We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Susan Yeley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Susan , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
With three teenagers in my house, this question of finding one’s purpose really resonates with me these days. Mine was a laughably twisted path; I started undergraduate school in Theater at Indiana University, where I tried (and failed) at every aspect of theater save set design, which it never occurred to me to try. I went on to dabble in all sorts of other departments and majors, land a job in Change Management in a big consulting firm, and pivot back to academia, thinking I’d become a college professor. The seed of the idea that eventually grew into Susan Yeley Homes originated in 2001 in a cold-in-the-winter and hot-in-the-summer rental apartment in Hyde Park, Chicago, where I was a [miserable] graduate student in Religion and Philosophy. After much soul-searching and career-office-visiting, and encouraged by an insightful University of Chicago therapist, I swapped Kant for Dwell and took an unpaid internship at Thomas Job, a terrific but now defunct furniture and fabric showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. Soon enough, I enrolled at the Harrington College of Design and took a job in a high-end residential design firm in River North. My husband and I returned to our Hoosier roots a few weeks before our first daughter was born in 2005. I initially dubbed the little design business I did on the side, while I was in school and my children were young, “Gravity and Grace: Design that Grounds and Uplifts”—after a Simone Weil book I read and loved in Divinity School. It was a nod to the place that led me to this happy career in which I am privileged to be invited into people’s homes, relationships and lifestyles, to help them make their spaces warm and inviting, or cool and calm, or cozy and lovingly cluttered. The unofficial SYH motto remains: designing spaces that ground, and uplift too.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
At SYH, we like to say that life is too short not to love your home. We believe that a beautiful home is a personal and holistic experience. It tells the story of its inhabitants not with words, but with carefully considered architecture, finishes, furniture, art and accessories. Because we know that it takes all those elements — the lack of any one is palpable — we have developed a comprehensive service model. We have a team that is trained in architecture, interior design, and project management. When a client hires us, they know that they are hiring people who will, first and foremost, get to know them, which in turns enables us to design and advocate for them. Our clients trust us both to conceptualize and to orchestrate the creation of a cohesive and intentional setting for their lives to unfold, whether in their primary residence or a vacation home. They know we’ll connect them with a reputable builder and manage the construction and installation down to the last detail, fill their home with curated furniture and finishes, and turn what often is a stressful process into a fun and engaging one. They know we will achieve for them that deep sense of well-being a thoughtfully designed home imparts.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
It’s obvious but not untrue that hard design skills have made it possible for me to do what I do: learning to draft, both by hand and digitally; learning to draw – which begins with training your eye to see; learning the standards for passage and lighting and codes; understanding the science and art of scale, color and textiles. Without these skills and knowledge, I would not feel confident (or be competent!) advising clients and working with collaborators in the trades.
What’s less obvious but equally important, I’ve found, is my education in communication, both written and spoken. In design, we often communicate in drawings, but not exclusively. It’s invaluable to know how to express yourself with words, accurately and with nuance. It makes me a better advocate for my clients, better manager of my staff, better marketer of my skills, and better teammate on a build.
Finally, interpersonal skills, I think, have propelled me along this path. Residential design lands you right in the middle of families and partnerships. Owning a business means you are responsible for settting a tone and handling all things personnel with tact and compassion and straight-forwardness. Building projects involve a myriad of tradespeople, who all bring important skills to the project and need to feel valued and heard. At the end of the day, design is about humans, so to do it well, you have to work well with – and genuinely enjoy – humans.
I would advise people early in this career to pursue trade skills but not neglect a well-rounded, humanities-based education. Understanding literature, art and philosophy instills in a person a deep appreciation for human nuance, and if you can hold onto that and ground all the work you do in it, you will bring something really special to your work –something your competitors may not have.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
For someone who designs homes, two things must align for an ideal project: the scope and aesthetic of the work must fire your imagination and make your heart full, and you also must love the humans for whom you are creating space. I do appreciate, however, that you’ve asked about the ideal client rather than the ideal project. Here’s why.
Lots of people ask me what my style is, what kind of work we love to do. And of course I have an answer. We love to create colorful homes, homes that are permeated with history and whimsy and layers, and that defy staid designery words that try to pigeonhole them into styles. We love comprehensive scopes of work, when we have a hand in everything from architecture to art. Nonetheless, we also know that neutral can be beautiful! And sometimes we just do the architecture or just the decor, and we fall in love with the clients and the space anyway. Sometimes brand spankin’ new homes are just what is needed, and reserved, controlled designs that stay true to a certain style grab our imagination and turn out to be beautiful, satisfying work.
Which brings me to the humans for whom we work. If I am reluctant to commit fully to a favorite scope or aesthetic, I know with utter clarity what makes a good client. Our favorite clients are the ones who trust us. (And it helps to be funny. And kind. And grounded.) We are professionals, and to be frank, we are very good at what we do. Our clients pay us to get it right because they lack time, the connections in the field, the vision, any number of things. And we do get it right. We love when people commit to our partnership because they believe that deep down we will do right by them and by their home, and that that will be worth their investment in our services and expertise. It’s not that they can’t weigh in or question things or must check their stories and taste at the door, not at all! But we try to make them feel heard and seen enough to trust us to translate their story into their home.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://susanyeleyhomes.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susanyeleyhomes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanYeleyHomes/
Image Credits
All photo credits Sarah Shields Photos, except the team photo, which is Eric Rudd.
