This Oak House, and the Woman Behind It: Annie Meyers-Shyer

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

0:15I'm honored to meet you. I am honored to be here. I have been messaging you like we were friends for a really long time. And so I've been embarrassed. Like I saw your sister at something recently and I was like, I'm kind of embarrassed. Well, I write back to everybody. It's like, I really do. I write back to everybody. But like, I knew that we had mutual. So I was like, your sister's really sweet to write back to me. I think she's doing me a favor. No, I try to write back to everybody. I feel like it's the right thing to do. It is. Yeah, it's nice of you. But they sometimes don't say like, hi.

0:46They just like ask a question and that really. Well, so this is a whole new world for you. So beyond right into it. So for anybody who doesn't know, you had like a private Instagram account. that was documenting the journey. No, so I had a private Instagram account that was just like my personal account. But you were going to start documenting just on, to friends, like a remodeling account. So I had a lot of friends in New York from a previous job and sort of like a previous life. And I felt like maybe they'd want to see what I was up to. And then at what point did you make it go public and now you have 200 ,000 followers?

1:21It was public from the first day, but I think I posted like on my private Instagram saying something along the lines of like, I might post here. I might not like follow along. And then I started posting. When did you like brand it the name of the house? Like when did you? Like right from the get go. I called it that. But I would have chosen a different name had I known I would have amassed a following. What would you have chosen? Oh, I don't know. This name I put very little thought into. You didn't know you were going to have a whole new career at this age and time. My like old like co-workers would follow along.

1:49I did not see. I think I'm like the accidental influencer. Yeah. I didn't see this coming at all. And it's great. It's incredible. Yeah. Like I, it's, I mean, I'm 45. It's a beautiful, like modern day internet story for me. Like, because it's so pure and it's been, it's so genuine and it's so nice to see like a fellow mom work on something who like has great taste and want to share everything. I wasn't motivated by some of the things I think someone who would set out to do this is motivated by. absolutely and so i was able to just share kind of like in real time and you know my background's in fashion and there's so much sharing in fashion like everything is shared all the time and like you see somebody on tiktok you know what their concealer is but in interiors it was like no sharing so i was like dming someone being like i love that lamp and then it was like crickets and i was like i'm not gonna do that i'm gonna share why not i bought multiple i bought so many things you've suggested my water glasses oh i love those they break so much but they're like two dollars so but they're just two dollars so just keep ordering yeah but i think they're thin and they feel good in the hand they're really good i like how my cocktails and my coffees look in them i know really i kind of have like a back stock in case i break i'm down to like four and i just need to like yeah but then you can get like 20 for 12 i know which is really incredible it's good i want to talk about your start in fashion so where did you go to college in new york no i went to college in DC.

3:22Okay. And then all my friends were moving to New York after school. And my mom and my sister like put me on the plane to New York and they were like, you're never coming back. I was like, I know I'm never coming back. And so my first job, I was an assistant to Hal Rubenstein at InStyle magazine. And it was an amazing time because like, so Hal would do the red carpet recaps and we would have to find out who everybody was wearing. And you found it out when the magazine came out months later. Like now that person's not even in the auditorium and we know who they're wearing. Yes. So like things have changed so dramatically.

3:57I really love talking to people who worked at magazines because you are the last. It's like Yolanda from Yolo Journal too. I'm always like, tell me about working in the office. It was such a time. It was, it was literally the Devil Wears Prada. And I was there and then I went over to work for the market editor there who was just like this young, cool girl. And I just had, I was just very kind of starry eyed for her. And then I moved over to Harper's Bazaar and I was hired there as an accessories editor. And I was like really young and I was hired by a really cool woman. And within about a week of me getting the job, she left it went to Vogue.

4:28You were the accessories editor? I was. Well, I had was hired as the associate accessories editor. And basically within a week, I was the accessories editor. And my cohort there, my partner had like a broken wrist or something so they sent me to the shows in europe i was like brand new on the job oh my god but it was so it was very fun it was very fun it was exactly as i sort of imagined it would be but the women took it really seriously well can you also explain what that's like because i don't think people really understand like people so imagine every accessories brand is vying dying vying to get a meeting with you, to have you select something for an editorial.

5:11So we worked on two different kinds of stories. So there were like well stories, which were shot by stylists that would come in and shoot a story, right? So it would be whatever their idea is. We're gonna shoot it in nature and it's this and we want, you know, and they'd give us a direction and we'd bring in all the accessories. And then there were sort of the, you know, back of the book pages, which were like really fun and it would be like themed like crocodile belts or whatever it is. But there was a fine balance because we had to kind of appease the advertisers. and also what we loved. But it was really fun.

5:39And being an editor, you know, everyone's vying for you to pick their thing. And it's a wonderful position to be in. And it was really like, it was the time. I worked in PR. So you people were our gods. I would be like, and the more that you loved me, the more you might write about my client, which is like people forget about. And it was so relationships. Beyond. But this was the time where like, you know, I would go into like the fashion closet with like a pair of shoes. could anyone go to milan in the morning like we would like send someone on a plane to milan and like some girl who was an intern would be like i don't like do you have a passport like you got to go town cars downstairs and we would send them like it was it was a crazy time so cool it was fun but i don't think those jobs exist anymore so as most stories go i met a guy and then he and i moved back to la together we also hold you're skipping over the fact that you worked Chanel.

6:36No, no, no, no. I'm getting there for them here. I work. I was the West Coast office for Chanel. OK, so I met a guy. We moved back to L.A. I quit my job at Harper's Bazaar because he and I are going to like, you know, drive into the sunset together. And we get here and he breaks up with me, of course. And then I took the job at Chanel. OK. And I was there for almost six years on the PR side, which I had never done before. But I figured if I'm going to go to that side, yeah this is the place to do it how did you fall into that so being the accessories editor like i had all these friends who worked at chanel and i worked with them all the time because i was at bizarre and i loved them like i loved the girls from chanel and it was a new job in la it was the west coast pr and so they asked me to come it was like a rigorous interview process i'm sure yeah i was like hillary hogan no she worked at chanel i don't think so she used to bring me oh god the Chanel girls are just like so cool.

7:31Oh, it was. It's a great place to work. It's a great place to work. Wow. Yeah. So I was going to all those shows and everything. Yeah. So we do. There were we'd go to Couture always. And sometimes I'd go to the regular shows. And then we did a Metier show, which would be in a different place every year. So it was Dallas or Cuba or wherever it was. But I had two babies and got married while working at Chanel. And I was like pumping like backstage. And I was just like, I don't know. I can't do this anymore. I don't think so. Yeah. And leaving, it was hard. It was a great place to work. And I loved the people I worked with, but it was time.

8:06Well, your morning also, it comes that point too as a mom where you're like, am I going to stop working? Totally. I knew I had to stop the travel. Like I would get on the plane and I just felt like my kids were so little and, you know, no matter where I was, I felt torn. LA is so far from everything. It is. It's not like New York where you can just like bop over to Europe really quickly and do your thing and be gone for 20. Totally. Like we are really, really, I know you and I share the Connecticut desire. I'm dying to move to Greenwich because I'm just like my husband's from Italy and we're too far.

8:38It's far. It was great. It was a hard decision to leave. It was the right decision. But I mean, I loved working there and I miss it sometimes. Now, by the way, I would love to be on a 12 hour flight by myself. Like I would kill for that. Later losers. That would be a great, because how old are your boys now? 10 and 12, almost 13. They're like adult people. Yeah. they don't need you yeah not in the same way no they're like yeah yeah so yeah so i left chanel and then it was sort of like i had really little kids and i was really into that and my kids are really close in age and then like the pandemic and then you know and then all of a sudden we were remodeling a house so this house yes i know that you were looking at houses to move for a long time a long time and then tell us it's so sweet how this house came to be your house yeah it is really sweet.

9:29So we were looking for a long time. Whoops. And we wanted to be closer to our kids school. And then during the pandemic, my mother-in-law went to her second house, which was in Montecito, just to like get out of Dodge. And sort of during the pandemic, she was like, I think I'm going to stay here. She was like, but I don't want to sell my house. I don't want to live in it. And I was like, what? My husband was like, so what are we going to do? I was like, you're like hello i was like we've been looking like you know so did you always love that house i did i always loved it the layout was really perfect for a single woman it wouldn't wasn't going to work for a family of four at all it had a tricky layout upstairs and the bedrooms didn't all connect and it was kind of tricky so what i thought was going to be like a modest renovation was not.

10:20How long was the total renovation? 22 months of construction. Wow. We didn't add one inch of square footage to our house. Wow. Yeah. We just did like a reorg. And the backyard and everything. That was a huge overhaul, like totally changed everything. I think about your grass stairs a lot. I know. My husband's trying to turn them into turf. No. I know. I know. I know. That's not on brand. I know. I know. I know. He keeps saying, like, come outside and look. I'm like, I can't. I got to finish his email. Like, I'll do anything not to engage. Do you follow my Instagram? I know. Do you have any idea?

10:56The truth is, some of the yard gets a lot of sun, some doesn't. So it can be kind of like dry. Grass is hard. But I also don't. Yeah. I don't know. I have a gravel. I had to do gravel. Gravel's also difficult. Oh, my God. I know. It's in your shoes, it's in your toes, it's in your house. I know. everywhere i know so at what point did you start realizing that your instagram was going to be a thing and i by the way i just want to say yeah that you have so seamlessly went from i'm posting this to then integrating links yeah and doing like a whole like edit like you've you've like mag magazineified but you've curated it so well and then it's hard and then before the book was announced yeah i saw casey and your sister at a party and i said this bitch is a fucking up to something i said there's a launch coming because we've never seen the house yes i said it's a lot of the entire instagram about the house and then we've moved into the house we've yet to see this home it's tricky i said something is brewing it was not easy and casey said or not nick was like you're gonna die when you see and i was like it's a book isn't it it's the book gets a book and then lo and behold yeah yeah well so so cool yeah it's great i mean i've been in a tricky position because the house is basically embargoed for the book so i can't really show the house on my instagram and my instagram is about the house so i've had to really pivot about like what else can i talk about what else can i do how much i feel you show yeah and that we know kind of what it looks like i show corners yeah and by the way now i'm showing a little bit more because the book is like around the corner.

12:41But we shot every inch of my house for this book. So the whole thing is in it. It's just I've been very kind of cagey about I don't want to give it all away there because it's really meant to be, you know, taken in in the book form. And that was a lot of people were asking me for a long time, like, what are you going to do next? What are you going to do next? And all these ideas were coming out. And I was like, I don't want to do any of that. And then when the book idea came, I was like, that's the idea. It's really sweet that it's so digital and then goes back to being a book. Yeah. And I think the book, I believe the book feels exactly like my Instagram.

13:15So it's totally in my voice, which is like slightly polished, slightly not. It's also part useful. Like there's two parts of the book. It's part one is called house and part two is called home. So house is like the practical tactile things that I've learned. And then home is each chapter is a room and it's all the like beautiful photography. So like part beautiful, part helpful in my voice. So that's kind of how the book came to be. And to answer your other question, like when did it turn? Yeah. It turned when I told a story about these sheets that we slept on. The Land's End sheets. Yeah. That I.

13:56Yeah. Will never. I know, but they they've changed them they're not the same anymore since when I don't know but people started writing me that they changed and I was heartbroken like recently because I sleep on them and I need to order another I don't know I don't think you can like I don't think they're the same it's heartbreaking but I told the story of like how that came to be and as I was starting to tell the story on my Instagram I was like how do you do an affiliate link I literally googled how to do an affiliate link i linked them and i went to bed and i woke up and i was like how many sheets did you sell was it like thousands of sheets yeah i mean to date it's hundreds of thousands you have not sold hundreds of thousands hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of that sheet i mean i don't that's not i mean that's for land's end yeah well you're but you're also getting your cut yes for sure oh yes and so that and then it went a little viral hundreds of thousands yes isn't it amazing it's amazing i love it's amazing that more i mean and to say niche is like yeah when we think about famous people on instagram we think of millions and millions right and i i've heard so often over the last five years that somebody who has three million followers is not selling the same amount as somebody that has.

15:19And I like, it's so funny because I've had these conversations with my team, like, oh, should I grow my Instagram? I'm like, I don't want to have more followers. I want to have a community. For sure. Who trust you. Trust me. And I think that my audience knows that about me. Like they know I'm not motivated to post something because I'm going to be paid for it. That's not interesting to me. No. You know, And I, when people, when brands started to approach me, you know, during the house project. You must get so many collab opportunities. But I'm not, I think the second you see me outside being like, and this is the fertilizer I use, like, forget about it.

15:54Like I'm done, you know? But I was approached by some brands that were the brands I was going to work with regardless if they gifted me the product or not. So then I was so able to like authentically talk about it. And that is all that matters to me.

16:18Summer is here. And if you actually want to feel confident, less bloated and energized this summer and not just look like it on the outside, it starts with your gut. And I thought being bloated every day was just normal. I lived like that. I remember being pregnant for the first time and being like, wow, this is the first time I'm not sucking in my stomach all day long, but it's not normal. And once I fixed my gut, everything changed my digestion, my skin, my hair. And the one thing that made the biggest difference was cowboy colostrum who just dropped a new cookies and cream flavor, by the way, which I'm obsessed with.

16:47And it's currently in my travel bag. I started taking cowboy colostrum for my gut, but the results I didn't expect were the ones that shocked me. My hair is thicker and fuller. My skin is clear. I'm not bloated after every meal. So this is why, especially when I'm traveling and I'm eating, you know, at irregular times and food that my body's probably not used to eating. It's like really imperative that I bring it with me. And this isn't just my experience. Cowboy ran a clinical study and the numbers back it up because 83 % of participants reported improved gut health, 79 % experienced lost bloating and inflammation, and 72 % saw improved digestion and 62 % saw fuller, thicker hair.

17:21Also, I really want you to know that cowboy colostrum only collects the surplus colostrum after the baby calves have had their fill. There's no suffering involved. It isn't processed or stripped down. The colostrum is whole, full fat, high in protein for the ultimate nutrient density, making it the highest quality bovine colostrum that you can buy. And now they have their fabulous cookies and cream flavor. You can mix it with milk, tastes like a milkshake, but it's the same whole unstripped colostrum, no filters or shortcuts. Try the new cookies and cream flavor for yourself. For a limited time, our listeners are getting up to 25 % off their entire order when you head to cowboycolostrum.com slash best and use code best at checkout.

17:58That's 25 % off when you use code best at cowboycolostrum.com slash best. Obey Fitness is a digital fitness platform that gives you structured workout programs and expert led classes designed to help you stay consistent and see real results. And considering the fact that I am in the middle of a three week travel right now, and I'm somebody who works out at least five days a week, having Obey on my phone has been life-changing for me. It's built for real life. This is the moment that Obey really shows up. Like when your schedule is mixed up or when I'm traveling like this, because there's are effective workouts that you can do anywhere in as little as 10 minutes.

18:41They have everything in one place. Their strength, Pilates, cardio, the workouts can be so quick. Like I said, it's between 10 and 30 minutes, which is perfect when you're traveling or you're just juggling a million things. And the instructors are great. It doesn't feel boring or repetitive, which is usually where I fall off. So if you're trying to get back into a routine, this is the best way to like get your booty moving. If you haven't in a while, cause you're at home, the instructors are great. It's really short videos. It doesn't feel so overwhelming, or you just want something that feels doable, or you're like me and you're traveling and you're used to working out.

19:13This is an unbelievable option. You can try obey fitness for free for 30 days at obeyfitness.com with code BEST. Again, that is obeyfitness.com, O-B-E fitness.com and use code BEST for your free 30-day trial. It's awesome. I use it all the time. It's great. Also for people who say like, I don't have time to work out. I can't work out. I can't work out. It's 10 to 30 minutes. Everybody deserves to have 10 to 30 minutes in their day to feel good about themselves. So start now with obeyfitness.com. Hi, I'm Sif Heider, the founder of Array. I'm a wellness entrepreneur and digital creator, and this is my show, the Dream Bigger podcast.

19:53Listen, I love dreaming big, but you know what I love more? Actually having the resources to make those big dreams happen. And hey, dreams can sometimes be private jets, but other times they can look a little something like having the best skin of your damn life or starting a successful business or delving into spirituality. So on this podcast, I chat with experts and thought leaders from different fields about their tips and tricks on doing exactly that. Remember to subscribe. We drop new episodes every Tuesday. So see you then.

20:34What are your top selling items? The sheets, what else? Oh my God. Let's see. I mean, I just saw, I wonder if I can like say this. I mean, I've, there's like a mattress pad link on Amazon that I just checked. And I, I mean, I cannot, it's insane what we've sold on this mattress pad. By the way, I don't even know the company. They're somewhere in, in Asia, but it's been great. It's been great. yeah it's wild i know a lot about a little yeah good yeah that's what people everybody knows too much they don't know enough about so many different little things and so yeah i do feel like so how i explain your instagram to people if they don't know and this happened in my office recently where i was talking about you with a girl my office named candace who grew up in san marino know close to me and samarina pasadena is very nancy myers yeah so we all feel like we need to keep that aesthetic yeah out of just respect for her they shot father of the bride there you have no idea i mean i've been there every i want to cry i got married at my house because of annie bank yeah which is named after you so my dad died like that movie's so important to me yeah And all the girls in Pasadena, when you get engaged or you have your whatever, like we all take photos in front of the house.

21:56My cousin lives a block away. Oh, my goodness. You're weirding out my neighbors. But I'm like every pregnancy. I take a photo in front of the house. It's a great house. It's a great house. And it's a great movie. And it's yeah, we we showed that movie the Thursday night before my wedding and I hadn't seen it on a big screen. Yes, we did it at Sony. We rented a theater there. It was kind of last minute and I hadn't seen it on the big screen in so long. And it was really fun. It was really fun. Have you watched it? I'll tell you this. When I met my husband, who's from Italy, and we were dating and we kind of had this inclination that like, is this going to be serious?

22:36Is this not going to be serious? We're like testing each other. Yeah. And I said, do you want to get married? You know, like, would you want a wedding? And he said, whoever I marry, we're going to elope somewhere. and you know that type of stuff is not important and it'll just be me and her somewhere i said okay and on that same because we were long distance on that same trip he showed me one of his favorite movies which was american gigolo and i said okay i'm gonna show you mine it was father of the prime and i'm crying in the whole movie yeah it's emotional and he is i saw the wheel spinning he's like oh shit right i'm with an american girl i'm with like he's like i see i see american american girl and then we watched it before obviously we watched you know when i was pregnant with my daughter and whatever and then we watched it again when i was pregnant with my son now that my daughter is like four and it was his first time watching it as a dad of a girl too oh major and he was yeah i don't think i'll ever see it again though now that my dad has passed like i i'm i'm So your parents made all of these movies together.

23:41They did throughout my childhood. Yeah, many. But they wrote the movies. So they were home writing big, big, big, big chunks of my childhood. They weren't out making the movies. So I grew up thinking you could have a job and also be at home. I didn't realize that was not how all jobs were. And also everything was filmed around. In L.A. Yeah. Until the parent trap where they went to London. But I was like 16 by then. So I didn't go with them. the Napa house is my friend's neighbor's house. Yeah, that's a great house. Yeah, we went, I went up to Napa with them, but we, all the movies were filmed locally.

24:16And so it was great. Do you look at those homes and think to yourself, like, I mean, it must be so meta to be like these homes that were, cause that's clearly her aesthetic. Yeah. So it must be so interesting, especially now that this has gone like so viral. I saw something today on TikTok that was like a Nancy Mayer's home. And I was like, none of this is a Nancy Mayer's home. Do you know? I was like, we've lost the plot. They've all lost the plot. It's like if I ever, I don't, I don't drink, but if I ever have a drink again, I'm just going to go on. You're like, nope. Well, no, she's unhinged talking shit about the Nancy Myers.

24:52Like I hold back. I'm like, do you think she would like those Amazon blue plates? Like I just, I want to go, but I just, I hold back and I don't say anything. Who designed all of those sets? So different people. So she has a longtime production designer named John Huttman. So they collaborated on a lot of them. The earlier films John did not work on, but he did something he's got to give with her and it's complicated. And yeah, Dean Tavalaris, who is an unbelievable production designer, did The Parent Trap. I think that they're all very collaborative in the process. You know, it's her, it's them.

25:27And now she's doing a new movie with unbelievable sets. So when she was going to do the Netflix movie. it's that movie but who's that sweet woman that does her scouting for the houses it was someone your sister knows her oh really someone came my mom randomly listed our house yeah so i live in my childhood home oh like we do was an accident my father passed away in the house and my mom was like we can't she was like i can't they've been there for 40 years i was like daveni and i will just like move in and we'll figure it out and then we just thought and then like covid was happening and I was like we should just buy this house from her and give her some financial relief she's lived here for 40 years we can't move her somewhere else she's a caretaker she doesn't know how to be alone yeah because I'm one of five right and the grandkids it's like where we do Christmas and Thanksgiving and so I was like let me just keep this a lot yeah I've been slowly renovating it and that's why you're getting back to the story I was saying I was telling Candace like when you're when you're in a renovation or when you're like yeah what are my plates or like what are my glasses I just use your Instagram it's like my shopping guide so I go through and I always want to use your links to like you know I think it's important to like use everybody's fucking links and like give credit where credit is due yeah I do that but yeah yeah I think it's the right thing to do and so it's funny like another one of my girlfriends walked into the conversation she's like what are you guys talking about we're like oh you know this oak house and we showed her and I was like just when you are like what's my fork or what's my thing I was like you just go through her.

26:55So she has it all saved. And then we all joke. It's just like, yeah, you're like our shopping guide for everything. And I, you know, not everything. I mean, most things I post don't even have an affiliate link. Like I post regardless. I don't care. I post the thing that I really love. But I think during my nature is like just deep dive on things. Like if they tell me that the width of the grout is going to be one eighth, I'm like, well, what's one 16th? Like why? Like somebody tell me. And so that like kind of obsessive nature. You're like the Emily Oster. of she did that with her pregnancy. It's kind of helped me.

27:28Yeah. You know? And so I went, I didn't go to like one marble yard. I went to like a hundred marble yards. You know, I just went really deep. And so I think people kind of were like, wow, she did the work for us. Yeah. It's really clear. You said something that scarred me. Oh no. No, you were right. You were right. I made a cheesy, I made a cheesy, I made a bad decision. My, my Viking fridge. So My parents redid the kitchen when I was in high school. And it was that very like early 2000s, like fake Italian. So it looked like the Olive Garden. Yes. Which was like a very niche. My dad was like, I'm Italian.

28:05And so there was like wrought iron and like everything was like beige and brown. And so I did just aesthetic stuff. The layout was great. I just, you know, Carrera Marvel and things. Perfect. And I've learned a lot about honing and things from you now. and so we had our viking fridge for like 20 years and it just died and i was like okay well i need another yeah i was like i need a sub-zero whatever and i got the one with the fucking glass door right and i got it because the idea of it is great because i was like it's gonna motivate me to have like a chic my sister has it okay okay yeah so you someone asked you about it and you said I don't want to see last night's lasagna because you're sharp when you answer things sometimes there's a very like sharp tone that I love I'm just I just say what I think yeah and it's nice because you're a very like beautiful blonde woman and it's nice to see somebody that has sharpness because I feel like we all want to please everybody all the time and make everything because we're scared yeah barrier like and I'm missing that gene fucking please no I'm it's disgusting and every day i look at my fridge and i see the leftovers from last night and i hear you say i don't want to see last night's lasagna it's really i mean i think that fridge is beautiful it's just hard in our the way that we all live to see you're going to see almond milk like all the time like what are you going to do and i i merchandise it gorgeously okay that's great but then you know my mother and my nanny and like everyone else have you seen that chris jenner fridge.

29:35So this is, I mean, in my head, I was like, I'm going to the Kris Jenner fridge and it's going to be full of vegetables. Right. But that fridge is like the B fridge or the C fridge. There's definitely another fridge in that Kris Jenner house. I know. I know. But what are you going to do? I know. Also, who's in your kitchen? Who cares? I know. I know. We do have people over, but I was like, oh, my God, Annie. There's certain things that I've said on my Instagram that like people, it's like really like I hear from them. They're like, it really like rubbed somebody wrong. I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't like a table runner.