NiBa Home is an example of what happens when everyone brings something different to the table and it all fits together perfectly. In NiBa's case, the table is set in Miami's Design District, the burgeoning 18-block art and design enclave north of downtown Miami that last year gave birth to Design Miami/Basel, a high-end design event where one-of-a-kind and limited edition furnishings are showcased and sold as fine art.

Beth Arrowood, Doug Meyer, Nisi Berryman and Gene Meyer each contribute something different, and essential, to their retail and design ventures.

When Berryman got the four of them together for a drink, "We all hit it off immediately," Arrowood said. "With Doug's vision, Gene's talent in color, Nisi's public relations and community connections, my marketing background — all the links were there." Doug concurred, "When I heard Nisi was going to open her own showroom, the four of us met. We all saw that each one of us brings a different element — marketing, sales, creativity and connections, plus we've become best friends. I've never had so much fun going to work."

Since opening its doors in December 2004, Berryman and Arrowood have grown NiBa from a 480-sq.-ft. store to a 3,500-sq.-ft. retail showroom that will reach a sales figure this year of somewhere close to $3 million. They don't advertise, yet are written up in local and national press at the rate of at least once a month (in January it was Lucky, House Beautiful and Travel & Leisure). They've added no additional staff, but have partnered with the Meyer brothers to create their own rug and furniture collections and are currently looking into more showroom opportunities. "The NiBa rug collection has three labels," Arrowood said. "Gene Meyer is large graphic bold patterns, Doug & Gene Meyer is more masculine with an ethnic feel, NiBa is more feminine, glamorous, uptown, sort of the same direction of the store."

Average retail price points start under $50 for accessories to one-of-a-kind vintage pieces in the thousands. "Our clients are so savvy and so well-traveled that it's hard to bring back anything from the domestic shows they haven't already seen somewhere else," Arrowood said. "But they're not expecting that from us — they expect to come here and find things like the lines we found in Paris that nobody else had here in the U.S., or the Curtis Jere sculpture we found at a flea market."

It was at Miami's Lincoln Road flea market, in fact, that Berryman and Arrowood met eight years ago while shopping for dining room chairs (Berryman) and furnishings for a new apartment (Arrowood). "Beth had just moved to Miami, and I was busy launching Holly Hunt's Miami showroom," Berryman recalled. After a couple of years, she convinced Arrowood to join her at Holly Hunt. "She hired me and then she left," Arrowood added. "Nisi went to work for Dacra, the real estate company that revitalized the Design District."

A few years later the two women merged their Rolodexes, creative energy and a couple of letters from each of their names to form NiBa. They also merged the wisdom and experience from years spent working in New York and Miami's design and marketing communities.

"We had known for a long time we wanted to go into business together, and knew that between the two of us we should be able to do something really great, but it took a while to decide what," Berryman said.

Doug and Gene Meyer run their design firm upstairs, working on commercial and residential projects while sketching the Doug & Gene furniture and rug collections for NiBa. Doug also wears several hats as the store's design director. Asked to share his thoughts on Berryman and Arrowood, he responded, "They are two of the most fascinating people we've ever met in this business. It's such a rare situation when you find a place where they get it in all fields — taste, connections and an understanding of the industry."

The brothers are also happy to be working with each other, something they've wanted to do for a long time. "We both went to Parsons," Doug said. "I studied painting and Gene studied fashion, so it's a great art-fashion combination. It's also nice to work with somebody you can really bounce ideas off of and argue with. We share so many of the same points of reference visually and can just sort of look at something and understand it without talking."

"Nisi and I also love working with our clients, and we share the vision that no order is too tall. We're willing to go above and beyond, and we enjoy the whole process of creating something," Arrowood said, which brings up the subject of her and Berryman's other job — they're both single moms. "When I leave here, I switch gears. I take this hat off and put on my mommy hat and turn my focus completely to my son and our life at home. If you don't stay organized in this type of life, there's no way to make it all work."

Typical of the store's displays, products are grouped by color, emboldened with Gene Meyer's rugs, anchored with occasional blacks, browns and earth elements, and glossed with Lucite and glass.