over the past year. Here’s to the next one.

XO,

Lila

Special thanks to: Amuneal, Aplos, AvroKO, Sarah Archer, Early Barrett, Diana Budds, Seth Caplan, Car Part Time, Kristin Coleman, Matt Cosper, River Davies, Rob Davis, Michael Diaz-Griffith, Jesse Dorris, Ben Dreith, East Fork, Edition Farm, Ekemini Ekpo, Elizabeth Fazzare, Femlord, Freakout Spot, Kamille Glenn, Sydney Gore, Sara Griffin/Griffin PR, Dan Howarth, HOST on Howard, Jacquelyn Iyamah, Alicia Kort, Mallory Lawson, Daphne Lundi, Adrian Madlener, Zach Mortice, Monica Nelson, Office of Tangible Space, Anthony Paletta, Madeleine Parsons, Parachute, Chad Phillips, Kel Rakowski, Shane Reiner-Roth, Megan Reynolds, Liz Ryan, Sam Shaffer, Jesse Smiley, Lizzie Soufleris, Stellar Works, Meggie Sullivan/BIGMESS, TCPR, Three’s Brewing, Topo Chico, Eric Trine, Urbanstems, Rob Vargas, Vitra, Voga, Allan Wexler, Alex T. Williams, July Winters, and Michael Yarinsky. If I forgot you, I promise I still cherish you!!!

Upcoming Events

Definitions of Luxury Are Changing—Are We Keeping Up? (Part of What’s New What’s Next)

Thursday, September 17 at 4:00 p.m.

Amuneal Showroom at 200 Lex, 200 Lexington Avenue, New York City, Suite 1314

The idea of the American home is shifting rapidly, driven by changing lifestyles, new expectations around privacy and flexibility as well as a growing emphasis on wellness and connection to the outdoors. But are architects and designers truly evolving with these changes? Amuneal invites leading voices in residential design to examine where the industry is adapting, and where it may still be relying on outdated assumptions, offering a candid look at what today’s homes need to succeed. Featuring Jessica Gersten, Jessica Gersten Interiors; Margie Lavender, Kligerman Architecture & Design; Katie Lydon, Katie Lydon Interiors; and Ben Grandjean, SilverLining, Inc.; moderated by Lila Allen.

—> RSVP

A Conversation About Play in Design

Saturday, September 19 at 5:30 p.m.

Show: Room at Pocketbook Hudson, 604 Washington Street, Hudson, NY

Join us for a conversation between Julio Torres, Sean Roland, and Nancy Kim, moderated by Wrong House’s Lila Allen. This conversation will explore serious spaces created with play. You’ll hear the design intentions behind the Pocketbook Hotel and Show: Room, along with All Other Passports, Julio Torres’s debut furniture collection with Sabai, now on view in the Show: Room space.

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VIP TOUR: Split Level Fair

Saturday, October 3 at 11:30 a.m.

102 Madison Avenue, New York City

SPLIT LEVEL brings together a selection of young galleries and curators focused on championing emerging artists working in a wide range of media. Hosted by Rimadesio, SPLIT LEVEL takes a playful approach to installation within this design-centered space. Featuring: 95 Gallon, Alex Stoller, Artist Estate Studio, Below Grand, Blah Blah, Cara Marsh Sheffler, Eli Klein, Emily McElwreath, Flatline, Geary Contemporary, Good Naked, Katy Diamond Hamer, Kathryn Markel, Kelly McKenna, Massey Klein, Spill 180, and The Sphinx. Join us for a VIP tour, just for Wrong House readers.

To RSVP, please reply to this email

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER ⌂ ISSUE 10: HOLDOUTS

Hi there, housemates,

For the final story in our 10th issue, Alex T. Williams brings us into the home, studio, and garden of Constantin and Laurene Boym, also known as Boym Partners. These sites are filled with tokens of friendship from fellow artists and designers, as well as their own personal archive of work made over four decades of practice together. The duo are currently creating a new collection of nature-based “readymades,” to be exhibited at Available Items later this month. During the interview, Constantin picks up a piece of bark: “People just step over these things,” he says. “Nature gives them to you for free.” Looking back at their older designs, like the Searstyle pieces developed in the ’90s (made from replacement parts for Sears furniture), there’s a clear thread of making the familiar unfamiliar through remixing and shifting context. What sticks around takes on new meaning as the world changes around it.

Speaking of sticking around—next week marks our one-year anniversary at Wrong House! I’ll be sending out a little note next week commemorating our first 12 months in publishing, and then we’ll start rolling our our next issue: “Home Economics.”

Happy Labor Day!

—Lila Allen

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Written and photographed by Alex T. Williams

The first thing Constantin Boym wants to show me isn’t inside his house.

Instead, we—that’s me, Constantin, and his wife and partner in design, Laurene—head into the woods beyond, following a narrow path through young maples to what he calls Boym Park: a small landscape of ideas assembled during the isolation of the pandemic. There’s a tiny “thinking cabin” furnished with a Donald Judd–like daybed built from scrap lumber; a low bench oriented precisely north (confirmed by the compass permanently embedded in the seat); and a museum-like display of found birdhouses. Nearby, a twisted piece of rusted steel, unearthed when the Boyms had an old garbage dump removed from the property, stands upright as a sculpture. Constantin refers to it as the genius loci: the spirit of the place.

“This is all Constantin’s thing,” Laurene quips as her husband continues the tour. “I’ll just keep my mouth shut until we get to my part.”

I do manage to get them to pose together for a quick photo on “North Bench” before we eventually get to Laurene’s part, a long outbuilding, which I call a “shed”—an error Laurene quickly corrects.

“It’s my studio,” she says. “The wording matters. Everyone likes to romanticize the kooky old lady, hiding away in the woods. But we live this way by choice; it’s the only way we’re able to create.”

I first met Constantin and Laurene in 2008, when I was a young designer working at Areaware. The two of them were already fixtures of New York’s design world. Back then, I mostly knew them through work that included tiny objects: Buildings of Disaster, cast collectibles commemorating architectural tragedies throughout history. The following year, they received the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Product Design.

Today, they split their time between New York City, where Constantin has long taught industrial design at Pratt Institute, and a quiet ridge above the Hudson River. Perched on a steep slope at the latter, their compact but charming country home displays the accumulated evidence of two lifetimes in design.

Nothing feels overly curated or precious. The objects seem to have accumulated there through friendship, work, and time. A George Sowden lamp sits beside one of Constantin’s early Searstyle pieces, furniture reconfigured from items procured through the Sears catalog in the early ’90s. Up a ladder in the loft-like bedroom is a Nathalie du Pasquier painting they recently rediscovered in a sheaf of drawings after forgetting they owned it. There are prototypes, books, gifts from old friends, and pieces acquired through decades of exchanges with fellow designers.

“Almost everything here has a souvenir quality,” Constantin tells me. “More than design, it has memory.”

Outside, freight trains loaded with shipping containers rumble past. Though it’s the only thing to disturb the otherwise peaceful afternoon, the mournful whistles interrupt our conversation throughout.

“It’s all Amazon junk,” Laurene says as another one disappears down the tracks.

As we settle around a weathered table overlooking the valley, the dozens of objects and stories I’ve just absorbed begin to cohere into something larger, and I find myself wondering what thread the Boyms see running back through their four decades working together. The theme of this issue is Holdouts, and I ask what the phrase means to them.

Constantin answers first. “Being a designer is a difficult career. It’s a lot of work, a lot of effort, and relatively little money. So people find dignified ways to get out of it. They become manufacturers. They go into academia. They go digital.” He pauses. “So what is a holdout? Someone who turns 70 and doesn’t retire to Florida. They still keep making collections of objects. Still having little exhibitions. God knows why.”

Laurene laughs. “I have a different definition,” she says.

For her, holding out is more about resilience. “The passion keeps driving you. You still feel like you have something to say. I don’t know what else I’d do if I wasn’t a designer. I’m always holding out for something. I always think we’re going to turn a corner.” She smiles. “It’s a carrot and a stick. We keep chasing the carrot… and getting a stick up our ass.”

The Boyms have never chased a recognizable aesthetic. “Our design was never about style,” Constantin says. “It was about attitude.” For decades they’ve been fascinated by things other designers largely ignored: souvenirs, keepsakes, ready-mades, overlooked materials, found objects, and everyday artifacts.

He picks up a rough piece of tree bark from a new series they’re developing. “People just step over these things,” he says. “Nature gives them to you for free. They don’t see them.” The goal with this new work isn’t simply to transform the bark into an object—it’s to make someone start to notice the bark differently. “If somebody sees bark in the woods later and remembers the object, that’s the connection.”

The idea of giving ordinary things extraordinary permanence has followed the Boyms throughout their careers. Whether they’re designing souvenirs, collecting found objects, or rescuing pieces of bark from the forest floor, the fascination is ultimately the same: how ordinary things accumulate meaning over time. Constantin distinguishes carefully between souvenirs and keepsakes, but both communicate the idea that the value of an object isn’t fixed by its maker or its material, but by the life that is lived around it. When it comes to keepsakes, he says, “anything can become one. Obsolescence doesn’t apply.”

He references a Sottsass telephone they’ve had for years. “It doesn’t even work anymore, even if we had a landline. But we still keep it.” Laurene nods. “You can buy a pancake turner on Amazon that functions perfectly,” she says. “But it doesn’t have the magic or sparkle of something somebody really cared about.”

I ask whether the AI and digital landscape of today interests them. Technology, they insist, is simply another tool. Laurene happily uses Midjourney to sketch ideas quickly for clients. Constantin experimented with 3D printing the maquettes for their Buildings of Disaster models before abandoning it. “Something was lost,” he says. Collectors noticed it too. “They looked less alive.” He went back to making them by hand.

Neither of them romanticizes their profession, even when reflecting on their most successful moments. “There is a lot of heartbreak in design,” Laurene says. Manufacturers disappear, projects die, and years of work can evaporate because an engineer decides something can’t be produced or a company quietly stops returning calls. “You put your heart into something.” She shrugs. “And then they stop calling you.”

For Laurene, career interruptions have been personal as much as professional. She spent years caring for family members. Lyme disease—contracted on their property—stole nearly six years from her. During the pandemic lockdown, her form of art therapy became driving to the Dollar General at the bottom of the hill, buying ordinary packaged food, then returning home to paint the labels.

I ask if painting represents an escape from design for her. “I started out as a painter,” she explains. “Then I designed OXO tools. It’s all been one interwoven journey.”

A new body of work they’ve spent the summer developing is also one of their closest collaborations, so I ask how their partnership has evolved over the years. Laurene refers to her role on the project as the “sourcer of wood,” but accidentally calls herself “the sorcerer of the wood,” which makes us all laugh. She is largely responsible for painting and visual direction while Constantin handles the mechanics.

“We work as one organism,” she says. The collaboration, she believes, has only gotten better. “We flip roles all the time.”

Before I leave, I ask one final question: If you had to abandon this place tonight forever, what single keepsake would you take?

Constantin remembers a friend who underwent brain surgery carrying a childhood teddy bear into the operating room. When he woke up, the nurses had wrapped the bear’s head in bandages to match his own.

Is the bear here? I ask. “No, but it was a beautiful story.”

Laurene thinks for a long time. Finally, she gives up: “Choosing one object is like choosing between children.”

She pauses, looks across the room, then points to a hanging set of Jasper Morrison’s barbecue utensils for HAY, which Constantin had earlier flagged as a personal favorite. “I definitely wouldn’t take those,” she says.

Ultimately neither can answer. The question might be impossible to answer. After spending a lifetime finding meaning in objects, how do you pick just one? The Boyms have made a practice of finding value in the things the rest of us might overlook. After 40 years, that discernment might be the most remarkable thing they’ve held onto. ⌂

Alex T. Williams is a designer and advisor working at the intersection of creative practice, business, and community building. A cofounder of the lighting brand RBW, he now works with creative entrepreneurs through dialogue, advisory engagements, and curated experiences focused on building sustainable, meaningful practices.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER

Hey there, housemates,

Fifteen years ago, the writer of today’s story, Matt Cosper, and I shared a drink at a beloved local watering hole in our hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. At the time, not much was around it: A pawn shop was just up the block, and a new record store had opened nearby. By the time I moved to New York a couple of years later, development was creeping down the street. Condos were moving in, and the artists were moving out.

But this bar, The Thirsty Beaver Saloon—which served a drink called a “Thirsty Beavosa”¹ for 50 cents—ultimately became the unlikely protagonist in a David-and-Goliath battle for the soul of the city. Below, Matt walks us through its history, reflects on how its holdout status has changed it over time, and talks to a few of its patrons. (Mick Jagger, sadly, could not be reached.)

Til next week,

Lila

¹ Miller High Life—the “Champagne of Beers”—and orange juice.

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Like what you see here? Want to support independent design media? Wrong House pays its contributors, and your support goes directly toward producing more stories. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Written by Matt Cosper

There are dive bars and there are dive bars. Most of the proper ones aren’t places you want to be unless you are a committed alcoholic or member of the criminal underworld. My hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina definitely has some dive bars—nasty little spots tucked away at the edges, hidden in plain sight: places like The Surf Inn, a Lynchian pool hall incredulously nestled between a nursing agency and a concrete supplier. But in a city that has boomed on the back of vast banking interests and the transplants they hire, local color can be hard to find.

If you ask your average Charlotte resident to recommend a dive bar, they are going to point you to The Thirsty Beaver, an austere cinderblock structure on Central Avenue that has been there since 2008. There are bars on the windows and no landscaping; bras hang from the ceiling and beer memorabilia covers the interior, chockablock and messy. “Hee-Haw” plays on TV. On the building’s side—which is painted orange—a supersized beaver mascot in a cowboy hat raises a glass (presumably of the tavern’s beer, which starts at $2). But the story of the Thirsty Beaver is interesting mostly because it hinges on the strange mutations that can arise when the dictates of capital collide with local weirdness at the end of the world, because around a decade ago, a luxury condominium called Overton Row was forced to build around it.

In the 2000s, brothers Brian and Mark Wilson initially staked a claim and gathered a little community around The Rat’s Nest, a vintage clothing store where they trafficked in wares that signaled a post-ironic devotion to old-school outlaw country and motorcycle culture. They sold clothes but also hosted tintype photographers and musical acts—including their own band, The Loose Lugnuts—and drank a lot of beer. A bar made sense.

When it opened 18 years ago, the Beaver quickly established itself as an outpost of no-frills cool in a not-quite-yet gentrified corner of the Plaza Midwood neighborhood, an undesignated arts district on its way to being the neighborhood it is today, where asking rents are the highest of anywhere in the city. Opening up in a dusty lot not surrounded by much, The Thirsty Beaver expanded the borderlands of Plaza Midwood and became a home away from home for a loyal crew of bikers, cow punks, and folks from the neighborhood who didn’t like staying home alone to do their drinking. The bartenders were friendly, the jukebox was better than it had any business being, and it was a nice place to hide if the vibes up the street were a little too coked out. It was authentic, you might say.

When developers started buying up lots in the area around 2012 or 2013, there was one holdout: George Salem, a local property owner who leased The Thirsty Beaver its land, had no interest in selling. Offers came and went but Salem wouldn’t budge. In 2015, CW Development came up with a novel solution: they bought up all the land surrounding the Beaver and turned it into Overton Row, a 323-unit apartment complex built in a sort of horseshoe around the bar.

The drama around the land deal and the visual interest of the new situation was catnip for the media. In the years since, it has stayed a cause celebré for champions of the underdog and connoisseurs of architectural oddities. Mick Jagger posted a picture of himself drinking there undisturbed when the Rolling Stones stopped in Charlotte. The little dive bar that could has become what a dive bar cannot be: a tourist attraction. And in news that will surprise no one, that kind of attention has a tendency to change the vibe of a place.

The concept of psychogeography is simple: There are cities made of concrete and glass with human animals moving through them hither and thither. Woven through are secret cities—diffuse and mutable burgs constructed from habits, aggressions, eroticisms, and encounters, always in flux and contingent on the emotional and intellectual experiences of their inhabitants. This constellation of secret cities is more real than real. The psychogeographies of a place are its soul. And soul has long been a point of contention in conversations about Charlotte.

Built at a trading crossroads for Indigenous tribes and defined by banking activity for much of its history, Charlotte is a town whose soul has been caught up in facilitating the flow of capital. The city’s growth into a metropolis has proceeded with a sense of frictionless comfort, insulated from the murky past of the American South. But the past is never really dead; it’s not even really past. No matter how we try to tear down or paper over history, a specter remains, resulting in a sort of double exposure. In some places, the past peers back at us with no separation at all. The effect is unsettling.

This is where The Thirsty Beaver enters a sort of uncanny valley of nostalgia, progress, and the inexorability of change. In its aesthetic and affect—and by holding out against development—The Thirsty Beaver projects an image of nostalgia, facing off with the forces of so-called progress.

Whether you see this resistance as a noble act of preservation or a stubborn reactionary position, the fact of things is that it is an illusion. As our good friend Heraclitus reminds us: “All things flow”—which is, of course, anathema to beavers, who spend their entire lives dedicated to honoring an instinctual drive to impede flowing water. The symbolism works almost too perfectly. One wonders sometimes if the author of this Universe has no sense of subtlety.

Capital demonstrates its true genius in how it handles these places where the veil is thin. Rather than hide or mask these zones, the solution is a handy bit of necromancy, turning the ghost into a commodity itself. The Beaver is accessing a particular register of southern nostalgia: a blue-collar, redneck past that is hilariously out of place in the gentrified environs of Plaza Midwood in 2026. The bar was always a nostalgia trap—a temple to an idea of the South that likely never existed, at least not in such a concentrated dose. And given the way the neighborhood has changed around it, and the way those changes have contributed to the longevity of the joint, it’s hard not to see it as a sort of campy postmodern redneck theme park, the sort of thing that wouldn’t be out of place in Las Vegas, or in a district of Elon Musk’s fantasy of a Mars Colony.

The late great cultural critic Mark Fisher, quoting Italian anarchist philosopher Bifo Berardi, wrote eloquently about “the slow cancellation of the future.” This concept shows up tacitly in most cultural criticism at this point, nearly a decade after Fisher’s suicide: That there’s nothing new under the sun; everything is a remake, or a prequel or a spin off. Nostalgia is the primary form of expression and experience in a world where those in the driver’s seat lack a compelling or inspiring map of the future, or where the myth of a linear, positivist history has been debunked. We lean on hopes of getting back to some lost past, of being great again as we were in our golden age, or at the very least take comfort in old episodes of “Hee-Haw.” Nostalgia is cozy and comforting for some, but the problem is that it isn’t actually real. It’s a simulacrum, a copy without an original.

What is real are people. Culture is what people do in a specific place under specific circumstances. It’s how people are, in context. And to a lot of people, The Thirsty Beaver has meant more than any one image or idea or economic function. It’s the place they saw their mild-mannered coworker drink too much and holler along to Waylon Jennings, where they made out with their ex, because they are a messy bitch who lives for drama, where they got lost in the intensity of being a human being living a human life. Glory and regret in equal measure. These things are what make a city worth a damn. There aren’t many corners of the world left where people can be people. It can feel like that anyways. Regardless of the vagaries of the market, or the weirdness of trying to exist IRL at all, when a city spawns a spot like the Beaver, it’s worth fighting for. And the best way to do that is probably to put some change in the juke box, grab a seat at the bar and tell the bartender your name when you order. ⌂

Matt Cosper is a playwright, poet and critic who lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. Someone should publish his debut novel, Idle Hands. It is quite good.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

PAST ISSUES

ISSUE 01: FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF ⌂ ISSUE 02: NO THOUGHTS, JUST VIBES ⌂ ISSUE 03: DON’T SIT ON THAT! ⌂ ISSUE 04: HOLIDAY SPECIAL ⌂ ISSUE 05: SWEATIN’ THE OLDIES ⌂ ISSUE 06: KITCHEN SINK ⌂ ISSUE 07: HACK JOB ⌂ ISSUE 08: OUT TO PASTURE ⌂ THE SHOE REPORT: MILAN DESIGN WEEK ⌂ A NYCxDESIGN CHORUS ⌂ ISSUE 09: GETTING WARMER

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Hi there, housemates,

This week, in the spirit of holdouts, we’re taking a cl…

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About a week ago, a piece of New York City history revealed itself. For decades, a towering sign in Herald Square has concealed a five-story building that, around 1900, was snapped up by a department store rival hoping to gain leverage over Macy’s as they moved into the neighborhood. The plan failed; Macy’s built its retail monolith…

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We’re officially in the dead of summer—and though the weather here in the Hudson Valley is surprisingly damp and cool this week, things are heating up.

The theme of our ninth issue this past month was “Getting Warmer.” When I came up with that conceit, I thought the stories would focus on hospitality: emotional warmth, hosting, home…

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Every day we inch closer to July 4, 2026, America is heating up. The sun is streaming through the temporary decals on the windows of Bank of America that read, “Celebrating 250 Years of the American Dream.” Printed summer picnic plates at Walmart go viral for their wording, “United States of America, 1776–2026.”

As people prepare for our …

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There’s a chair in the den at my father’s house that, to me, is perfect. It is large, red, and assertive, and bears a passing resemblance to Jindřich Halabala’s slutty little Art Deco armchairs for Thonet. The generous arms can accommodate a stack of books, my large water bottle, and a flotilla of TV remotes that you’ll find in a Boo…

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Each month, we’re inviting our community to submit their conundrums—big, small, petty, logistical, professional—for a second opinion. Need to know when to call it quits on a project? Or how to scale your crafty hobby into a career? Or what to do when your product gets knocked off? Over the course of two decades in cre…

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I first met the architect and designer Lucia Bartholomew when I was 19 years old, spending the end of a gap year in Santa Barbara before heading off to RISD. We discovered an unlikely shared connection: Her family spent summers on Squirrel Island, a small community off the coast of Maine not far from where I grew up. Our lives and car…

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Richard Nickel, the canonical Chicago preservationist and photographer, shot the Madlener House, home of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, on at least three occasions. The first was during its earliest incarnation as the imposing Gold Coast manse of a German liquor magnate. When the family cleared out, they tore…

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So here’s what happened. I had a multi-tab spreadsheet, a color-coded calendar, email invitations, planned social posts, multiple rounds of bus tickets, and around 15 coffee dates to carry me through NYCxDESIGN, New York’s design week. And then, suddenly, I had to drop all of it to hop a plane to Florida. It was, culturally speaking, about as far away from the city as I could get.

So for me, the busiest part of this season was over before it started—at least outside of the sad, glowing screen I stared at from a thousand miles away. But design week coverage at Wrong House stops for nothing! If I couldn’t be there in person, I still wanted an on-the-ground report from the Design Writing With Guts (™) fam that I knew would be pinballing around town.

The fruits of that labor—what I am calling our NYCxDESIGN Chorus—can be found below, with thanks to contributors Jesse Dorris, Dan Howarth, Adrian Madlener, Liz Ryan (whose illustrations carried us through the week), and my trusty fellow editor July Winters.

Hope to see you at the next one.

xx

Lila

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