Ed Hollander's competitive spirit made him one of the greats

0:03This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is landscape architect Ed Hollander. A veteran of the industry, Ed has brought his expertise to projects around the world and has collaborated with design and architecture luminaries like Peter Penoyer, Bunny Williams, and Tom Kligerman. His firm, Hollander Design, is one of the few landscape architecture practices to earn a spot on the AD 100. I spoke with Ed about how a competitive spirit has fueled his career, his connection to King Charles, and what happened when residential landscapes went from being something you looked at to something you lived in.

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1:47Established in 1886, Tebow is a trusted trade resource with more than a century of expertise, offering interior designers beautifully relevant wall coverings, fabrics, trimmings, rugs, and furniture. Known for its inspiring color palettes and exclusive in-house designs, Tebow prides itself on delivering best-in-class service and maintaining industry-leading inventory levels. Tebow sells exclusively to the trade with seven flagship showrooms across the U.S. To learn more, visit tebowdesign.com slash boh. And now, on with the show. It is a beautiful spring day, as you were just referring. And is that suddenly a call to action in this office?

2:37Is there a whole new level of urgency now that spring has sprung? Well, spring brings all sorts of wonderful things, but it brings an enormous amount of work at the same time. So not only are we working on designing the myriad urban projects and hospitality projects and residential projects in California and Utah and Florida and Long Island and Nantucket and wherever we are, but there's certain areas like the Hamptons and Nantucket where Memorial Day is this, everything's got to be done. either crisis or holiday. Take your pick depending on which way you look at it. So there will be days when we'll have four or five people out placing plants, moving trees, being there, flogging contractors, getting out cattle prods, doing whatever we need to do so that we can try to get things done by this magical schedule.

3:32I always find time to stop when saucer magnolias are in flower and I'll stop and I'll put my face and breathe in the scent of a magnolia and things like that. But that's in between bouts of insanity and insomnia. Listen, if you're doing a lot of work in Palm Beach, it's Thanksgiving. It's the beginning of the season. So it depends where you are. But we always have 30 or 40 houses under construction in the Hamptons at any one time. So it seems to add a level of insanity to the ongoing insanity. Is that right that you have 30 or 40 houses under construction at all times in that? Yeah, we do a lot.

4:10Because our work is so diverse. We work, and not that Donald Trump should be against that. This is a good kind of diversity. But I mean, we work with modern architects from Annabelle Seldorf and Stephen Hole and Leroy Street and any of the great modernists to Robert A.M. Stern and Ferguson Shamami and Peter Penoyer to anyone that's more traditional and very formal and very ecological. So we get called in on a lot of projects with great differences in style and location and things like that. We've had projects where we have started with a modernist and the clients have changed to a traditionalist.

4:48And yet we keep working. We just change kind of style. I mean, someone once said to me, we have no style, which I disagree with. I think you're a far away to say. Right. But it does give us the ability to work on a lot of different kinds of projects, which is really more fun. I mean, if we had a style or that was a Hollander landscape, I would find that to be as much of a criticism as a compliment. Well, but what is the difference between what a modernist, what Annabelle Saldorf would want versus what Tom Kligerman would want? Well, Tom's a pain in the ass. We know that. Annabelle's a pleasure.

5:23But aside from that - Aside from the personalities. You know, contemporary architecture is about clean, they're clean lines. There tends to be orthogonal shapes and there are big panes of glass. So there's a lot of inside out and outside in. A lot of the modern architecture is built on the bay, on the ocean, a place where you're really connecting much more visually with the natural environment. because all of our projects, I mean, we really work off natural ecology, architectural ecology, human ecology. Our landscapes, particularly in proximity to the buildings, have to be a reflection of that building.

6:07It has to seem as though there are two hands attached to one head. So every project starts with the site. What is the natural ecology of the site? What does the land look like? Where are its views? What's the topography? What's the soils? What are the drainage? How do you, understanding that sites and landscapes are living things, from the bedrock geology to what's growing there. It's all connected and it's all alive. So we need to understand that. We need to understand the architecture, and then we need to understand the human, who's living there. Is it one family? I mean, everybody's, and it's obviously different in the residential work we do than the commercial work or the hospitality work.

6:45But when we're doing people's homes. Homes are reflections of, you know, home is kind of a built reflection of a family. And the landscapes that go along with that are living reflections of the family. And every family is different. We've had properties that have sold and changed hands from family to family where we bulldozed out our previous work. Okay, it doesn't work for them. So give me an example of, so it didn't work for them because what? There's not... They changed style of architecture, you know, or, you know, it was an older couple and now it's a family with four young kids. It was someone who loved formal gardens versus someone who loves meadows and pollinators and running through long grass.

7:26So what makes it home for them can be very different, even within the same, you know, two acres, three acres, whatever it is, they may have a totally different, it might be multi-generational, it may be young, so you have to be adaptable. I'm everything at work. My wife says I'm not at home. He's so flexible at work. She'll get to hear things like, you know, he's such a good listener. And she's just like. And Wendy's scratching her head. Wendy's scratching her head and using a few like you're out of your head. Really? I haven't found that. You use up all those genes at work, I can tell. Well, you have to be.

8:02I mean, you do work with so many different architects and designers, right? And they all have very different personalities and very different demeanors. And different styles. And we're not going to come into this with, this is my vision. This is my ego. We don't just give lip service to collaboration. We really enjoy it. I mean, we're lucky. We get to work with some of the world's best architects and designers. We get to work on some of the most beautiful pieces of property. We get to work with a lot of clients that have the means to allow us to create really special places. But a lot of the joy that we get is working with our other professionals.

8:40And I think that joy is reflected in what you see in the landscape. I want to come back to the architects and the people that you work with, because it's an incredible array of people. And I want to talk about what you've learned from working with all of them. But focusing on the moment that we're in right now. So all we hear about is the housing crisis, right? The resale market very cold right now, interest rates high. My guess is that's not affecting your world so much if you've got 30, 40 homes being built in the Hamptons all the time and work all over the country. But you tell me. I think we're in a very fortunate spot.

9:21You know, at this point in my career, with the work that the office has produced, that we probably get offered a job a week. And we probably turn away more than half of them. Either we had someone call, they were in British Columbia, would love to do a place in British Columbia. How are we going to get to British Columbia? A little far. Well, that's the problem is, you know, there's a romance to doing a house in St. Bart's till you realize you're on the afternoon flight with everybody else who's there drinking their first Mai Tai. You're working on the site that afternoon, you're working on the site the next morning, and then you're battling flying home.

10:00So the romance of travel, I mean, we have nine or 10 projects in Taiwan. So I'll go to Taiwan for 48 hours. Now it's 17 and a half on the plane getting there and 16 and a half on the plane coming back. And it's a lot of fun and it's interesting, but we get offered a lot of work. We can't do all the work we're offered, which is great. So we're in a good spot with that, not just because of me, but because of the other people that work here. So am I nervous about the future? Always. But I think if we founded this firm in 1991, there's only four days a year of comfort where you think, I actually have this figured out.

10:36We're in the sweet spot. The other 361 days, you're either pulling your hair out because we don't have enough work and we have more than we could possibly do. What did they want in Taiwan? What brought you to Taiwan? We're doing nine or 10 big, we're doing apartment complexes, urban parks. We've done projects in Hong Kong. We've done private residential and development projects. Taiwan is all commercial residential buildings, parks, things like that. And it's very interesting because you're working in a different world with a different culture. Yes. And my first question is, why are they bringing me to Taiwan?

11:12Well, exactly. That's what I'm asking. Right. So you have to begin to realize, and this is always a shock to me, that our name is of some value. You're famous. You are so big. In Taiwan, they know you. Taiwan, they know us. Over there, my wife and I were having dinner with King Charles in February. Oh, we're going to talk about that. Absolutely. So, I mean, it's like me? You sure? Wait, you didn't address this to the wrong person? So, while I still find this astonishing, yeah, Holland Design, big name, heard of us, want us there, will add value. Assuming that all commercial development has to do with somebody making money off our name.

11:52And there is a reverence for landscape. There's a reverence for gardens. When we were first there, we get treated beautifully because people who create gardens talk to God. As a little Jewish boy, that sounds pretty good. See, even skipping out from Sunday school, I still have got a connection. So that's what it is. They think you're - Well, I think they've seen the work that we've done. They're trying to elevate the work that they do. They're trying to bring their work up to the level of world-class architecture found in other places. You mentioned starting the firm in 1991. Yeah. Tell me what the early days looked like for you because they were so different, right, than where you were now.

12:37So it's 1991. We're in a real recession. I am working for a firm called Clark & Rapawanek. Clark and Rappawano, Gilmore Clark was best friends with a guy named Robert Moses, which if you're a landscape architect, that's a good guy to be friends with. So Clark and Rappawano built everything from, they designed, they were lit for every park that Robert Moses did. The United Nations, Battery Park, Robert Moses State Park, the parkways, their list of work was phenomenal. As Clark and both Gilmore Clark and Mike Rapuano had retired years before I'd gotten there, and the guys that took it over, they taught me how not to run a firm.

13:17Because they managed to take, it was like the Olmstead brothers ran their firm into the ground. Unbelievably. It doesn't matter what. Having built Central Park. Right, right. You can, you can, you can. So, and there was a woman who I went to graduate school with named Marianne Connolly. She was working at the Parks Department. So everybody was getting laid off. Clark and Rapuano was getting sold to a group of highway engineers. years, we had been doing some nighttime projects here and there. And we said, okay, so that was the two of us. And so it started, there was a wonderful guy named Bill Lacey.

13:44Bill was an architect that ran the Pritzker Prize. And I knew him from playing softball out in Saccarver. He had the sixth floor at the Divinity Press building on 4th and Lafayette. And it was him. It was an entire sixth floor of this thing with a carpet and his desk. And so we started out with a little room and then we hired one woman, then a couple of people, and then we kind of grew to take over the sixth floor. And then we were there on 9-11. People streaming up Lafayette, barefoot, Ashen, and the guys that owned the building said, because we'd just been working with a month-to-month lease for it, whatever it was, 10 years, they said, you have to leave because now this space is going to be worth a fortune.

14:23You have to leave. The real change, I think, happened about 15 years ago. So Melissa started here. Stephen Icke and Jeff Valentino had both worked for Hair Shout in Chicago. And they all brought different talents and skills than we really had. And so the Urban Studio has really grown based on the skills that Stephen brought to the office. Jeff moved out to Chicago and has built that office. And Melissa kind of is a partner that runs the residential studio here. So that, about 15 years ago, is where the office really started to diversify into more than just residential work. And it was interesting because a lot of our first commercial developments, you know, we did Jerry Spire's home.

15:11So Tishman Spire hired us to do buildings. We work for Steve Ross and Jeff Blau from Related. So they hired us to work on Related's commercial work. And we've been working on a master plan for the next phase of Hudson Yards. So there was a connection between the residential work leading to commercial work. And the other thing that happened is the concept of home. Home became something that was enormously valuable, that had a sense of, you know, the term home means something to a lot of people. And our name became kind of synonymous with home. And whether home is your own personal home, your home within a big condominium complex, or home at a beautiful commercial resort, that term really, really resonated with a lot of people and I think was something that drew people to our firm.

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16:44There's a perception, Ed, and I'm wondering how it shows up in your world. There's a perception that coming out of COVID, to your point, once again, we feel very differently about home, right? This hyper connection to home. But we also feel very differently about our outdoor space, if we're lucky enough to have outdoor space. And it's been this boom for the outdoor furniture markets and we're building and spending more time out there than ever before. Has that shown up in an absolutely meaningful way? It was landscapes went from places that you looked at to places that you lived in. Landscapes before had been dangerous.

17:26They're bugs and bees and ticks to places of health and refuge because if you were outside, you were safe. So I think it absolutely changed the relationship that people had with their landscapes and their gardens. They went from places to admire to places to live in. And we had people that were in their homes for the first time year round. And I'd get a call this time of year, what are all these pink trees in the yard? I said, they're cherry trees. I said, well, when did we plant them? It's like, oh, 12 years ago. You just haven't been there to see it. And so people wanted more outdoor living structures.

18:04And I think, you know, and it's never one thing. As people travel more and more, they go to different types of resorts. And resorts are great innovators for creating spaces that people want to live in outside. So wherever they are, they're seeing different types of outdoor structures and fire pits and water features and gardens. And you had COVID, you had people traveling to resorts and seeing outdoor living areas. You had people wanting to be healthier. Landscapes have gotten more productive. We're growing more food in our landscapes and we're using less chemicals in our landscapes. But I think home, COVID, health and wellness, all those things kind of.

18:50And listen, during COVID, people's relationship to their money changed. All of a sudden it's like life became kind of finite and there was, and it's like, why am I sitting on this fortune and not enjoying it? And so that happened for a lot of your clients. The ones that had fortunes. They saw.

19:09It happened to everybody. I know, listen, even at our house, we always had a screen porch. So now there was a big TV on the screen porch. So my wife could sit outside with friends and watch movies and enjoy each other. And, you know, we put a fire pit. You found new ways to enjoy the outside. I want to take a detour for a moment because we talked about the early days of starting your firm. I want to go back even further. And I should point out for listeners that Ed and I are sitting in Ed's office at Ed's desk. And Ed has some very impressive looking degrees up on his wall. and he's from the state of New York.

19:48And remind me, you went to Vassar? Yes. I went to Vassar. I went to Vassar as the worst student in the history of Vassar College. I don't believe that. Oh, trust me. Okay. Trust me. Okay. But what I did learn at Vassar, you know, by the time I, it was a horticulture class there and an old Swedish horticulturist named Sven Sward. And he said, listen, you connect to this. You relate to this. You shouldn't be going to law school or business school. This is where your passion is. And so one of my senior thesis projects was to identify all the trees on the campus so that it could become an arboretum, which was a lot of fun for me.

20:22And girls thought it was really cool that I could identify all the trees. So there was always a, there was an arboretic cultural and a horticultural and a, you know, and a life process to all of that. But, you know, that, that was my first introduction to plants and living things and things like that. So I got out of Vassar and I ended up going, enrolling in the New York Botanical Garden Horticulture Program. So I studied horticulture and ecology there for a couple of years. And I enjoyed that. And while I could never speak any foreign language to save my life, Latin came to me like that. All the plant names made sense.

20:57Okay. Now, what am I going to do? Am I going to be a gardener? Okay. Maybe. Fun. This, that. Decided I should be, I should, I could study landscape architecture because what I really wanted to be was an urban forester. City kid, trees. I go down with no portfolio whatsoever. And everybody has always told me, don't bother, they'll never accept you. So here I am, a kid with terrible undergraduate grades, but some horticultural knowledge, applying to the landscape architecture programs that I think at Harvard, Penn, and UMass, with everyone saying, they'll never let you in. And yet they did. And I was down at Penn talking to Ian McHarg and some other people.

21:34And at that point, I wanted to be an urban forester. I didn't know what landscape architecture was. And I'm applying to their graduate schools and getting accepted. And once again, how? No idea. How were you accepted? No idea. University of Pennsylvania. It's an Ivy League school. And, you know, Penn was one of the leading programs. Because once I got there, then I was a good student. Then I had found my niche. And the one thing I found I could do is I could outwork anybody. I couldn't draw. I couldn't design, but I could get in the studio at seven in the morning and I could stay there till two in the morning and work and work and work.

22:09Now I get to the bars before they close before last call, mind you. I didn't want to leave that part of my life out altogether. Well, but where did that come from? Where did you really get? Oh, I learned that early. That I'm clear on. The drinking and the misbehaving, I learned at a young age. I perfected that. But the work ethic, the hard work. I think just because I'm enormously competitive. And when you're told all the time that you can't succeed, okay, you want to see me? So there was a competitive gene that exists through this day that made me want to prove people wrong. If you read my report cards, if you had every perfect symptom of ADHD, Ed can't pay attention, Ed can't read.

23:01I thought if was a grade, if Ed could do if. How could you get so many ifs on a report card? But in today's world, they would have been pumping me full of Adderall at age nine. And I have several friends. people who have ADHD and all those things, if you learn how to manage it, you can do three things at one time. So if anything, you know, you take what is a disability and make it an advantage. Yeah. But once again, to your point, look how many people you proved wrong. Right. Right. Right. Does that feel fantastic? Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. And listen, you know, so So we got this in this.

23:46I'm involved with the Institute for Classical Architecture and Arts, and I'm on the board there. And we've done a couple of the thing with Tom that was on PBS and things like that. And just great. I'm doing this thing. And this woman comes up to me after because, oh, I thought that would be lovely. My boss would love that. I said, who's your boss? She goes, you know, his majesty. I was like, well, no, I don't know him, but I'm glad he'd like it. And she said, would you send him a book? So I sent him a book and, you know, signed it politely. And a few months later, I get an invitation. Would I come over to Dumfries' house and tour the gardens and look at the work that the King's Foundation is doing in sustainable design and things like that?

24:21And I was like, okay, but can my wife come? Because she's a historian and a scholar. And they said, well, we don't normally have wives or significant others join on these things. I said, well, I wrote back an email saying I'd love to come. And it's very important to me that Wendy join me. And I would hate to have to give His Majesty my regrets. Look at you laying it down like that. You know, you got to, my wife puts up with a lot of, so she just, so then they said, great. So we had a great time. We went with Peter Lydon, who's the head of the, the ICAA and, and the work they're doing is fabulous.

24:52He really does care about the environment. He really does care. And he really cares about people. At Dumfries, they're doing all these fabulous, they've got two different sets of programs going on. One where they're teaching traditional crafts and skills and one where they're teaching skills. It's, it's a, it's a reasonably depressed part of Scotland, you know, kind of post coal mining. and their classes in working in kitchens and wellness. It was actually pretty inspirational. It was a lot of fun. I'm sure it was. And we should explain for listeners. So Dumfries is this incredible property that the royal family purchased.

25:29Not him, no, he purchased it. So there are, listen, I don't know everything in the royal zone, but it's a lot, let's say. Dumfries, he purchased personally and has spent years converting it. And they're raising heritage livestock and animals and growing things and gardens and all sorts of stuff. But it's his kind of personal passion. Yes. And uses it, to your point, for education. It's open 24-7 to the public, you know, as park lands and strolling. It's a good thing. And it had all of the original Chippendale furniture from when the home was. Again, I'm a Jewish kid from Manhattan. What do I know from Chippendale?

26:03But it's a big deal. Well, I mean, people, it has all of the, and these things are worth millions of dollars, I guess. Oh, it's incredible. Right. And it's like, okay, I'm an outside guy. So it's Chippendale. Right. But he brings you and he knows of the work that you've done. And we talked about landscape. And obviously, they've just been planting a lot of the area. So at the end of the evening, I'm kind of holding him by the elbow and my wife's looking at me. What are you doing grabbing the king? And I said, you know, 20 years from now, you and I will go, we'll see how the gardens grow in. And he's older than I.