In Business of Home’s series Shop Talk, we chat with owners of home furnishings stores across the country to hear about their hard-won lessons and challenges, big and small. This week, we spoke with interior designer Mary Holland, owner of the Atlanta store Holland MacRae.
Holland has been laser-focused on studying furniture design and sourcing antiques since her college days, and today her shop is a stalwart of the Atlanta design scene. With an affinity for English styles and meticulous reproductions, she has always carefully balanced a respect for the old with an eye to the new.
“Somebody very wise told me that in order to be a good furniture designer, you need to understand proper period antiques and their proportions so you can then change them up and make them your own,” Holland says. “That same person told me our industry is very much in line with the fashion industry—in that if you’re tired of something, I guarantee your clients are tired of something. We all want something new.”
It’s a theme that came up again and again in her conversation with BOH. Ahead, Holland talks about her designer collaborations, her adoration of English heritage, and the importance of vendor relationships.
How would you describe the aesthetic of the store, and how similar is it to your design aesthetic?
I’m afraid that I can’t separate the two. The shop is very much a reflection of my point of view. It’s a mix of 18th century, 19th century and a little bit of modern design, with an array of upholstery that can go either modern or traditional. I think it reflects how people design today. There are no rules anymore.
How would you describe the balance of merchandise?
Typically the proportion is 70 percent reproductions, 30 percent antiques. We’re known for our reproductions. We have 22 workshops throughout the U.K. that build all of our furniture, and I’m really proud of that heritage.
What is the genesis of your interest in English pieces?
I’ve always been fascinated by England. I was lucky enough to travel there with my parents several times as a young person, and it had a huge impact on me. I liked that they really treasured things that were handmade; I felt like that was different from what I was experiencing in the U.S. There’s a sense of history in the U.K. At some of my workshops, they take their families every weekend to National Trust properties and have a picnic on the lawn with their kids. I think that’s so cool—there was an immediate love.
How much of that is within the store’s aesthetic and merchandise?
A lot of it, but it’s been modernized. When I first started, we had a very singular view. Everything was brown, everything was traditional. But I feel like to be relevant in today’s world, you have to mirror what designers want, and I think they want a mix. They want quality at a good price, and they want diversity.
And how do you achieve that diversity? What’s your sourcing process like?
I’m very much old-school. I like having these relationships with dealers that span 25 years. There’s a lot to be said for being face to face. I have antique dealers who know me really well, so they’ll save things for me. Not to say that they won’t send me pictures and I won’t buy that way, but our relationships started 20, 25 years ago with me going to their warehouses and having lunch with them. Those relationships have sustained me and served the business well, so I like to buy in person when I can. Certainly during Covid, I had to reinvent how I purchased things. There were a couple of funny moments where I wasn’t paying attention to the dimensions, just looking at photographs, and purchased, like, miniature chairs that I thought were full-scale. We live and learn.
Who is your typical customer, and how much of your business is to the trade?
We’re 99.9 percent to the trade. That’s what I know, that’s what I love. I love interacting with designers. I think they’re underrated. People don’t realize how valuable a designer is to have at the very beginning of a project. It will save you money and headaches. We value our relationships with designers, and I am very appreciative of their loyalty to my business. Also, our furniture reproductions are represented nationwide through Lee Jofa, and that’s been a very important relationship to me. The Kravets are lovely people.
Why do you think people don’t always value designers? Is it Pinterest, or cheap furniture, or the internet in general making people think they can do it themselves?
People have resources at their fingertips more than ever before. The internet opened all of that up. We live in a traceable world, so if you’re on Instagram and you see a beautiful sofa or beautiful fabric, more than likely it’s tagged and you can find your way to that source. There’s a lot of good to that, but I also think that designers bring value to a project. They can see the big picture and save people a lot of time. I say this with experience—doing it myself versus bringing in a designer friend made a huge difference in how seamless the project went and the time I saved. They were able to bring in resources that I didn’t necessarily know about—especially with lighting—that are maybe not in my wheelhouse.
Do you have a trade program or are there special ways that you work with the trade?
We do offer a designer discount, of course. If you walk into the store, it’s all priced retail, and that is to protect the designer and make them feel comfortable. If they do want to bring their client in, of course, to sit on a sofa, look at a table, then they are protected in that way from their wholesale pricing.
What is a product or category that you find moves very quickly?
Dining tables. We’re known for informal and formal dining tables at a very good price point, so that’s my best category, as well as end tables. We have probably a hundred different end-table styles, and people know that when they can come in, they’ll be in stock.
What about your own favorite category or favorite item in the store right now?
Again, I cut my teeth on antiques. It’s my first love. Right now, there’s a great bench in the showroom with a back that can go up and then over, so you have the flexibility to create a back on either side of the bench. It’s just a great, quirky little piece that was handmade a hundred years ago for a particular spot, a particular use. Those are the kind of quirky antiques that I love to come upon, because you don’t always find that kind of stuff. Then to see who appreciates it and buys it in the end is always fun.
What is your approach to e-commerce right now, and how has it changed over the years?
I resisted it, stupidly, in the beginning. As any antique dealer will tell you, it is very hard to photograph every single thing you buy, dimension it out, then get it up on the website. But once I surrendered and hired somebody just to do that part of the business for us, it made a huge difference. I could kick myself that I was five, seven, eight years late to the table. I think you have to acknowledge it’s the way all of us shop now. I can’t tell you the last time I went into a department store to buy a dress. No one I know shops that way anymore. Embrace it, or you’re going to be left behind.
What about social media? What kind of role does social media play in your business?
It’s huge. Again, once I surrendered to “This is where we are; this is what the industry wants,” and we embraced it, I have been amazed at the reach we now have, and how people find us. We are diligent in asking people, when they DM us through Instagram, “How did you find us?” And it always shocks me. I think it’s an amazing tool that has freed all of us, really. Why wouldn’t you use it?
What is it like operating within the Atlanta design scene?
I feel lucky in that we have been in the business a long time, so we’re very grounded. People know who we are, what we do. It’s very strong and very tight-knit, believe it or not. A lot of designers are personal friends of mine outside of the business. We once were in the design center, and about six years ago a fantastic modern building with parking and huge windows opened up [nearby]. I felt like it was a good move for our company to be in a freestanding building.
Would you say there’s a general Atlanta aesthetic these days?
I don’t think so. If you asked me when I first started, I would say absolutely. I think people saw Atlanta, or the South, as having a particular aesthetic, a point of view that was shown in magazines, reinforcing that thought. But I’d say absolutely not now. You can see similar interiors if you go out in L.A. or New York. Atlanta definitely has diversified.
Tell me about some of your more recent furniture launches and what’s on the docket for 2025.
I always learn something from collaboration. Bobby McAlpine was the first person I collaborated with, and that [collection] means a lot to me. We have also collaborated with Robert Brown and Barbara Westbrook. Clint Smith was our latest, which was very exciting. He has been in the publishing world for a long time, so he brought a point of view that was very editorial, which I appreciated. He really thought about pieces that weren’t already in the marketplace.
We have another collaboration coming out in February with a local ironsmith, who is very well-known. He, like me, is very interested in preserving trades, so he has reached out to different schools around his area to encourage young people to at least know about certain trades—furniture building, ironsmithing, that sort of thing. We will be doing metalwork pieces with him. We’ve been working on it probably a year now, and I’m really excited.
Are there places that you would still like to take the business in terms of expansion or different product lines? What do you see next?
Two years ago, I felt the need to add fabric to our offering. Certainly we want to offer designers one place to go for many different things, whether that’s upholstery, case goods, and then rugs and fabrics. We looked at multiline showrooms already in Atlanta, and then looked for people who were doing great things but didn’t have a voice yet, maybe because they were just starting out or smaller in scale. And we also tried to find fabric companies or designers that had some sort of environmental piece to their business, whether it was using less water in their fabric dyeing, or whether they would dedicate X amount of their revenue to [a cause]. It was important for us to find people out there in the world doing all these things.
How do you feel about the future of small businesses like yours?
I feel very strongly about small businesses. I feel like we make up a large majority of businesses in the U.S., and it’s not an easy thing to have a small business. There are so many challenges. Somebody told me a long time ago not to start a business unless you like to solve problems, because you’re going to face a problem every day, every week. A lot of that is just staying in business, staying relevant. I very much like to put my money where my mouth is. For me to stand here and say, “Oh, I support small businesses—I’m one of ’em,” means I have to, in turn, support other small businesses. That’s really our intention with the collaboration with Jason Smith, the ironsmith, and these fabric companies that we’ve sought out.
Did the pandemic inform that at all?
During the early part of Covid, I remember walking outside my showroom and thinking, I don’t have a plan B. Wow, I love what I do. I’m so passionate about what I do. I’ve never thought about a plan B. Then the pendulum swung the other way and people were throwing orders at us left and right. Covid made me really appreciate still being here, still being able to do what I love.
