Charm and grace stands behind Georgia native Debra Hennings of Coast to Coast Interiors. Her delight in the history and grandeur of the South echoes in the designs she creates aided by the expertise and experiences of her son Keith. Their blended way of looking at fashion and global influences form a perfect team that designs unique interiors for people across the world.
Q: Where did your interest in interior design begin?
A: As a child I loved drawing houses and creating them in all sorts of colors. I actually at one point in my life wanted to do fashion and in every white page of every book in the house I would draw pictures! But it really started with my mother and her influence on me. She was very good at tailoring and sewing and spotting details. She’d take me shopping in the stores and point out the details such as buttons on a blouse or carvings on a piece of furniture. She opened my mind into the tiny things that make a difference in design. I was totally fascinated by it. When I was in my early teens she actually allowed me to choose the carpet that was going in our living room. I remember I definitely chose it and it definitely was not a neutral color! She was good to her word and the carpet I chose was put in. I suspect it was a choice she secretly approved.
Q: You hail from Georgia. How has that influenced your work?
A: I received my degree in design from the University of Georgia and the furniture pieces, accessories and collectibles in the South have had a big influence on my work today. I remember as a child going to my aunt’s friend, who lived in an antebellum house just down the street from my grandmother. As we sat in the living room, I was enchanted at the table in front of us that had a shelf underneath filled with incredible groupings of antique collectibles. I also loved the fact the furniture and items were of quality back then, which has changed significantly throughout the years.
Q: How has furniture changed?
A: Most are now made in China, Taiwan or Vietnam and with it a change in how things were designed. Furniture companies previously had created exquisite carved designs by famous furniture makers in this country. But when they shipped the production overseas, the carvings became cost prohibitive to produce. It resulted in designs that used cleaner, smoother lines (less expensive to produce). This was partially responsible for the industrial modern look that came into popularity during those years. The pieces were good, but weren’t made for the long run. Having worked in the furniture industry for many years, along with my son, we watched it slowly dissolve in South Carolina and go out of business. Currently a revival of furniture making is trying its best to reformulate.
Q: How has design been shifting for interiors?
A: A new movement called Hygge (pronounced hue-gah) has been growing for a couple of years. It’s a Danish word describing a way of living or sometimes described as the art of creating intimacy. For design it means a feeling of warmth, welcome and coziness in a home. You’ll see ottomans with cozy throws or faux fur, candles, anything that creates comfortable surroundings. It’s been going strong for the past couple of years. It seems we’ve come full circle from the harsh industrial and clean modern look that was also partially influenced by the show “Mad Men” to the need of comfort and cozy. We have to feel comfort in our houses. Lately we’ve been experiencing so much turmoil in our country and the world. We need to feel nurtured in our homes in these times of uncertainty.
Q: How does working as a mother and son team bring a unique edge to your designs?
A: It’s a natural outcome from working between two different generations. We each have our own perspective, which gives us different ways of looking at things. But we also have common denominators such as the appreciation of the history of places where we have lived. And we both love to travel. He lives in Venice, Calif., but currently is in London to design a client’s home in Brighton. The client had a home he leased in Los Angeles that my son had furnished. That’s why we named our design firm Coast to Coast. We literally have clients all over the world. He does a lot of work in Los Angeles and Santa Monica with more contemporary and modern designs. And I focus in Orange County, which tends to be more traditional. But we design up and down the coast, across the nation and around the globe.
Q: What background does your son have in design?
A: When Keith was 6 years old I took him with me to work on Amtrak to Chicago where we went to the merchandise mart. That’s really where it all started for him. He’s been around this from the get-go, playing amongst my samples. Later he worked with me in a furniture company where I was a senior designer and he took care of all my accounts. My clients loved him. We went to a larger furniture company and he immediately got whisked away into management. He loves furniture, products and design and is very good at it. He worked with reps from all the major companies and was in charge of all the designers. When we both left the company, he went to live in Barcelona for a year. And I began my own company. The next morning after he returned from Spain, we started designing together and have been doing it ever since.
Q: What’s it like working with many different cultures?
A: It’s a rich environment of different people and we listen to their needs. We work with all kinds of traditions and have learned and respect that certain colors can’t be used. We have understanding on different cultures where some have areas just for the men to congregate and just for the women to congregate and then a common area that ties the two together. We had one Middle Eastern client that didn’t want anything related to her culture. She wanted everything American even though she lived in the Middle East. I had another client who flew in from Japan, took a taxi from the airport along with his translator, dropped their plans off with me and then went to South Coast Plaza to shop while I worked on their design plans for their home in Japan. We later shipped everything in a container for them and the drawings of all the details of what needed to happen.
CONTACT INFO
Debra Hennings, ASID, CID
Coast to Coast Interiors
1209 Pavoreal
San Clemente, CA 92673
949-422-4123
CoasttoCoastInteriors@gmail.com
www.coast2coastinteriors.com
By Gina Dostler
