Welcome to another episode of our series SLG Meetups by Super Luxury Group, where we connect with some of the most interesting players in the luxury market. My name is Alvaro and today we'll be having with us a very special guest. His name is Gavim Brodin and he's the founder and principal of Brodin Design Build, a Luxury Interior Design expert company. Gavim will be talking about why it takes to work on some of the most fascinating multi-million dollar projects and the major trends on such an evolving industry.
Amazing conversation with great insights on Luxury Interior Design, collaborations and on how to stay motivated while building a successful business. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, Gavim, my friend, how are you? Good morning, how are you doing?
Doing lovely, here in Miami, what about you? We're in LA, beautiful day as usual. Love the background, by the way. Yes, I'll show, we have a showroom here, so we have thousands and thousands of samples, stones, fabrics, metals, glass, a lot of stuff.
Looks incredible, that's the way to do it, right? I'll go check it out soon. I might be going to LA by the way, this weekend, so I'll let you know. Yeah, I do, come and see us.
Great, so thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you in one of our SLG Meetups. Thank you for inviting me. Of course, and I was making a quick intro because you are the principal and founder for an amazing company that is killing it, and I can't really across your profile in a very interesting way because as I was talking with some plumber, one of our previous guests, I saw he was at the amazing property in California, and I saw that you were involved in that project, 56 square footage property that was $200 million, I mean, this fell in the matter, what at home?
Yeah, it was an incredible way, one off home, that's for sure. I think that's the biggest house in California, but yeah, 56,000 square feet, it was a pretty incredible project. Wow, I mean, I wanted to pull up something here real quick before we move forward, because I saw your intro video so fascinating, which by the way, amazing job. I just wanted to play it, so everybody that's watching and listening can really feel what Luxury High Ed is presented, you know, it's amazing.
Yeah, it's a good one because a lot of our projects, we can't really show our work as the kind of client's house, so we did a video to portray how we do custom detailing and the way we look through it, look at design. Wow, let's look at this. I can watch this all day long. It's so inspiring.
The music, the tones, the conversation. Thank you. Come on, what an intro. I mean, you are definitely quite a charismatic guy, but that video speaks by itself, so very nice.
With that, I wanted to ask you, what's your story? Like, what made you want to get into interior designs, such high-end, you know, Beverly Hills, what's your story and how did you build this business? I started in England many, many years ago, I was 17, started working at a fabric store that my dad and the owning, and I was selling fabrics by the yard, went from there to helping people with their colors of curtains and draperies and pillows, and really kind of went on from there to helping people with their furniture, their furnishings. I think I got my first interior design job when I was 18, and really kind of went on.
We did embassies and some pretty large projects, and then came to California in 1997 and we did the same thing, and I think we're a little bit unique. We custom design every home individually for that person, for that particular style. We don't really have a specific look, like some design firms. We can do modern, we can do traditional, we can do transitional, so we do stand out a little bit differently from our clientele.
I've learned from the ground up. That's a long journey. I see the passion and the consistency in the business. You guys are doing the work.
You look great, but you already gave me a little bit of the history of the business, so I can see that. No, I need to reflect on the work that you're doing. I've seen some of your projects are phenomenal. If I did, you did a really great project in Nashville, right, for the first season?
That was a really exciting project. They contacted us, and we designed, they have a top floor, so it's the four seasons in Nashville, it's their premier location. The most incredible views there, it's unbelievable, 360. We did the grand tent house, which is a top floor, which is about 10,000 square feet.
Then we did the six tent houses below, they have two tent houses per floor and three floors. We did the design and concept for all the tent houses. It was a beautiful project. That's incredible.
It came all over the news. I've seen it in the Wall Street Journal, it's definitely one of the top projects right now. It's really nice. They're a great team to work for, and we just got to do what we wanted, which is amazing.
You add your own element into this amazing known brand. Is it something that you carry on into other destinations with the brand? Yeah, maybe. I'm actually looking with another hotel group right now at doing some designs for them.
Mostly, we do commercial residential, we do aviation, we do a pretty incredible aeroplane for somebody. We've done a lot of yacht design, we're looking to get into more yacht design. Hopefully, that will be in our stars later on this year, on next year. We do everything from residential commercial, restaurants, bars, clubs.
And residential really has those as well. Most of our houses have bowling alleys, car museums. They're not normal homes, they're pretty amazing. Well, of course, for those that are tuning in today, I just want to let you know that Gavin is not working on the regular thing.
He's working on the super high end, which is why he's so interested to see some of your projects, because he's like, how to be creative and bring the residents and the commercial spaces into new heights? Everything that you guys are doing, it's redefining better and better. So in regards to your projects, what are some of the most proud projects that you have? I think, to be honest, the four seasons are incredible, because you get the notoriety of doing it.
But we did a Gulfstream G650, which was almost fun projects. I know that one. We got to work with the Gulfstream. We customized everything, including the seat.
I mean, it wasn't anything that, I mean, it's small and relative to projects. It's 13 seats. But that took us one year. And every single detail, every stitch, every trim, I mean, every single piece in the aeroplane is custom designed.
And that was just a beautiful, to go and see that at the end with our warm lighting and the pillows and the play settings was really just amazing. Now, with everything that we've been facing, it's been a really interesting last year, and you obviously have been taking that opportunity to keep evolving. How are some of the areas that you have adapted in the business and yourself to try through? Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting.
We've done a lot of social distancing. Some of our staff have been working from home. It's actually been okay for us, architectural department. But with the clientele, I think everybody is scaling back a little bit in design, and they want a lot more function in their homes.
You know, people are having to have situations where they're children and doing homework. The husband and wife are both working, so it's interesting that people are re-looking at spaces now. What have I seen some of the, it gets craziest requests that you've gotten? Gosh, let me think.
The craziest requests. Well, we had a pretty amazing, we had a guy who was a watch collector, and in his closet, he wanted to show off his watches, but he also needed to have a hidden. So we had this incredible watch display that ended up getting split off by having two pieces of mirror glass go across it, and then a cabinetry. So if you came in the room, you could see nothing, or you could open the cabinets, and the tinted glass you could see through the lighting, see the watches, or you could physically open it, remote, and enjoy the watches.
But this is great. So with everything that you've been seeing and working on throughout these years, I love to always ask this question about luxury. Like, what is really luxury to you? I think luxury for us, it's luxury in the touch, the feel, and the elements you're using and the finishes.
I think it's the detailing is what's really important. You can have a nice home, but if you really do a home and everything is customized, the metal trims, the leathers, the words, and you really can go in and understand and see the designs you put into a home, along with the light. I mean, really coordinated, where you don't see the mechanical venting. The lighting is really designed incredibly around your artwork, around your furniture, so at night your house takes on a whole other mood.
I think that, to me, is the best in luxury, when you actually really go and see a house as well designed and well lit, you really stand back and go, wow, this is amazing. That's true. Not very well said. Now, when it comes to collaborations, I'm sure that you obviously work with all the other companies that bring all the combination of interior design to the levels that the client is expecting.
But how important has it been for you to really build your brand? It is. I mean, first of all, you can do a great design, but without good, first of all, without my good staff, you know, you're not anything on your own. You have to have a great team.
We have architects, designers, you know, just the people even ordering the fabrics, the furnishings, you know, they're many, many years experiencing, ensuring customer orders don't get made wrong. And then your subcontractors, you know, who the people are making your join or your supplying your hardware, the vendors that are ordering from you. It's a huge collaboration to produce a really high-end project on time, on budget, the back support you need from vendors. I mean, just your plumber.
I mean, I mean, every single trait involved needs to be excellent, your painter, your driver guy. It really is cross the board of everybody collaborating together. You have projects worldwide, so I'm sure that you have to be building different teams in every day. Yes, yes.
And that's not easy. We did one of the Bahamas, and it came out great, and it's got an easy design for us to achieve what we needed with the local traits that weren't as good as some of your trades around the world. That was a little bit difficult. Well, Gavin, let me tell you, everything you do is not easy, because it's super high-end.
If it was easy, everybody would do it. So, I mean, how is your thing about how Miami is transitioning now to become one of the highest spots right now in the States? Yeah, it's amazing. We did a penthouse there last year, and the client actually purchased it to sell it.
He loved it so much he's staying in it, actually called from him yesterday. But, I mean, Miami is incredible now. First of all, you guys are open. Everyone is open.
It's business as usual. But Miami, a lot of people from England also go there. It's a great spot being close. Yeah, it's an amazing town.
It's just growing and growing and growing. You know, as a principal and founder of such a successful business, stay positive, stay moving forward, and really make the best out of it. I tell you what I do. It's funny.
I've been doing this for a while now. My fiance is the one who eats you. First, you force me to do it. I used to wake up in the morning, grab my phone, and just be non-stop-go from my eyes when I even opened.
And since COVID really hit, and we were staying at home, I have every day now. I get up. I do not look at my phone. We actually put a 15-minute meditation on.
I get up. I feed the dogs. I go hiking. And when I get back, and then I'm engaged back on my phone.
So I have like an hour and 20 minutes in the morning of nothing but yourself, your own time. And then I'm back into work. This is something of a short period of time. This is something that you are doing for the upcoming years.
And I sound like that. This is definitely the new cabin. It's amazing. It really is a big difference.
Oh my God. The dogs are probably very happy. Yes. No, it's incredible.
I've seen a few people here tuning in and saying some great things about you, about your work. So I want to appreciate everybody for tuning in. I'm not sure if there's any takeaways that you would like to share with the audience. No, I mean, just enjoy our design.
Let us know if we're available. Big or small projects. We don't just do high-end. We do.
Many projects all over. So we're always available for great projects. Garvin is the man. And there's also the team, great guy.
I'm sure that everybody has in terms of questions. They can reach out to you or twice directly. We'll put you in touch. Well, Garvin, it's been a pleasure having you here today.
Thank you. Thank you. Always the best. I might see you soon in LA.
Yeah, let me know. I'd love to catch up with you. All right. Thank you, Garvin.
Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, guys. That was Garvin.
Great guy. Super humble. Very successful. And he definitely has transformed the way that the luxury high-end interior design is put into commercial and residential projects.
So it was very nice having him here today. I hope all of you got some value out of it in regards to the industry itself and also on a personal level. And as I always say, if you have any questions, drop in the comments. Let me know.
Happy to go with that with you. And have a beautiful day and keep the beautiful success in life. Bye-bye. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today.
We hope you enjoyed it. And remember, embrace its beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.