One of Lindsay Anyon Brier’s earliest memories involves her parents purchasing a dilapidated former architectural gem outside of San Francisco, which had recently served as the site of a commune. By the time she was a teenager, her mother (who owned an antique store) had restored the place to its former glory, transforming it into a European-style bed-and-breakfast—and Brier suddenly found herself encountering a rotating cast of characters.
“[My mom would] have all these creatives sitting around her kitchen table: Someone doing stem cell research from MIT was sitting next to Malcolm Gladwell’s understudy,” Brier tells host Kaitlin Petersen on the latest episode of the Trade Tales podcast. “As a high schooler, I absolutely hated it … but as I reflect on it now, I’m like: That was incredible that my mother found a way to keep this home she loved and celebrate it.”
Sure enough, Brier’s parents had instilled a reverence for good design in their daughter, who went on to attend Dartmouth, where her math skills and creative passions pulled her in different directions. After working in event planning, she found her way back to design, taking night classes at UC Berkeley while working as a design assistant for a business that functioned both as a design firm and an antique gallery.
Ultimately, she took the leap and launched her own interior design business in 2007, looking to incorporate a curated mix of contemporary works and antiques into the projects her budding firm took on. One of the earliest tenets that remains a core value at Anyon Interiors today: maintaining a true team, where each member feels valued. Even as her venture has grown—most notably, expanding beyond design services and into a home boutique with locations in San Francisco and Dallas—she’s been diligent about hiring strategically, establishing a strong set of principles for the firm, and ensuring that each employee has ample time to foster creativity outside of work.
“People have been critical to our success. I’m a big we over I person,” says Brier. “It is certainly a group lift—always—and I really value the perspective of people around me.”
Elsewhere in the episode, she shares the value of hiring a COO, the team-building efforts that keep her firm closely connected, and how her brick-and-mortar store, Anyon Atelier, has opened her business up to the broader design community.
Crucial insight: When Brier sat down to establish her firm’s values, one of the first concepts that came to mind was what she refers to as “weaving joyful engagement” into the firm’s day-to-day. “I really value the people around me. I value their work-life balance. We work really hard while we’re here, but we all try to leave around the same time and go home and do other things,” she says. “We went to see the Ruth Asawa exhibit at [SFMOMA] last week. We volunteered together. We did a watercolor class this summer. We try to carve out the moments that seem hard to do when you’re staring at your list of deadlines; [it’s] just so important to take a pause and do something fun together.”
Key quote: “Clients remember the highs and the lows, and they watch how you handle the lows of the project. They get to a point where they’ve written so many checks, but nothing is built yet, and it’s hard. [That’s why] I always obsess about the details and the spelling errors early on and in a client correspondence, because I’m like: We need to show our clients that we have attention to detail with everything we do, and that we’re building their trust.”
This episode was sponsored by Regina Andrew and The Shade Store. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
