Mark D. Sikes's muse is America

0:03This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking to leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is interior designer Mark D. Sykes. Mark came to design as a second career after decades in retail, but he's made up for lost time. In just over 10 years, he's released three best-selling books, earned a spot on the AD100, and worked for high-profile clients like Reese Witherspoon, Nancy Meyers, and Dr. Jill Biden. More recently, Mark brought his take on classic American style to Blair House, redesigning an iconic Washington residence used to host Heads of State.

0:50Its guest list has included everyone from Winston Churchill to Justin Trudeau. I spoke with Mark about why consistency has been the key to his success, the surprising strategy that helped his books to take off, and why his muse is America.

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2:41And now, on with the show. We should start, Mark, by talking about Blair House, and we'll get to your life and times in a minute. But Blair House is sort of the breaking news. AD just released the images, and lots of people I saw were posting them and sharing them. and there was a lot of excitement. So first of all, congratulations on all of that. Tell us how it all came to be. It's rather surreal. It's amazing to be a part of history and be a part of such an amazing, I guess, institution, if you will, Blair House being the guest house of America, sitting adjacent to the White House and hosting heads of state and their delegations.

3:27The way it started was a couple years ago, we started interacting with the board and the chairman about the possibility of adding some of our design perspective to Blair House. And we started working on scope and really diving deep ourselves into the history of Blair House and what had come before us and all the amazing stories and also what the collection of Blair House and all the different row houses, what they had accumulated over the years and where they had come from and the importance of them. And, you know, 40 years ago, Mario Blotta and Mark Hampton took on this very ambitious task along with a big renovation.

4:12And really nothing other than some updates and some bedrooms here and there have been done since then. So we are honored and thrilled to continue that story. And our goal was to do just that, continue the story of what was told before us, not reinvent, you know, make it more comfortable, make it more inviting, create some common threads about the house, a story of the house. You know, when you do the due diligence of studying and understanding it, then you can make better informed design decisions. And that was our strategy from the very beginning. And, you know, hopefully the history books will reiterate that.

4:51I think the Architectural Digest article did a great job of describing in detail the process, our vision, not only our design vision, but also the chairman's vision and the board's vision. And I think that we accomplished that. And you mentioned earlier that you had already done some work in the White House. And so tell me the work you had done before. We were honored to, not long after the inauguration, to be in communication with Dr. Biden and her team and start partnering with her on the East Wing, her office specifically. And the goal was to create a comfortable, inviting space, mostly as a representation of our country, but also for her to be able to host meetings and events.

5:38And it had to be reflective of her and our country. So it was kind of a similar, somewhat of a story. It's just an amazing opportunity to do that. And she's such a lovely, wonderful person whose direction was, you know, mostly about other people and making other people feel comfortable and making other people feel welcomed. And that was just so beautiful. You know, it was less about her and more about others. And I think that was really amazing to experience and to be a part of. with both commissions i look at as um as my ability to serve our country when you look at it that way it's a big responsibility you know it's a big responsibility that you're representing many you're not just representing yourself for your your own subjective design perspective you're really representing the country and looking out for what's best for everybody so you know there's an immense sense of responsibility but with that comes amazing joy you know and fulfillment and And the same thing with Blair House.

6:40It's just been this experience of like, you know, our way of using America as a muse and really putting forth our best efforts to serve our country. Well, I think that's so interesting how you frame that. And as you and I have talked about in the past, I think that you have, I know that you have long used America as your muse. And I wonder if that's part of what made you seem like such a natural choice in a way, because you have held up America, you have celebrated America and some of the key figures in its history in so much of your work and in so much of your communications. And I think that that seems to be, I think, in many people's minds, part of your identity.

7:29Well, I mean, I think that that is becoming truer and truer in many ways. I mean, I've always aligned myself, even before my interior design work, as just kind of like loving, classic, all-American, timeless style, whether it's a white shirt or whether it's a navy blazer, whether it's stripes, feeling that all-American and that timeless to that vision, kind of having a common thread in our design work. You know, when we think about our design work, we think about we're, you know, traditionalists, we're classicists, we're, we love to create interiors that look great today, but would have looked good 20 years ago, would look good 20 years from now.

8:12And there's an all-American sensibility to it. And what the all-American sensibility, I think it is, is because it's that mix of things. And I think when I think about American design, you know, it's a little bit of English, it's a little bit of French, it's a little bit of Asian. It's a little bit of the mixture of things. and I think when it all comes together, there is something that's classic, there's something that's crisp, there's something that's fresh, hopefully something comfortable, something inviting. And I am very proud to be, you know, connected to that sensibility, which, you know, it's what I think about all American design.

8:43And I guess now I believe more in like manifestation of like, you know. You were on the fence about how you felt about manifestation, but now you're like. I think authenticity, I think being really true to yourself and authentic and natural about like what you do, things find you, you know, or I think that this amazing opportunity has found us because it was authentic to us and it really is who we are, what we love. Was that how you felt as a young person? Because I want to talk about your childhood, and I can't imagine you ever thinking you'd be working on the White House or working on the nation's guest house.

9:28But I want to hear from you a bit about your childhood and where you grew up and how you were thinking in the early days. I definitely wasn't thinking about those things. I came from a very humble background. My father was a preacher. We lived in multiple places. I grew up in an environment, though, where beauty was appreciated, and they loved design, and they loved wonderful things. I grew up also super close, very close and proximity to my grandparents. My grandfather was the town barber and was just the most lovely human being, just always so gracious and always so kind and always so, you know, wonderful, you know, to people had a really wonderful spirit, really never saw bad at anything, always like kind of sold good, saw good.

10:14And, you know, it was, you know, definitely like a role, a role model. So I don't know if it all comes naturally, but that's, you know, I came from those kind of beginnings, but I always really had this amazing imagination. I dreamed really big. And, you know, I often tell people that I, and it's true, I remember at a very young age loving those Estee Lauder campaigns, you know, with, you know, they'd be selling a fragrance, but it'd be this beautiful model sitting in these beautiful gardens wearing these beautiful clothes and she looked really happy. You know, there was just like, it took you somewhere, you know, inspired you to buy this product because, you know, you wanted to be a part of that.

10:51And I think that that was magical when it regards to imagination. And I just think that that was a good example of thinking about a person and a place and who they were, what they were doing, and how they were living. And that was really inspiring. I dreamed a lot. So it's not a surprise that I ended up doing what I'm doing. But I remember when I first started my design career, people were like, what would be your dream project? And of course, I wouldn't casually say, oh, the White House. you know, casually, casually say things. And did I ever think it was possible? No. But do I believe that you can do anything that you put your mind to?

11:31Absolutely. Let's talk about your, your, your previous career before you got into design, because as you and I talked about recently, you learned so much. You worked for Banana Republic for a long time. And, and I, I enjoyed hearing you talk about learning to, to put presentations together for corporate and put collections together and really all of the details that you had to keep track of. And it just seems like there was so much in that work that would set you up for success in your design career. So tell me about the early days of retail. When I graduated from college, I got an economics and finance degree because I thought that's the degree I should get.

12:17And then I moved back home to Nashville and, you know quickly realized that when i was starting the interview process that probably wasn't probably the best fit for me of somewhere i would be happy so i just started working at a banana republics store like part-time and i loved it i loved the brand i loved the aesthetic i loved working with people i loved um engaging with the community um i loved it so you know after a short period of I'm just working in one store for a little bit. I took on two stores and then I took on several stores. And before I knew it, I was in charge of a district from a visual merchandising perspective.

12:55So really in charge of helping the stores set up their seasonal products according to their size and according to their level of category in regards to merchandise. And it just was amazing. Then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and I had a region, you know like a larger group of these stores all kind of reporting into me so you know going in going from you know hands-on doing it to managing people doing it to overseeing you know a bigger broader category um you start learning you know more about like delegating and you know and following up and different things like that so that was my in store experience and then there's an opportunity in 1998 that came up a corporate in san francisco and I had never actually been to California.

13:45And I interviewed for the job. I got this job. And I remember being on the fence. I was like, oh, because I had friends and had a little big community in Atlanta that I was comfortable with. And I just decided, you know what? We know what could hurt. So I moved to San Francisco. I started this job at corporate. Probably the best thing I ever did in my life. And was able to start at a junior role in the visual merchandising department and over the course of 12 years to work not only in visual merchandising, but in marketing and in store design. And I was working with the New York teams, the design teams on all the concepting and really helping the design team pull together their design vision into stories that was palpable, that was understandable for merchants, how to buy a story and sell a story.

14:34And just this incredible experience. And think about the heyday of Gap, you know who owned banana i think that they were you know it was very singular at the time there wasn't a lot of competition so we were the yeah traveling all over the world seeing beautiful things you know being a part of something that was growing opening tons of stores you know guiding a big flagship strategy so anyway just being a part of all of that i learned so much around strategy big ideas um communication follow-up managing big teams of people but also managing up you know managing leadership learn so much and i do without a doubt um you know i think our success today in many ways is you know attributed to that foundation that i had because it really has set us up to be successful in running our own business we have you know we have each individual projects a story um we have we have a brand you know we have a bigger barching story that we tell through multi-channels and through our work could each individual store you know house is a story and um you know we're all we're constantly selling a story you know to our to the world out there but then also to our clients and each of those stories um is reflective of who they are you know and i I think that that's very intimate, it's very fulfilling, but there is an art to it, I think, you know?

16:05And I think that art, I've learned a lot in my previous experiences. Tell me, transitioning out of there, what went on for you? You know, there is a point in time when you realize there's two paths. One path is to continue doing what's comfortable and where you are, and you're going to probably grow and develop and learn more. Or do you take a completely different path where you can take what you've learned and the knowledge that you have and, you know, apply it to something else and really grow from it. So again, it was another reflection point of, you know, is this the right time? So the opportunity that I ended up taking was a job as the creative director of Pottery Barn and huge opportunity to lead that whole organization completely creatively and start learning more about like, you know, the lifestyle and the home aspect of it.

16:58So again, another big American brand, a new opportunity. And, you know, we all have self-doubt and we all don't really, you know, there's times when we're like, oh, my, are you doing the right thing? But I really realized what I knew and like, you know, and what I could very quickly apply, you know, like observing where the opportunities were and be able to like really quickly, you know, have some solutions and, you know, make a big impact. And that was really incredible. It built a lot of confidence in me. And I was only a potty bar for a very short period of time. And then I moved to LA. And simultaneously when I moved to LA, I started a blog about chic people, glamorous, spacious, and stylish things.

17:37That really created the opportunity to do interior design. And kind of that was the launching pad. But it was all the experiences before and all the opportunities before that equipped me with the knowledge to do it. and then obviously be somewhat successful since we've done it.

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18:39So we moved to LA, you start a blog, and in the beginning, what are you blogging about? What are you talking about? well i mean it was kind of the you know it was 2009 or 10 and you know it's kind of like blogs were starting to happen and you know i just was kind of being um you know kind of in tune with what was going on in the world i thought oh well you know that's that's a very interesting concept to be able to like on a daily basis to talk about things you loved or mused on things and so you know because i'm somewhat of a storyteller and a marketer i had always had these people places and things that always inspired me that I loved.

19:15And I had these huge collections of magazines and books. And then from an interior design perspective, you know, talk about, you know, the giants of the past, like Billy Baldwin, Mark Hampton, David Hicks, and then two people of today, some my peers, some, you know, Bunny Williams, you know. And then it started opening up all these doors, because then I started doing these like, okay, well, if I'm talking about these people and their work, why reach out to them and see if they'd want to participate in the blog. And 95 % of the time, they would. And so it started opening up all these doors with all these amazing people that I admired and that I could have good conversations with that would be informative to the people that were reading the blog.

19:57And more importantly, just inspire me. And it was a celebration of others. And I just think that's just such a huge thing. If you're celebrating others, admiring people's work and like sharing, sharing what you love about them to others. There's amazing things that doors that open, there's amazing things that can happen. And I feel like my work today, still from a design perspective is a celebration of others. It's a celebration of our vendors. It's ultimately the celebration of our clients, but of our vendors, of our artisans, of the workrooms that we work with. And that's just always been kind of my thing naturally.

20:35And tell me what the, tell me what the first big break was in in all of that well we um you know had this blog happening the same time i moved to los angeles my partner and i had bought this really great you know 1928 kind of regency mediterranean bungalow and the you know the hollywood hills and you know we i designed it and decorated it you know not for any purpose other than just creating a home and then the next their neighbors landscape designer was somehow a contributing editor to house beautiful and they came visited the house you know sent an email saying hey we love the house we'd like to shoot it in a couple months i was there for the shoot the person that you know came to the back doors the photographer was this lovely woman named amy ninsinger who i fell in love with and she has been our principal photographer from that moment on throughout my whole design career she's pretty much um single handling all three books then it got on the cover of house beautiful and I think it really defined our design sensibilities and it still has had a huge impact on who we are today from the blue and white to the natural fiber rugs to the objet and the books and all the things that are still so much part of our signature and our DNA.

21:50It started there and then because I had a blog at the same time people knew how to get a hold of me so it was just a matter of time where people were reaching out you know that's that's when i was like okay well why not try this um uh very naively just did it and figured it out and we hired a couple people but you know now we're you know 23 24 people strong but we did this all in a very short period of time you know we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary a year or so ago so we've not been doing this a ton of time but all that experience Eponanna, somewhat experienced with my own blog, really equipped us to be able to grow quickly and work smart.

22:33Those of you who are toiling away in retail, just hang in there because it'll look what can happen. When did you catch the eye of Nancy Meyers? Oh, goodness. So early in my career, I think I was probably three years in, there was an event in L.A. called Legends of La Cienega. And showrooms would ask someone to decorate their window for them as a part of the Legends Festival. So Meek Hawksgarden asked me to do this window, I think, in maybe 2003, 2013, maybe. And so I was doing this window, and a lady and her daughter came in and was asking me some questions and said they were out shopping for the daughters.

23:23had just bought a house and she was working on her primary bedroom. And so they had gone to the PDC and picked out some fabrics. And we just started the conversation like that. And then they pulled out the fabrics and this is no lie. You can actually fact check me through Nancy Meyers. I'm calling her right after this. There was a beautiful fabric called Raul Patra and Robin Zieg. There was a beautiful Rogers and Gothigan, small stripe, I think called the Delphine stripe and one other item. And those were the three fabrics that I had in my window that I was doing with the three fabrics that they had in their bag that they literally not just the patterns, but also the colors.

24:00And, you know, I didn't think anything about it, did not know who it was at the time. And then a month later, I get this email from Nancy Meyers, a woman named Nancy Meyers asking, you know, about, it was nice meeting me and would I be interested in looking at her house. And I remember thinking, that name sounds so familiar. Could that be the same Nancy Meyers? And I remember, you know, doing the whole Google thing about our picture. And then I pulled up and was like, oh my God, that's an Angie Myers. So then I started going, oh my God, it's like, you know, the director and the producer and the writer of all these movies that I, again, all American, timeless, classic, in some ways optimistic.

24:40These movies that I just love, you know, something's got to get, I mean, it just was crazy. and just like you know very early in my design career you know like to be able to meet someone like that and forge a you know over time forge a relationship with us and yeah still close to her today and i did her house and it's just remarkable and she named my first book she truly did i was at her house one day i was like what are we gonna name this book and i had all these names with the word beautiful in it and she said just call it beautiful and then she wrote the she wrote the intro to that book um but she is like family you know we're still very close to this day well and and do you feel i mean do you feel that that that was a major turning point for you do you feel like there were specific uh any other projects that sort of come to mind that really caught people's attention and sort of put you on the map because as you say for such a relatively young firm you're at an awfully high level in the in the industry and here you are doing the white House and Blair House and AD100 and all of that?

25:41I mean, I don't know what to attribute it to, but the first book was, you know, all the books have been very successful. I mean, I know that I'm the best selling author for Resoli in regards to interiors of all time. I know that our first book is probably the best selling book they've ever done for interior design. You know, there's something about the design. There's something about that people connect with, you know, I don't know. I can't really completely define it. I think there's something amazing about the word beautiful, and it's something that people connect with and relate to. And I think that there's something approachable about what we do.

26:15But the first book was a huge success, you know, and kind of randomly because it wasn't like I was a well-known person. Well, and do I remember there was some kind of clever campaign that you did in the beginning with the first book? I said, well, I really want to have like a book that's smaller. And they're like, you do? I was like, yeah. I was like, well, we've never had anyone ask for a smaller book. And they were like, well, why? I was like, in my brain, I was like, well, if it's smaller, you know, it's easy to like hold, it's easier for people to like carry around. But as a decorator, I was thinking, you know, like, I always think about that book that's like, you know, on the top of the coffee table, and not just on the top, but on the top of several other books, because, you know, you stack books.

26:53so i articulated them i said well i think that you know i want it to be a very pretty cover and always look pretty on anyone's table and then that kind of like certain well they were like their eyeballs went off and they were like thinking okay well that's great because a smaller book is you know this amount of money and this amount of money books probably sell better and they were just kind of shocked that a decorator would want something smaller so that's happened so then automatically you know kind of as we were formulating the book and forming the marketing strategy or whatever, I was like, kept thinking top of the stack, top of the stack.

27:23So it just kind of took off, you know, where we would photograph the book on top of a coffee table in multiple places. Then all of a sudden everyone started doing it, you know, like, you know, posting pictures and then doing the hashtag. And it just kind of created this kind of very incredible movement, you know, and that's kind of when Instagram was just starting. Yeah. So we've had to challenge ourselves now each time with the new book, how do we do it a little bit differently. Well, it was memorable. And as you say, you really, I mean, with the hashtag and with the campaign, you really got a lot of people's attention.

27:58And I know that having Jill Cohen as your agent never hurts. She's pretty savvy. And the beauty theme, as you just as you just said, so now you've got your third book, Forever Beautiful. And I'm curious, tell me how you think about carrying this through line of beauty through the books and tell me how you've thought about, because I know you're very thoughtful about structuring it and kind of planning it all out. So tell me. This third book, we really wanted to tell a bigger, deeper message about beauty and really about how nature and the exterior being you know california-based brand we're really known for indoor outdoor living as kind of one of our like signatures and nature has always been a huge source of inspiration for me personally and is a source of inspiration for every one of our projects so 12 projects 12 chapters so you know it feels like that's it not that's not it with beautiful but that's it for this i I think of this story of our firm, I think this will be the last.

29:11So three books, the beautiful trilogy, and then I think the challenge will become what's next, and I'm ready for that challenge and excited about it. But I think this has been this amazing story that we've told over the last 10 years. I'm curious, Mark, what role do books play for you? What do books make possible? Some designers tell me that it helps to reassure a client. They see your work in a different way. But I wonder for you, what do they represent? Books are a way for us to be somewhat in control of the narrative. And I'm not trying to be anything that I'm not or trying to put into print anything that's not truly who we are.