Private Spaces | Andrew Torrey
Suzy Chase: When two podcasts collide, magic happens. Welcome to Dinner Party, the podcast where I bring together my two hit shows, Cookery by the Book and Decorating by the Book. Around here we're all about cooking, sharing stories behind recipes, and creating a cozy home. I'm your host, Suzy Chase, a West Village wife, mom and home cook. Inspired by Martha Stewart, trying to live in a Nora Ephron movie, surrounded by toile, plaid, cookbooks, decorating books and magazines, cooking in my galley kitchen and living my best life in my darling New York City apartment in the cutest neighborhood in the city, the West Village. So come hang out and let's get into the show.
Andrew Torrey: I'm Andrew Torrey. My new book is Private Spaces Great American Design, published by Rizzoli.
Suzy Chase: I am overjoyed to be able to chat with you. We're two kids from Kansas who went to the big city. So tell me about growing up in Dodge City, Kansas and your interest in design and did it start there and fun fact, it's the home of the phrase get out of Dodge, and I'm sure you're so sick of hearing that.
Andrew Torrey: No, no, it's so true. I am very lucky. I had the most magical childhood. I had parents that really put my sister and myself first, and they had a nursery and a greenhouse, and so I grew, which was kind of creative because they'd make their gardens for Memorial Day or whatever. So I grew up around that and it was just really wonderful. I grew up in the greenhouse. I do not have a green thumb at all, but I really don't know. I just had the most amazing childhood growing up in Kansas. And fun fact, I had three different grandmothers. My grandfathers got divorced, so I grew up with three grandmothers and they were very different. One was very beautiful, very formal house. The other one had a really wonderful, lovely, kind of cozy grandma house, which was so great. And the other one was really kind hard scrabble, immaculately clean, but really kind of very basic house but immaculate. And so I really grew up with three different kind of influences around me all the time, and they were wonderful. But growing up in Kansas for me, I don't know that everyone has the same experience growing up wherever they are, but I really loved my childhood. I really loved just really everything about it. Prairie Village, where you're from is near Kansas City,
Kind of a suburb a little bit, right. So it's so funny. So being in Kansas, so that's about a five and a half hour drive from where I'm from, Dodge City. And so I did not make it to Kansas City very often. I, but my sister recently moved there, but I had been there maybe once in my life before my sister moved there. And so being from Kansas, everyone's like, oh my gosh, Kansas City. And you're like, that's literally not at all where I'm from. The house I grew up in was in the farmland in Kansas, and so we didn't have a neighbor for six miles really in any direction, but that's kind of just how people live. So it was normal for us. And the get the hell out of dodge thing is so funny. They've made it the town slogan and the city slogan. And I remember my first job in New York City when I moved here. My boss at one point, he was on the phone with somebody and talking and he was like, oh, I got to get the hell out of Dodge. And then he looked at me, he was like, I can't say that anymore because my assistant actually did.
Suzy Chase: Funny, funny. So tell me about your first job. So you came here at 21, right?
Andrew Torrey: Yeah, I came here at 21 and my first job was not in design. I didn't work in design until I was 33. So my first job at 21, I was the assistant to, I actually worked, my first job was for two months at a recording studio, but then I worked for a tech startup as the CEO's assistant, and I really think he's just wonderful. He hired me, I think because he was so amused by my resume because it literally said ranch hand literally. And then tape librarian's assistant at this really major recording studio in New York. So he was like, what is this? I don't understand this. And so he just kind of went with it,
Suzy Chase: Interviewing for jobs here in the city on my resume. They'd be like, Kansas and that's all they would want to talk about. And I went to KU and they wanted to talk about the Jayhawks and nothing about the job. They just want to talk about Kansas.
Andrew Torrey: It's so funny that you say that. It implies a wholesomeness that I think people just want and they kind of latch onto and they think, Steven speaking for myself, folks that work here from Oklahoma. And it just is like, okay, well, I know that they were probably raised with the same values that I was, so they're probably dependable, they're probably responsible and they probably want to make their parents proud and they're in the big city. So yeah, it's definitely a thing.
Suzy Chase: So just skimming your table of contents and seeing the iconic locations like Oyster Bay, Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Bel Air, et cetera, et cetera. For me, I am always in awe of the city and living here in the West Village, and it boggles my mind that I got out of Kansas almost every day. I'm literally a forever tourist. So how about you?
Andrew Torrey: I totally agree. It's so funny. My mother just visited New York for the first time in 24 years, so I've lived here for 24 years. She came for the book launch and every time I come over the bridge coming into the city, every time I fly over last night, I was on a flight last night coming here from a project and the plane did one of those magical things where kind of flies right over the city and you're just looking out and it's lit up. And I just can't believe that I live here and I'm so grateful every day. I'm so grateful to live in New York. It's really hard to live here. It is tough, but you get out so quickly what you put in. I think it's the quickest turnaround city ever. So if you put in a ton of work, it comes right back to you. And I think New York is probably the most decadent place in the world to live because you have the best of everything outside of your door, the best entertainment, the best food, the best culture, just everything. Or you can just stay at home and watch Netflix. That to me is total decadence. I can't ever imagine permanently living anywhere else.
Suzy Chase: So let's go to 2018 and you got a call out of the blue from Jamie Drake and he invited you to do Kips Bay. So chat a little bit about that and your room called The After Party.
Andrew Torrey: Oh my gosh, it was so great. So I'm so happy you're asking about that. I just need to give credit where credit to zoo. So I had started my business in 2013. 2018 I was working on some pretty great projects, was figuring things out and was very busy. And Jamie, who I'd met one time called my landline and I was working from my apartment, my kitchen island at the time with one assistant and was just like, Hey, it was just chatting. He was like, how's business? How's things going? I'm like, oh my God, Jamie, I have your books on my shelf. And I knew at the time that he had the reputation of being just one of the nicest people in the industry. Now I know he is the nicest person. He is just kind of, everyone's very godfather. He's the most magical person. He's a truly great man.
We chatted about business and he said, there's a opportunity for a show house if you ever thought of doing one. And I was like, oh, well, there's a laundry list of show houses that you would kind think to start with or whatever, in a million and a half years. I never thought he would say Kips Bay, because that's the pinnacle. Well, it's the most important show house in the entire world. So it was never even in my mind. And he said, well, there's a big room at the Kipps Bay house because somebody had pulled out at the very last minute, but lists were already made, things names were out. And somebody had pulled out and I just was like, oh my gosh, totally stutter. I was like, how much will it cost? And he told -me the rough numbers and I just was like, I'll figure it out.
And then I just was really kind of freaking out. I was so busy with deadlines and everything, and he is like, if the timing's not right, I'm sure there will be another time and not my first day at the rodeo. I know what that means. That means now or never. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, sorry. You're hearing my inside voice a hundred percent. I'm in. Count me in. I'm so grateful. When do I start? And he goes, today. And it had already opened, meaning the house was open and people were starting to work in the house. It was that quick. It was really fast. And that's one of those times in life where just closed my eyes and took my shot that I was given and went with it. And I literally got in a car and went straight uptown to see this gigantic room with a terrace, a 30 foot long balcony.
And it was a really weird room. It had low ceilings, it had this kind of corner. And I just sat in the room for probably an hour or two and just thought about what it could be, what would I want it to be, what would be the most impactful? And it was just at such a low ceiling, it was never going to be appropriate for it to be a daytime room. So I just decided to embrace it, embrace the darkness, and I covered everything in this very dark cork wall covering and a gold leaf ceiling. Built a bar. Then I was just like, okay, it's a narrow balcony. You're not putting furniture really out here. What would you use this for? And I was like, it's a smoking balcony. So it's like the after party that just made sense, a smoking balcony and a bar and a giant sectional with a big fireplace and a tv.
And so it just all kind of happened thinking about it. And then oddly enough, I had a great client with a huge sectional sofa that was in storage that we were going to maybe use on another project. And it had barely been used by them as it was, and it fit to the millimeter exactly perfect. And so they said, yeah, sure, take it out of storage. So I literally pulled this gigantic sectional I designed out of storage, and it was perfect. It was the exact perfect fit. It was as if everything aligned for the room to be great. And I was walking through the house and it was a major house, Juan Montoya, Jamie Drake, bunny Williams, just on and on and on of very heavy hitter designers. David Netto, Sasha Beckoff, Wesley Moon, and a lot of people became great friends. But I was walking through this house and I looked at Jamie's room and Jamie had embroidered fabric that was going on the walls that he had sent to India to be beaded and had flown back for the show house.
And I was just like, well, am I going to go all the way or am I going to be safe? And I just thought, this is my one shot. This is the biggest stage. This is the biggest thing. It's a huge room. Just go for it. And I closed my eyes and I spent every penny, I had every penny on every credit card, every penny and save really. It was probably not the smartest thing, but it ended up being the best thing. I spent every penny. I had to do everything I could to that room. I had custom playlists. I commissioned a piece of art for the television. I borrowed a ton of art. It was really, really great. And it ended up being hugely successful for me. I sold every single thing in the room. Wow. When the townhouse sold to a buyer, I cleared the room out.
They were so thrilled with everything, how it looked. They had it reinstalled everything, the sofa, rug, everything that was custom, everything that was lent by every vendor, every single, because vendors do things and loan it to you, but then things just don't sell at show house. It's not the point of a show house. But for me, that was another really defining point in that show house for me, is that the entire room sold and including art, any art that was available, sold and everything and at full cost. And so the vendors were so thrilled more than anything, it made working in design and working in New York very easy. That was the biggest shift for me. It made working vendors saw me as a serious designer or somebody to pay attention to, and they really made it a lot easier to work with.
Suzy Chase: And then you had another kind of life changing moment with the Brooklyn Nets. Talk a little bit about that. I mean!
Andrew Torrey: Yeah, thank you. That was so wonderful. So one of my best friends, Irina Pavlova, at the time, she was the president of Onexim Sports and Entertainment, Russian holding company that owned the Nets and the Barclay Center and was building the Barking Center. We were just having margaritas at Dos Caminos down in the meat packing district as you do on a Saturday afternoon. And one of her friends who worked at the facility, Tony Brasile was the facilities manager, was just joined us for drinks. And we were just chatting away and he was like, he had this binder. He was like, oh yeah, well, we're looking at this furniture for whatever, what do you think? And he showed it to me, and I think it was the second or third margarita. I probably wouldn't have been as brash, but I was like, I just think you could do better. It could be sexier. It's like, okay.
But he asked me, he asked me, and he was like, well, who could make cooler sofas or design sofas? And I was like, I think I could do that. And he was like, well, why don't you sketch some stuff and send it over and we'll see. This was before I had a big team. I literally drew with pencil. I didn't go to design school. I sketched something. Favorite tip, you can draw it with pencil and if you shade it with your finger, it looks really fancy and really amazing, like an artist did it. But as I literally did it and I texted him pictures and he was like, great, let's do it. And that's how it started. And then obviously it was a lot of work and a lot of development and a lot of research with the guys. Designing furniture for seven foot tall people is a thing. But it was so fun. And that more than anything, the team and team ownership, team management, they really set the bar for me to watch how they carried themselves, what they did, how they treated their employees. They sent all of their team through the support staff and everything at the Barclay Center through Disney training. I don't know that they still do that, but everyone was so wonderful and just easy to work with. Zero stress. Everyone was just happy and very efficient and worked really hard, but just great Mets fan for life.
Suzy Chase: So it's so funny, A few weeks ago, my good friend Beth Barden, who's a chef in Kansas City, called me and she said, I'm dog sitting for Anthoni Porowski. And then lo and behold, I'm reading your book and you designed his place. Can you talk about that?
Andrew Torrey: Oh yeah. He's just the sweetest man. I'm very lucky you're going to hear me say that a lot. Everyone I work with, I just love and I'm so lucky to work with such wonderful people. But Anthoni has been a great friend of mine for a very long time, I think almost closing on 15 years. And he and I just share a very similar point of view of aesthetic, and it was so fun and so wonderful because he and I kind of started our business. We'd done a lot of other things at the same time. So for him to grow as much as he has, which is so deserved, he works harder than anybody I know. And he is so thoughtful. He is so appreciative of every single person. Same thing as the Nets, just really gracious. But we had so much fun doing his place.
He has exceptional taste. So he really would kind of pick most of the furniture and then I would put it together. I designed the rugs and the sofa. We designed a lot of stuff in the bed, but I would tell him, I need a dresser here and it can be this long. And then he would deep dive. He's very educated in design. He really knows what he is looking at, and he wanted really important iconic pieces from important designers for his home. So he really did the legwork on building a collection of pieces that he could be very proud of. So that was wonderful. That was Print and Architectural Digest. He did an amazing video tour of the apartment. And same thing. I mean, people don't talk about this, but I have to just say it. There was a huge crew of people in his apartment when they were filming. He stopped and took time to introduce himself and say hello and thank you so much to every single person or maybe 15 people there. I think that's pretty special.
Suzy Chase: I am obsessed with that. Angelo Mangiarotti, is that how you pronounce it?
Andrew Torrey: Coffee table. Oh, the coffee table.
Yeah. That was him. Yeah, that was him. He's always loved that designer. Always loved that table. And when he was in the position to start making those things happen, he had his hit list. The Jacquelyne chairs were I think his first purchase, and then it just went from there. He has some pretty great pieces that he did.
Suzy Chase: So I think my favorite place in the book is the Chileno Bay Beach House in Cabo San Lucas. Have you worked on this during the lockdown? How was that?
Andrew Torrey: Probably the year before Covid started, we'd really invested in a lot of tech and 3D design and really invested in team members who could do that. And so when Covid hit, I was very lucky in that we were able to shift immediately to just doing virtual design. And so we were very busy. We worked full time throughout the entire lockdown period on designing. And I was very lucky also that I had wonderful clients who didn't slow their projects down. They supported my small business, they supported a lot of other small businesses. They allowed us to keep working. And because we had the time, we were able to do some pretty amazing things and sit with some designs, develop it. But I love that you love that house. That house is, as you can see in the book, is a pretty big departure from a lot of the more layered aesthetic I personally respond to.
I just like stuff, meaningful stuff, never feel meaningful. But that client, they are so strong in what they know about themselves, how they live, how they want to feel in their home. They are very clear in who they are. And so when we sat down, I'd done an original furniture plan and she was like, oh no. Oh no. Oh no. And we literally sketched on a napkin. So in that giant, huge living room, you look at it, there's really, other than the bar and stools, there's three pieces of furniture, two big sofas and a coffee table, but it doesn't feel like two big sofas. We broke them up, we integrated a table into the sofas. We made them more interesting than just being two big pieces of upholstery, but there's no rugs in that house. Every piece of furniture, except for the two primary bedrooms is all built in the bedrooms.
So there's almost zero maintenance and cleaning every night stand has integrated electrical and everything into it. So you don't have guests moving nightstands. Everything is just there. And they don't really collect art, which was great to know at the beginning of the project because that meant that I didn't plan for art. So we really planned for materiality and texture, and all of the surfaces have something or they're lit at night or during the day. So yeah, I love that home. We surrounded it with fire. There's gas torches and four fireplaces, two fire pits, gas lanterns all the way around the house. But then there's also water elements everywhere. So you're in water and nature and fire, it just, and stone. It feels really great when you're in it. So I love that you love that house.
Suzy Chase: So in this book, we've seen your first 10 years. So what's on the horizon for your next 10 years?
Andrew Torrey: I've really been thinking about that a lot. My mind is always 10 years down the line with huge goals and ambitions and dreams. So it's pretty hard for me to be in the present. So I've tried to be very present during this book launch to really appreciate where we're at. And so that's been fun. But we've started working in aviation. We've done two global 7,500 jets, which are the largest private jet you can purchase now outside of Lincoln, an Airbus, and we can fly anywhere in the world. And they're the fastest civilian aircraft since the Learjet. So they're pretty wonderful. That's been really exciting to work on those. They're for private clients and really easy, frankly, a lot easier than you'd think. So that's been a lot of fun. I'd love to do more planes. I'd love to do more kind of things that move.
So we're also doing a private coach, like an in city kind of moving vehicle, but doing that. But I'd love to do more of that. I'd love to do a bunch of giant boats. Why not? I'd love to do helicopters. I'd want to do the boat, and then I want to do the helicopter. I want to do the tenders. I want to do everything that goes along with it. And all of those things are on the table right now, which is just so exciting. And most of our clients are starting to do those things. So we're hopefully growing into that with them, which is wonderful. But I always tell my team, they're building rocket ships. Someone, one is doing the interiors of these spaceships. Somebody is, and it may as well be us. Why not? Somebody's got to do it. And that's kind of my motto of everything. Why not? It's going to be somebody way as well be us, so going to be somebody.
Suzy Chase: Right. No, that's such a good point. And I think it is great that you're always thinking 10 years ahead because who else would think of spaceships?
Andrew Torrey: For me, it's important for me to always impart to my team that anything is possible. We live in New York City, there is no limit to what you can do or what you can achieve here, which also means the level of quality that we can deliver, the level of experience that we can deliver, the feeling in the business design of feeling, not just a pretty room, how the client feels about the process, how they feel about what the finished result is, but also every single thing else along the way. So that's really important, and I am always wanting to be better and always wanting to learn more and grow. And so I try to really instill that in my team.
Suzy Chase: Okay, here's the million dollar question. When are you going back to Kansas?
Andrew Torrey: Oh, I go back a few times a year to see my family. Oh yeah, I go back a few times a year. I always, it's made it been a lot easier lately because my mother has moved to be a little bit closer to my sister in Kansas City. And so I can fly direct to Kansas City, which is a lot easier than how it takes to get to Dodge City, which is flying to Dallas, doubling back, flying to Dodge City or Garden City rather, and then driving an hour to, it's a whole day travel. So to get to Dodge City, to get to Kansas City is a lot easier. So I go a few times a year. So
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Andrew Torrey: Oh, you're so sweet. Online, I have a website. It's just Torrey dot llc. And on Instagram it's at Torrey llc. And that's it.
Suzy Chase: Oh, well, I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show.
Andrew Torrey: You're the best. Are you kidding? It's just so awesome. You're Kansan to Kansan.
Suzy Chase: Okay, so where can you listen to the new Dinner Party podcast series? Well, it's on substack suzy chase.substack.com. You can also subscribe to Dinner Party for free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Additionally, the episodes will be available on both Decorating by the Book and Cookery by the Book. Long story short, you'll be able to listen to it virtually everywhere. Thanks for listening. Bye.
