Jeremiah Brentrevealed that the beginning of his career involved a risky move that majorly paid off.
The designer, 37, toldarchdigest.comthat he sold all his furniture and even his car to clear out his L.A. apartment and make way for his ambition.
The purge, he said, was “all so I could pay for an LLC and a decal that I put on the wall in my living room.”
The LLC was for Brent’s eponymous firm, where he took “any project he could.” He said there was one small-budget project that helped validate his choice.
Ten years later, he’s working from offices on both coasts on projects he is truly passionate about. His Santa Monica, Calif. office is mostly glass, and full of light.
“People want a soft place to land at home,” he said of the location, “and I think they want a soft place to work as well. I like the idea of shoving work life into a residential space.”
He’s a fan of the sunshine, as his Greenwich Village, New York, office is also full of windows. “I’d not seen anything like that in New York City, so just…sun-drenched,” he said in the interview.
“They’re elegant spaces,” he said. “As we’ve grown, I’m really trying to protect our integrity, and [create] the opportunity for everybody to have a seat at the table. The two spaces lend themselves to that mantra.”
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The store, which was designed to cater to the five senses, will sell olive oils, flowers, soaps and more. Brent has worked for years with artists and designers to get it exactly right, and said he is a creative “control freak.”
“Which is fun for me, but not for anybody else,” he joked. “But part of growing and evolving a firm is letting go. You know, at the beginning of your career, you don’t have a lane. Or every lane is yours and you have to drive all over and do everything you can. But as you grow, it’s all about creating lanes for other people.”
Reflecting back and looking forward, Brent said he has evolved — but plans to continue doing so.
“I just hope that 10 years from now, I’m still sitting around a table fascinated and grateful that I get to work with these amazing people, creating spaces that make people feel something. It’s the best job in the world,” he says
He andBerkushave traveled back and forth between Los Angeles and New York City frequently for the past decade, making Brent’s bi-coastal office spaces a logical choice. They lived in New York, then LA, andmoved back to NYC in 2021.
Jeremiah Brent/instagram
Berkus, 50, and Brent first moved into their Greenwich Village home back in 2013, just a year before the designers got married, sold it in 2016, thenbought it back in 2021.
Returning to the city with their children, Poppy, 7, and Oskar, 4, the pair moved intoa townhouse in the West Village, but Brent toldADin the magazine’s October cover story that their Greenwich Village place was always “the one that got away.”
TheNate and Jeremiah Home Projectstars revealed how special it was returning to their old home and expanding it into a space that could accommodate their family of four.
Brent said this is the place where they first discussed important topics as a couple, such as, “conversations about having children, conversations about planning a wedding. It’s where all the dreaming began for us.”
Berkus toldADthat the home reflects both of their design styles, making it the perfect space for them.
“It’s a blend of his modernity and rule breaking, with my sort of traditionalism and crazy auction-house encyclopedic furniture history that lives in my brain,” he says.
source: people.com
