The Talent : Nina Petronzio

The Talent Nina Petronzio Raised in Nova Scotia, Montreal, Seattle, Portland, New York and New Jersey by peripatetic artist parents, Nina Petronzio found her way to Los Angeles and, as she says, “followed her path to design.” As she was growing up, every time the family would move into a new house, “we would automatically renovate, and my dad would build the furniture,” she says. Her father, designer and bronze artist Robert Tino Petronzio, ran a foundry and eventually opened an art school, instilling in his daughter the artistic drive it took to conceptualize and realize her magnum opus: the design and furnishings firm Plush Home, on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. “I really haven’t known anything but art,” says Petronzio, who cites early trips to Holland, France and her ancestors’ native Italy as further catalysts for her life’s work. “Experiencing these places solidified a lot of things for me. I thought, this is me, this is who I am, this is where I come from,” she says. “I am inspired by everything from European to Middle Eastern to Indian culture — there’s something beautiful in every design culture if you look closely enough. There’s always something to fall in love with.” When she was a young teen, Petronzio had an art lesson like no other: She landed the leading role in Vincent and Me, filmed in France and Holland. Her character, Jo, a gifted young painter imbued with the spirit of Vincent van Gogh, travels back in time and meets the penniless painter at Arles. (Jo informs Vincent that in the future, one of his paintings sells for $50 million; he responds by laughing hysterically.) With design in her sights, she went on to attend schools with a heavy arts curriculum, and eventually began working at LA design firms, learning all aspects of the business. Meanwhile, she fell for and married actor and martial arts expert Steven Ho, and together they launched Plush Home in 2003. Offering both furniture and turnkey design services, Plush Home keeps its owners rather busy with healthy sales and continuous residential projects. Petronzio conceptualizes most of the design, while Ho takes care of the business and marketing aspects. “I do the boring stuff,” he says, laughing, while the couple multitasks together at a round mahogany table of her design in the pristine showroom. “We’re a good combo,” Petronzio adds. “I have a need to take too much time and make everything perfect; he’s the one who says, ‘We have to get this done, we need to move forward.’” In other words, as Ho points out, “I’m the producer, she’s the director.” And there’s much to direct, with high-profile residential projects to keep on track (clients include Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio and James Franco), a full line of furnishings to produce and a showroom to run. When the couple says “turnkey,” they mean it, offering help to those who are in the beginning stages of looking for a home, all the way to completion. “We can find a house for a client, and help them get through the inspection, permits, quotes, remodeling, interior design and art consultation,” says Petronzio. “And we only employ old-world, European-quality construction methods. Clients appreciate that.” That attention to detail continues into the furnishings, which are inspired by Petronzio’s passion for designs from all over the planet. “Something like the gates of Ireland can inspire a nail trim, bedding or the back of a chair,” says Petronzio. “The Sofia chair, for instance, was inspired by a Moroccan grate. The original scale was probably one-tenth that size.” Lacquered in a smooth, cinnabar red, the chair is at once elegant and exotic. “The nail trim on that ottoman,” Petronzio points to a dapper leather form, “that’s a Celtic design. And the Amalfi chairs are inspired by French Deco; we’ve seen a million French Deco pieces but none of them are exactly like this.” Unsurprisingly, that little kick she gave the dusty old Deco lines has elevated the Amalfi into one of their best-selling pieces. “I tend to use the word ‘transitional’ to describe my designs,” says Petronzio. “I am inspired by so many different cultures, translated in a contemporary and functional manner, for the way we live today. I like a very clean, tailored, crisp look, but I still love color — bright, beautiful color.” A case in point: The yellow she chose for the showroom set of her tufted Gatsby chairs, which, from the side, take on an anthropomorphic silhouette, is the sunniest hue imaginable. In every aspect of her life, Petronzio surrounds herself with artful ambience. “We love to cook and have dinner parties, we always have candles going and have amazing furniture — including some of my father’s pieces.” As for the art itself, she rattles off a list of enviable works: a Chagall litho, landscapes by Irish painter Victor Richardson (“sort of a contemporary version of Turner,” notes Petronzio), a Gehry sketch of a New York building, a Dalí sculpture. “I really appreciate artists who aren’t afraid to use color,” she says. Ever aware that the great artists and designers of today are products of those who came before, Petronzio philosophizes that “furniture needs to have a classic foundation to be appealing; if it’s too abstract or trendy, it won’t have longevity. I’ve come to learn that you can’t do contemporary without a traditional base — it’s like building a house without a foundation.” How Green are you? All of our furniture is made here in LA; we won’t go overseas with it. It’s part of what keeps the price point a little high. We use as many natural materials as possible without being environmentally unkind, and without the furniture falling apart. All woods are FSC-certified, and our upholstery is purchased in California, which has the most stringent toxicity standards. Everything else, from our core casings to our unbleached cotton frame padding, is from California; we won’t buy anywhere else as we are not sure how things are made or if there are questionable management issues, or even child labor. Since each piece is individually handcrafted, there’s little to no waste, and it’s designed to last forever. How has interior design evolved over the past decade? Well, when we started out everything was really beige, and people are using more color now; they’re not as afraid as they used to be. But the biggest change is that things are a lot more accessible because of technology. For example, we’re doing Neve Campbell’s home in London and using the Internet and Skype to make plans, and we can actually show her what her house will look like. We did an office in New York completely without ever seeing it, through photography and email. We selected all the furniture and fabrics here, shipped the furniture to New York, and everything is exactly to scale. The Internet has made it so that if we want to buy something in England, we can quickly and that’s something you never would have been able to do 10 years ago. What is the perfect piece of furniture and why? Perfect may not exist, but my favorite would be a really great chair with an amazing profile, like what I would call a character chair; a chair that has personality. Like our Gatsby chairs, if you walk into a room and see the back or side of those chairs, it’s almost like looking at art as opposed to furniture, and the more you look at it, the more you fall in love with it. If you can get a couple of these kinds of pieces in a project, they will lure you in with their beauty and might become your perfect piece of furniture. Why should someone hire an interior designer? A lot of times people think it’s expensive, or they can do it themselves; they go out and they spend piles of money on furniture that doesn’t work in their home, and they keep doing this until they get stuck — they sweep themselves into a corner. By the time they get to us, they’ve spent thousands, millions sometimes, and if they would have hired us or another designer in the first place, it would have saved them money, heartache and headaches in the end. There’s a decorator for everyone; there’s always someone who can do your project, and do it well.