BOBBY WINSTON: Dwell seems to be heard, seen and talked about everywhere.
Photo by Dennis Anderson
Michela O’Connor Abrams, publisher of Dwell
By Bobby Winston
Published: July, 2006
BOBBY WINSTON: Dwell seems to be heard, seen and talked about everywhere. Your office is a stone’s throw from the ferry building, so ferry riders are claiming you as one of our own. Describe the Dwell success story for us.
MICHELA O’CONNOR ABRAMS: Dwell really is such a great story. Because the whole brand, which, of course, is anchored in the magazine, was envisioned by a woman in Mill Valley, Lara Hedberg Deam.
Lara is from Jamesville, Wisconsin, and came West and bought a rundown shack in Mill Valley, endeavoring to build her own home. [She] realized, very quickly during the first few weeks of working with an architect, that she didn’t have the vocabulary to work with him in the way she felt would yield her home, and express her authenticity.
[She] went back to school, then rejoined architect Bob Hatfield and completed the house that she and, now, her husband, architect and designer Chris Deam, live in with their three-year-old twins. And it is through that journey that she realized that there was not a magazine that really spoke to her in a way that would give her the information she was really looking for - the vocabulary - the language that was not steeped in architectural magazine lingo, yet was more than what successful decorating/shelter magazines offer.
So she wrote a business plan, and, being from a direct mail family, dutifully did a 225,000-piece direct mail test to test the concept, having made an agreement with herself that if it didn’t come back 5 percent to the positive, she wouldn’t do it. Well, it came back ravingly successful, far more than five, and so Dwell was born. And it is that inspiration which has developed into an award-winning visual voice that has really taken us through what’s now five and a half years.
WINSTON: So, what about you? What was your pathway to becoming publisher of the magazine of the moment?
ABRAMS: Well, my degree is in Journalism. And I was always interested in both the business and edit sides of publishing. I think it took me all of six months to realize I could use my writing skills and my real love of the written word in sales, marketing and business development. So I went in that direction.
I have been in publishing since 1984, but always in business and technology, until selling Business 2.0 to AOL Time Warner, on behalf of the British company Future Network, and starting my own company called Heavy Lifting. About 60 days into hanging my shingle, I met Lara, who lives a mile away from my front door. We were introduced by the Dwell newsstand consultant, who is an old friend. I just felt like there was immediate connection, and she became my client.
About five months later, she found out she was pregnant with twins, and asked me to join her in being the president of the company and running the company as her partner. And that’s what we’ve been doing since the summer of 2002, and it’s just been amazing. It absolutely has been my favorite career segment of all time. It’s been the perfect place to be. And, to boot, to find that really on the periphery my whole life, I have lived around modern architecture and design.
First, in the summer of 1966, when I was eight, my father rented the Schindler on Kings Road in Los Angeles, which is now a public landmark and museum. When I agreed to join Dwell, Lara handed me two books, one of which was R.M. Schindler. I took the book and said, Oh. I looked at the cover.
She said, No, no, no, no. This is a very famous home, and my favorite of anything in the world. And I said, No. I know the home, and I lived there.
What are the chances that as a child you would live in what is now perhaps one of the most iconic modernist homes in Los Angeles? And then from there, my family moved to Silver Lake. Now when I mention growing up in Silver Lake many people respond, ‘Oh, my God, Silver Lake? You mean, Neutra, Eichler, Schindler, Lautner?!’
This current appreciation for modern owes so much to the inherent awareness of those real masters of modern design. We’re talking 80 years ago that they envisioned how architecture would be and reimagined it so well and so vividly for a lifestyle. It wasn’t about decorating. It certainly wasn’t about bringing an architecture from some other culture. It was really designing and imagining an architecture for their time. And that is what Lara wanted to do with Dwell — to have a voice — have this really beautiful visual and written voice that would inspire people and, also, really affect change in this country in terms of the way we think of design. She has an amazing respect for different architectures from different periods and different parts of the world. But if you’re building the new, why not actually have an architecture that is for our time? That is a very important part of Dwell’s mission.
WINSTON: Do you attribute any of Dwell’s phenomenal growth to shelter-seeking in the wake of 9/11?
ABRAMS: Early on we certainly did. In 2002 and early 2003 there was renewed focus on family and home and values that this country experienced -- Let’s do things that are authentic, and be more down to earth. And that certainly fueled, not only the growth of advertising, from everybody from Home Depot to the highest-end Italian manufacturers, but inspired consumer non-endemic advertising, like the luxury brands and liquor and fashion, to focus on those magazines that covered home, because they felt that’s where the invigorated category was in what was not a very interesting or fun economy especially for magazines at that time.
But I would say that in the last two years, Dwell’s growth—up 60 percent each year, from 2003 through 2005 and still going—is due to this unique voice about modern design and what modern really means.
It’s really more about just knowing that you’re inspired by something that gives you ideas and that you understand the information. And there are definitely attainable aspects of this. It’s not aspirational, as in, ‘Gee, I’m looking at something that is so above my means and out of reach, maybe I can afford a lamp from it.’ That’s the traditional American shelter magazine model.
WINSTON: Bay Crossings started, just like Sunset magazine, as a giveaway. While Sunset promotes the California lifestyle, a phrase it came up with, Bay Crossings is tracking a return exodus back from suburbia to urban waterside living. Does the California lifestyle as we know it, this urban car-dependent living paradigm, have a future?
ABRAMS: I think it does. But, I think that the next five-to-ten years will be all about urban infill, all about back to the cities. And it’s not just about fuel efficiencies and sustainability or resource consciousness. It’s as much about wanting to live in the center of excitement and electricity and diversity, and, you know, all the things that make being near a city really so much fun and so enriching.
And it was thought, oh well, you can do that until you have a family, and then you must leave. Not so anymore. True, in the case of San Francisco, there is not very much of an affordable aspect, if you will, to The City. On the other hand, the idea that we don’t need huge spaces once there’s more than one of us is really becoming more popular.
So, to me, what Bay Crossings is covering is the epicenter of culture in a wonderful city with thriving communities surrounding it. And it’s not just San Francisco. I mean, you could have crossings in all of these cities that are—I’m not wild about the word ‘regentrifying,’ because it’s not always so accurate in every city’s case — but for some cities it’s that. For others, it’s really a reinvigoration. And for others, it’s an adaptive reuse. I look at what Los Angeles is going through; they are really creating an urbanism there. That, to me, will very much be the focus in the next five-to-ten years.
WINSTON: Bay Crossings is going to throw a World’s Fair to celebrate what you’re talking about, this new urban waterfront living paradigm. You want to come?
ABRAMS: Absolutely. I will be here.
