Poolside chatter

Last Saturday night, my husband Tim and I went to a great pool party at Raymond Waites’ manse in High Point (Tim’s the cute one in blue). Raymond has spent the better part of a year turning a postwar version of Tara into a glorious prime time Belle Watley (as the tiny brass plaque by the front door suggests) and the transformation is terrific. So is the fact that he’s done it here – and now when there’s something to celebrate, like friend Russ Berge’s birthday, the house and gardens are filled with a lot of familiar faces from uptown (Emerywood), downtown (the market showrooms) and cross-town (Greensboro). For a born-and-raised High Point girl, the mix of old friends and new doesn’t get much better than this: sipping mojitos with my childhood buddy Pam Dobbins Stern (now the owner of Big Bureau properties, shown at right in Raymond’s perfect little pool house) and her husband Brady; listening to Julie and Mark Phillips talk about their recent trip to the Galapagos Islands – and meeting their son, Phillips Collection creative director Jason, for the first time; catching up with designer Mark Abrams and Home Accents Today’s former editor Becky Boswell Smith poolside while Red Egg’s Carol Gregg finished swimming her laps; all the while becoming more and more intoxicated – by the fragrance wafting from the full blooms of Russ’s giant white Asian lilies. After dinner, the Greensboro gang gathered in the Jay Gatsby-esque poolhouse (Daisy and Jay were fresh on our minds as Tim and I had just rented and watched The Great Gatsby to research our roaring twenties costumes for next month’s ART Conference social in Charleston) where we were joined by industry consultant Ivan Saul Cutler and his wife Wendee. 

Ivan, also a fellow blogger (www.insidefurniture.com) graciously obliged my request for a few retailing insights-by-candlelight. First of all, he said, was that consideration should be given to the increasingly important role sales reps play (or should be playing) in helping shop owners meet today’s economic challenges. “Retailers should be looking more to their reps as dealmakers – make them get the info on what’s out there for them. And it’s mutual – retailers need to audit what is out there so that a store knows what it needs to differentiate itself… not what everyone else has.” He also advised retailers to be courageous. “You can’t play it safe any longer… well, to be successful you never could, but especially now.” But when I asked Ivan my Atlanta "on the street" question — about the impact of rising fuel costs on the home accents categories – he shared some words I’ll take to Las Vegas with me next week: “With respect to decorative accessories, it takes less discretionary income to maintain a customer relationship than selling case goods or upholstery… filling the home tank with accessories is a better fuel with greater mileage right now.”

I hope to see lots and lots of home accents buyers at those big gas pumps in Las Vegas next week – let’s drain ‘em dry!