Language of Home | Michael Cox
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book posted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
Michael Cox: Good morning, I'm Michael Cox of Foley & Cox, and I am excited to talk this morning about our first book, Language of Home.
Suzy Chase: Language of Home resents the work of Foley & Cox, a New York based interior design firm. So tell me a little bit about your background in design and a little bit about the firm.
Michael Cox: Well, my background, I often talk to the fact that I had 10 years of postgraduate design work on some levels at Ralph Lauren. I was there from '92 to 2002 and had an incredible opportunity to learn so many different aspects of the entire home industry. I had the opportunity to work on lifestyle development and showroom design and eventually became a product manager of developing fabrics and wall coverings and going to print mills and woven mills. And eventually got into furniture design and development for the company and got to work on developing furniture in places as diverse as Chile and Indonesia and the Philippines, which led to some antique resourcing and beginning to develop some global resource networks from places like Paris and Bali and London.
And towards the end of my tenure there, worked on launching Ralph Lauren Interiors, and that's where I really found the culmination of all those experiences come together through the direct client interaction and working on residential interior design. And that's what led to launching Foley & Cox Interiors in 2002.
Suzy Chase: I had David Jimenez on the show and he wrote Parisian by Design, and he told me he used to rearrange his furniture in his house growing up. Did you always love interior design from an early age?
Michael Cox: I did on some levels. I remember as a little boy being excited to go with my mom to pick out new wallpaper for the living room and playing with ... she collected owls and so I helped her, always work on displaying her owls and little things like that. So I always had a focus on those details.
Suzy Chase: The Foley & Cox portfolio is diverse, ranging from elegant pre-war apartments in Manhattan to retreats in the Hamptons and summer places along the coast of New England and in Europe and even a private jet and a yacht. What would you say unites these spaces?
Michael Cox: I really appreciate you recognizing that diversity because it's a very important part of who we are as a firm. I think when we meet a new client and begin to discuss our approach and our philosophy, we really talk a lot about how it's really begins with the homeowner, the new client. Therefore, the end product, the result has to be diverse because we're fortunate to work with a wide variety of unique, successful, creative people. And when you put the homeowner first and you really focus on connecting and listening and learning through a lot of discussions and real dialogue, that's one of the most important things that leads to a diverse portfolio.
But other significant aspects of our approach that I think translates across all of the spectrum of work is having a real respect for the architecture, wanting to understand architectural references and make sure that we are incorporating interiors that feel appropriate and in place. And then things like the integration of the location, identifying indigenous materials to wherever you are working, if you're working in Montana, the local iron work there is very different than the iron work that you are experiencing when you're working in a place like Austria. And so incorporating the location through things like the local hand of craftsman is an important aspect that shows up in our work.
Ultimately, I think one of the most fundamental aspects of our philosophy is that, timeless always triumphs over trendy. Even in our most modern or contemporary work, there's still a reference to elements that are really timeless design and design classics.
Suzy Chase: You were chatting about beginning with the homeowner. Do clients ever reference a feeling like, I want the place to be calm or I want it to envelop me, that sort of thing?
Michael Cox: Absolutely. Language of Home is not an accidental title and it's really linked to the dialogue and the conversation and every client and every human comes with their own vocabulary set, if you will. And so part of our goal is to really help interpret the words and get to the feelings that the client wants to ultimately evoke. It's our mission statement, really our mission statement is, create sanctuary and evoke delight.
Suzy Chase: Language of Home is organized in three sections, waterfront, city scapes, and countryside. I'd love for you to discuss one residence in each section. So for waterfront, the residence is called Shingled on the South Fork. This particular home was an opportunity to rethink the design of a summer house on little Pecan Bay on Long Island, New York. And for people who aren't familiar, the South Fork includes most of the Hamptons. So this home started as a renovation and then you had to change gears, how come?
Michael Cox: Well, the clients were lucky enough to acquire an existing house on a spectacular property. We intended to begin working with the house that existed, but once the walls were opened up and the program for the house and how the family wanted to live began to evolve and get established, it was determined that really the existing infrastructure didn't support all of those goals. So we shifted gears and stuck with the vision and luckily ended up with this beautiful result.
Suzy Chase: The expansive living room has sweeping views of the bay and opens up to the deck and outdoor seating and dining. When I think about a Hampton's home, I immediately conjure up a blue and white palette, but you chose black and white for the living room, and I found it an interesting choice for a coastal color scheme.
Michael Cox: Thank you. And it was, again, very intentional. Fortunately, we had worked with this client before and had a great trust level established and an understanding. And really, they challenged us to think boldly and we said, it is the classic, the blue and white, and so how are we going to start with a classic but update it a little bit and do a twist on the tradition? It's a short step from blue and white to black and white, but it just was a little bit more of a bold choice and it played really nicely with the elements in this space. So it was really reflective of a modern collector with global influences. You see a Scandinavian chair and an African cocktail table and an Indonesian side table and a Japanese floor lamp, and so the black and white just suited that spirit a little bit.
Suzy Chase: I would also love for you to chat about the use of stripes throughout this house.
Michael Cox: Again, thank you for noticing that detail. We oftentimes think about identifying some interesting thread of continuity so that even if different rooms or zones have distinct personalities, there's a subtle underlying thread of continuity. And in this house, it was our play on stripes, and so you see them showing up in a lot of different areas and in different places, from pillows to upholstery to floor coverings.
Suzy Chase: I'm also curious about the design flow in this home, the dining room, which is bold and dramatic versus the living room which is comfortable and refined. Could you just chat a little bit about your design flow philosophy?
Michael Cox: Design flow really is significantly impacted by the actual architectural layout. And here it was pretty much an open plan and that was what they wanted based on how they lived as a family and how they wanted to just be able to flow from one space into another. And so we were intentional about creating zones within that open plan that had their own sense of place and their own personality, but was still cohesive to the eye.
Suzy Chase: Now let's move to city scapes, and the residence is eloquent on the park. In New York City, it doesn't get much better than a Robert AM Stern building. The firm is best known for its massive residential projects made from time honored materials like brick and limestone, really iconic New York City buildings. So with this home, you chose modern furnishings and contemporary art in contrast with the sophisticated classic architectural detailing, please chat a little bit about that.
Michael Cox: Well, thank you for highlighting some of my favorite projects in the book. It's a little bit hard to ultimately choose your favorites because you're connected to all of them and it's like choosing a favorite child. But this one was especially close to us because it was just a wonderful relationship with the clients. We did this PA to tear for them, and they're filmmakers and art collectors and they're just joyful people and we had a great connection and the space obviously was phenomenal.
And walking in and having this jaw-dropping view as your backdrop adding into that the impactful collection of painting and sculpture and photography that they brought to the project, really immediately gave us the cue that the furnishings needed to be very subtle. We wanted them to be a softly welcoming background to all of these other incredibly spectacular views and art, and we didn't want the interior furnishings to compete with those elements.
Suzy Chase: I love it because that tonal monochromatic approach keeps your focus on the view of the skyline.
Michael Cox: And that's the drama of the space.
Suzy Chase: I live in the West Village and when I first looked at this apartment, I did a quick run through because per usual, there are maybe 20 people behind you who want the apartment. So I ran in, I said, it's perfect for us, we signed the papers and we moved in and that evening I realized we had an incredible view of the Empire State Building out of both bedrooms. There's something so magical about that New York City skyline.
Michael Cox: Absolutely. It's so iconic and it's like the heartbeat of this amazing place that we all live in.
Suzy Chase: The clients said, and I will quote, 'Foley & Cox have left an indelible imprint on our lives and in our home, they seek to find the most personal of every detail in every consideration and opportunity they choose for their clients. The greatest compliment we can pay the designers and their extraordinary team is that, not a day goes by when we don't think about or reflect on their exquisite taste and design acumen.' Now that is lovely, and I'm just wondering how important is the designer client relationship to the design process?
Michael Cox: It's probably the single most important aspect of the process from our perspective. It is fundamental to the aesthetic success, but it's also incredibly important for the enjoyment of the process and the result. These are spaces that we want the clients to feel happy and joyful for many years, and that can't happen unless there's a very deep connection. And through the process of getting to know the clients and getting inside their heads, you develop a real intimacy when you are sharing the development of a dream and an aspiration. So it's a large part of why we love what we do, is because we have these very deep relationships with our clients.
Suzy Chase: Do you think that deep relationship goes along with the interpretation of someone's vision? Or have you had a deep relationship with a client and you just weren't on the same page?
Michael Cox: We have had clients who certainly have challenged our aesthetic parameters, if you will. We had one client who has an incredible passion for the color red, and that was not a color that you saw often, for example, in the traditional Foley & Cox palette. But by working closely together and figuring out how to interpret the passion for red, we ended up developing this spectacular, primarily red dining room with vintage bell jars that we had sourced from Sri Lanka that were in this beautiful ruby red color and then had cherry blossom hand painted wallpaper on the walls that had shades of reds and pinks in the hearts of the flowers. And so there's a way to incorporate any passion a as long as there's a dialogue and a willingness to allow the creative process to develop.
Suzy Chase: Now moving on to the countryside, and this residence is called Bespoke in Austria. And speaking of relationships, this young Austrian couple was the nephew of a longtime client of yours, and they wanted an integrated palette for their dream home at the base of the Kaiser Mountains in Austria. First off, what's an integrated palette?
Michael Cox: I'm glad you asked because sometimes we have these things in our own head that seems so normal and natural and it's part of the way we think, but sometimes we recognize that we have to explain something. For us, an integrated palette really meant incorporating, once again, the place and the location and really having the colors of the land and the views on the mountains flow into the interiors. So focusing on natural colors and elements like lichen and moss and cork and stone, and weaving those into all of the interior so that there was an unbroken flow of the eye between the interior and the exterior view.
Suzy Chase: Could you describe their property a little bit?
Michael Cox: It's a magnificent piece of land that they had looked for for many years, and we built this new home for them on a working farm that is evolving each year. So they have, for example, existing fruit orchards that they are cultivating and bringing back to life. They have an established beef farm and now they have cattle on the property, you can now, when you're on the property, see cattle grazing out in that view.
Suzy Chase: I would love for you to chat a little bit about the traditional alpine lifestyle and how you interpreted it.
Michael Cox: Well, honestly, it was very much a learning experience for us being American, and we had started working for the uncle about 20 years ago, and at that point we were very much diving into learning about Tyrolean style and the Austrian traditions. And we bought every book that we could find and traveled a lot from Vienna to Salzburg and Kits Bull and all these places, and to really immerse ourselves in the culture and have an understanding of the tradition.
20 years, or maybe 15 years later when this project was brought to us, we already had some understanding of the culture, and so we talked and thought about the integrity of real materials, having hand hued wood and reclaimed beams and wrought iron and steel, and we worked with locals resources and developed things with local artists and really made sure that the materials grounded the house to the location.
Suzy Chase: I think this is a great example of how you routinely source local elements.
Michael Cox: Yes. The best example I can give is that, as we came to understand the traditions of how materials like the loon and the deer skin and the embroidery are part of the leader housen, we were able to identify those as base materials and then think about how we were going to incorporate those in a fresh new way into some of the design details that we were going to make for the house.
Suzy Chase: I adore that barrel vaulted ceiling, can you please chat about that?
Michael Cox: Yes, that was really a fun detail to work on. And in this project, we really were given a big opportunity to influence a significant amount of the interior architecture. We knew that we were working with a certain amount of square footage and this magnificent view of these mountains, and so we really wanted to come up with the ceiling detail that was strong enough to support that view. But that felt, again, that it was based in a history and a tradition, and so we actually took beams that were on the property in a barn that they had to take down to build this house, we took some of those beams and incorporated those into the ceiling with the brick in between.
Suzy Chase: I love the juxtaposition between the natural materials you used on the seating and the pillows and the drapes in contrast with the brick ceiling and the wood floor.
Michael Cox: This palette happens to be really a personal favorite. I think that these colors are some of the colors that we look best in and feel most at home in. The browns and the creams and the greens, they're just honest colors from nature. Using materials like the fluffy shearings and mossy herringbone and really refined loons, natural linens and the the very rugged leathers, all of those materials establish a real sense of place.
Suzy Chase: When I think of light fixtures, chandeliers, et cetera, I either love it or I hate it, there's really no in between. And in this residence, there's so many interesting lighting elements. I'd love to hear about the process of landing on the perfect light fixture.
Michael Cox: I'm glad that you noticed because lighting is something that we really prioritize and it's often one of the most challenging and final aspects that we get to once all of the other elements of the space are defined. For example, in this living room, we were so focused on the elements of earth and the materials in the room and the details of the ceiling, and once all that came together, we were like, what is going to be an appropriate fixture to hang from the ceiling in this space. And found this very clean lined, simple contemporary fixture that feels a little bit like our exclamation point hanging from the ceiling and yet doesn't obstruct the view, it's a very strong but subtle statement, so it was one of the last elements that we found for the space.
Suzy Chase: Could you give us one decor idea to use if we're on a budget?
Michael Cox: It might sound a little unorthodox, but I have often suggested for a person to look at a room, a space that they'd like to reimagine and empty it. Clear the space and experience it completely empty and allow yourself to reimagine you what you want it to feel like. It doesn't involve any money to clear a space, but it actually opens up your mind to begin to see it differently and create a blank slate so that you begin to think about the feelings you want that space to evoke when you put it back together.
Suzy Chase: That's so smart, I was just going to say, when you clear the space, you clear your head.
Michael Cox: Yes, exactly.
Suzy Chase: That can be your new motto for 2023.
Michael Cox: We have a store up in Hudson called Foley & Cox Home, and for several years before Marie Condo became as famous as she is, we carried her book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and there are really some elements there that are fundamental in terms of clearing a space so that you can begin to see it in its future evolution.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web, social media, and your shop?
Michael Cox: Our website is foleyandcox.com and we are also on Instagram as Foley & Cox. And we have our store in Hudson, which is called Foley & Cox Home, and we have a website for the store called Foley & Cox Home, that's an e-commerce site, and we also have an Instagram page for our retail store as well.
Suzy Chase: This has just been so great. Thank you, Michael Cox, for coming on Decorating by the Book podcast.
Michael Cox: Thank you, Suzy, so much, it's been such a pleasure chatting with you this morning.
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