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 Kate Rheinstein Brodsky of the decor shop KRB on New York’s Upper East Side.
A rich shade of grassy green runs through Rheinstein Brodsky’s brand, from her website and Instagram page to the shelving and merchandise in her store. What could read as a staid, traditional color in this polished neighborhood is instead cheerful and quirky, a promise of the shop’s merchandise and owner alike. (The word frog came up more than once during her chat with BOH.) Rheinstein Brodsky—who shared this favorite color with her mother, the late, famed interior designer Suzanne Rheinstein—celebrated the 10th anniversary of the shop this fall. Ahead, she reflects on the ways her business has changed, how she chooses partnerships, and the pieces that get her heart racing.
How did you get your start?
I grew up in Los Angeles, where my mother had a shop called Hollyhock for 30 years. I spent time there after school and on weekends, and then I worked there—wrapping presents, cleaning, merchandising, and stamping postcards to send out. I loved retail. I love interacting with people. I love that you choose something to sell, and you get to convince other people why you think it worthy. In 2014, I had two young children, and I really wanted to go back to work. I’d always wanted to open a store, and I thought, “If not now, when?” I jumped in with a very small space—500 square feet—on 79th Street. It was a success. People were eager for a home store.
Has your merchandise changed much over this decade?
Totally. When I opened, I thought I was going to sell majority antique and vintage pieces with a few home accessories. By the time I moved [to a new location] two years later, I’d expanded my focus to be primarily accessories and art. I picked up Christopher Spitzmiller lamps—I had started with a few of his bowls and accessories, and he said, “Give the lamps a shot.” And we do marvelously well with them! Around that time, I also started with a few trays from The Lacquer Company, and we kept rapidly expanding what we were offering—coffee tables and side tables—because there was a real market for it. We continue to shift in that direction: I still sell antiques and vintage furniture, but they are much more a part of the mix than the main focus.
What are your plans for the 10th anniversary?
We had a big party in October to celebrate all the artists and artisans—the ceramicists, photographers, painters and furniture makers we work with—because they have been the drivers of the shop’s success. I love getting creative people together. That’s been one of the greatest joys of having the shop. One of its strengths is showcasing people’s work in a way that they want to work with me—like Mark Gagnon, who creates all the wonderful papier-mâché pieces for us. He does fabulous urns and shapes, and it’s been fun to develop commercially viable things with him, such as mirrors, that apply the beauty of his craft. The fabulous objet might be more of a luxury item, but you probably need a mirror somewhere in your house.
How do you find new vendors, particularly artists?
In the beginning, I went to more shows, but to be honest, I haven’t been to NY Now or Maison&Objet in six or seven years. When I take a new vendor on, it’s a long relationship, and I don’t do it lightly. I want to make sure that I sell not [just] a sprinkling of it; I want to go deep in one area. I often ask them, “Is there something we can do together?” If it’s a ceramicist: “Would you consider doing an exclusive colorway for me? If I make an investment and buy two dozen of this handmade pot you’re making, can I have this colorway be exclusive for a year?” With vintage and antiques, I’m always shopping wherever I am. If the Parma antique fair is happening and I’m in Italy, I’m going to find a way to go, but that doesn’t happen super often. But I keep lists of different dealers in other places, and if I’m visiting, I try and shop.
What about the fine artists? You have such an amazing array of works.
That’s been one of the most interesting things to realize—that there is a really thriving market for fine art. We sell an enormous amount of work. Christian Peltenburg-Brechneff, an artist in Connecticut, does large-scale florals. We sell a lot of photographs by Dale Goffigon, who does beautiful interior photography as well as gardens. I think what makes it a popular item in the shop is that we work to show things as they might be in a house, [like], “I think that the photograph goes over a console,” and [styling] it to give you a sense of scale, [where you can see it] flanked with two chairs. You might not be interested in the console or the two chairs, but you [can envision] that photograph in your own house.
Who’s your typical customer? Do you have a trade program, or are you getting a lot of foot traffic from the Upper East Side?
It’s 60 percent designer and 40 percent retail clients. We have a trade program; we offer a 15 percent discount on individual items over $800, and a 20 percent discount on pieces from The Lacquer Company and Christopher Spitzmiller. We love designers—they don’t need one lamp; they need a lamp for every project—and we want to provide any support we can, whether it’s an extra measurement or a picture of the underside of a chair. We pride ourselves on having great customer service.
The shop is located on the corner of 73rd and Lexington, which is a very busy intersection of the Upper East Side. There are lots of coffee shops around there, and a number of schools, so we have almost constant traffic from the neighborhood. Sometimes it’s just people picking up a present for their best friend, like a book; other times they come in shopping for a lamp. We’ll help them pick out a lampshade to go with it, and we’re so happy to serve them too. We’re happy to help them figure out what works in their house, and how they can incorporate the different pieces into their life.
Is there a certain type of object that flies out the door?
The frog planters from Jean Roger, which are wonderful. It’s a French ceramics company, and the founder’s grandson François Roger produces his grandfather’s designs now. We have the frog planters in four sizes, and they reliably sell. People love them. We also sell a lot of Scanlon Apparati boxes, which are covered in handmade Italian paper and hand-marbled papers by the painter Beth Scanlon.
What about your own favorite category?
I’m overexcited about almost everything in the shop. The weird little antiques are always my favorite, like a 19th century papier-mâché eyeglass case with mother-of-pearl. Three people want that, and I’m one of the three. A hand-beaded Victorian plateau for the center of your table, where the beaded thing is covered in glass, with a wood surround. As far as new things, I’m always so attracted to glass. We make overscale, colored hurricanes, as well as something we call leech bowls, which are both based on 19th century American shapes that I have collected. I also really love Paul Arnhold’s work. His color sense is just so exciting. They are just visual candy. It’s a struggle every day not to take another one home.
How much does the store represent your own design aesthetic?
It definitely represents aspects of my personal taste. I admire many styles and many periods of time, and am deeply interested in contemporary design as well. But it’s a pretty decent reflection. Green is my favorite color, and what I always default to.
How did green go from being your favorite color to the signature color of your branding?
Well, I’ve always loved the color. It was also my mother’s favorite color, although we loved different iterations of it. She had a fabulous garden, and I loved spending time out there growing up. When I moved to New York to go to college 25 years ago, that’s what I missed most about L.A.—this feeling of greenness. So I think that I started indulging in green as a way to bring a little bit of the outside in. Green is nature’s neutral. Every room can take a little hit of green somewhere, and I like the way greens layer together. It reminds me of a garden, where you’ve got different leaves or plants juxtaposed against each other to create texture. When I opened the shop, I knew that that had to be a part of it, and so I made that the backdrop. As time has gone on, I’ve layered more and more greens to create more depth.
What is it like operating on the Upper East Side, and how has that changed over the last 10 years? When I moved there, my mother was so thrilled because of what that neighborhood represents—not understanding that living on York Avenue is basically what any twentysomething girl does. It’s not “moving on up” necessarily.
There are pockets of great affordability! One of the strengths of the Upper East Side is that there is economic diversity here, and it is very neighborhoody. There are these micro-neighborhoods that dot what people think is a monolith. This is the third location of the shop, and I feel it’s this great locus people cross through all day. It is pleasantly in people’s way. We have so many museums and so many doctor’s offices, so whether you’re getting your teeth cleaned or going to see the new Paul Rudolph exhibit at the Met, you might be passing through the Upper East Side and walk by my shop. Hopefully what pulls you in are great windows. I live on the Upper East Side, and my kids go to school here, so most of my day-to-day existence is in about a 15-block radius. So it’s important to me to engage with the neighborhood and to have a neighborhood following, which I think we do.
You have several products you’ve made, or partnerships that are exclusive to the store. How do you decide which to manufacture, and how do you make those dreams a reality?
Slowly. Usually it starts with something that I really like, and a desire to be useful. Having a designer mother and so many friends who are designers, I really listen to what they say. My mother believed you could never have too many small little tables, and we are always on the lookout for new [ones] or trying to make more small little tables. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, but I’m trying to bring a fresh perspective, or a new take on classic things. For instance, we make a two-tier side table. It was inspired by a shape that I bought at auction that had all these fussy, scalloped trim bits, and the scallops didn’t work. But I thought, “This is a great size, and so useful. I would like two of these in my living room.” We had been working with a decorative painter to create faux-tortoise finishes for different pieces, and we thought that that would be a good match. So we started making what we call “alligator green faux-tortoiseshell two-tier tables.” It starts as a germ of an idea, and then we see if people like it. Not every idea I have and everything we make is a hit. Usually we can tweak it until it finds its audience.
I just talk to people. People are pretty generous with their knowledge. When I started making the blown-glass pieces, I really wanted to make them in the U.S. I’d never found a leech bowl that big, and I loved it, and I thought, “Wow, wouldn’t this be great in another color?” We could use it for branches or flowers. I called hot shops—like, “Who’s willing to work with me?”—until I found one. But there is definitely an initial investment, because in order to do it, I needed to commit to minimum quantities. It’s a very cool process!
How has the business weathered the issues of recent years, from the pandemic to staffing to inflation?
Can you call it inflation if it’s here to stay? I think higher prices are an outcome of the pandemic, and we try to absorb as much of that as we can. One of the big things to come out of the pandemic for me was that we went into it with no e-commerce; by 2022, we had moved over to Shopify, and now every single item in the store is available online, from the smallest frog salt cellar to a 60-by-40-inch framed photograph. E-commerce is about 20 percent of the business now, even in two short years.
As far as staffing, I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have a great team. I work really hard to retain them. I don’t want a lot of turnover. That’s costly, especially in a business that relies so much on personal relationships, whether it’s with retail clients or designers. People like to see the same people in here. We hire slowly, and try to be really thoughtful, because I want long-term partnerships. Ani Kaplowitz, who’s the director of KRB, has been with me for seven and a half years now, and she is my brain’s complement. Other team members have been there four and five years.
What’s your favorite day at work?
This is definitely not anyone else’s favorite day at the shop, but I love moving things around. My favorite is a day where a couple things sold and have left holes, so we have to rearrange half the store. I get really excited about pulling out a matte bronze Christopher Spitzmiller lamp and picking an interesting shade to go with it, and pairing it with a lacquer console and a late-18th century French chair and thinking that they look vibrant and fresh and enticing. Those days make me excited about what we sell—and when I’m excited, usually my team is excited, which makes it easier to convey to your clients why they’re interesting.
