Before finding design, Susan Ferrier waited tables, bartended, managed a temp agency, ran a pizza restaurant and worked at an infertility clinic. “I was quite a wanderer when it came to what I wanted to be when I grew up,” she tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “I landed in design and made that big decision, and 35 years later, here I am.”
But Ferrier had always been drawn to design, and after going back to school to obtain a fine arts degree, she eventually got an internship at a design firm. One day she was at a reception, mingling with designers, when a lightbulb moment hit her: “I just remember, for one of the very first times in my adult life, feeling completely comfortable with everybody in the room. We were all talking about the same things. We were all attracted to the same things. I understood short attention spans, and I was not bored with any of the conversations. And I thought, ‘Wow, who are these people?’”
Ferrier went on to work for the designer Fred Brooks in Atlanta before landing a job at Bobby McAlpine’s eponymous firm, where after only six or seven months, she was offered a path to partnership. “It was really great working with him. I mean, the projects that we did together were stunning,” she recalls. “I look at them, and think ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s great to work with an architect that will go there, that will push us wanting to do something innovative or something different, and then support the designer that wants to push just as hard.’”
In 2018, after nearly 20 years with McAlpine’s firm, she launched her own. “I decided it was time for me to be recognized. When you work so well with other people, and you’re so in it—I didn’t want to lose myself and my individuality,” she says. “You get to be a lot more agile when it’s just you, rather than a whole group of people. It’s like a committee versus an individual, and I think we can all agree that decisions based on a committee sometimes aren’t as good as decisions that are made by one or two people. It’s the next step in my development to be independent.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Ferrier discusses how she uses AI, why she surrounds herself with younger people and why there’s no substitute for experience.
Crucial insight: When Ferrier went out on her own, one of the defining principles of her firm was complete transparency, even when it came back to bite her. “Sometimes I don’t get projects because I’m too honest and upfront, and I tell them how much it’s really going to cost. They think, ‘Oh, she’s really expensive.’ Then they hire somebody else, and then it ends up costing what I said it was going to cost,” she says. Even so, Ferrier maintains that the best way to run a design business is to ensure expectations are set from the start: “I try to be very holistic and all-inclusive and not have anything hidden, so I want to be as open as possible.”
Key quote: “Interiors should be: If you’re doing it well, it should be healing. It should be calming. It should give you some kind of peace inside. If you want to be agitated by your environment, you should go to a nightclub.”
This episode is sponsored by Loloi and Blu Dot. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Thursday Show
Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including Wayfair’s surprising quarter, HGTV’s cancellation spree, and how good ChatGPT is getting at design. Later, Chairish founders Anna and Gregg Brockway discuss their company’s acquisition by Auction Technology Group.
This episode is sponsored by Ernesta. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
