Showroom Profile

BY RAEANNE MARSH

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT SANDLER

>>> Haus Modern Living, Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona

Haus owners Lew Gallo, Gregory Gordon and Brad Plumley.

With locations in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Haus Modern Living offers furniture, tableware, linens and accessories—plus a good helping of humor. Their vision intact since the company's founding in 2002, Haus principals Lew Gallo, Brad Plumley and Gregory Gordon offer contemporary style that eschews the serious or stuffy.

"We are design driven," says Gallo, noting also their interest in upcoming artists as well as traditional, established industry leaders. To their first line—Modernica—they have added Blu Dot, Knoll, Kartell, Vitra, Alessi, Stelton and Moroso, among others. And Gallo adds, "We love local." Local companies come to Haus—such as Grobal, with innovative flower pots designed by Karim Rashid—and Haus owners also actively seek them out. "When we go to the shows in New York, we also go to the smaller fairs," Gallo says, offering his perspective as a designer: "I love finding new materials."

The original impetus for opening Haus came from Gallo's need to find a suitable showroom for his own creations. Wood is his medium, and his custom door and furniture designs are executed to his modern urban aesthetic of simple, clean lines. They are rich in personality, though, which stems in no small part from his care in selecting the wood. "At the lumber yards and wood specialty [sources], they'll laugh and tell me, 'I knew you'd pick that out,'" he shares. Imperfections are, to him, opportunities, and he will change the design in order not to lose the integrity of a knot or crack he discovers in the wood.

Clean, modern furnishings, a bold use of color and pattern, plus a sense of humor are the hallmarks of the Haus design philosophy, shown here at the Scottsdale location.

A former San Francisco resident, Gallo saw Phoenix as a growing area with positive energy to which he could bring something new, as opposed to being confined in established niches in either Francisco or New York. So, with family here and a predisposition for warm weather, Gallo opened his first store on Seventh Street in Phoenix—and almost immediately caught the eye of a developer, who not only commissioned Gallo for nearly half his home's furniture, but also provided the connection for Gallo's next effort: designing furniture for an Al Beadle home. To keep up with the demand now, Gallo uses Vawter's Custom Woodworking, in Tempe, Arizona, to help with manufacturing. Gallo works with designers to provide stand-alone as well as built-in pieces to fit the location, with the design, material selection, creation and installation time varying with size and complexity from four weeks on up to several months.

The Seventh Street showroom was left behind in 2004 for a Biltmore Fashion Park location on Camelback Road, to which Gallo, Plumley and Gordon added a second last year in Scottsdale. The showrooms share an open, airy atmosphere—as modern and clean in display as the items showcased—and an attitude that encourages customers to ask questions. But the two Hauses differ from each other. The Phoenix store, at 1,600 square feet, focuses more on home accessories and gifts. Three times that size, the Scottsdale store showcases furniture as well as home accessories, and also contains Haus' design studio.

"We buy for the store," Gallo notes, relating that the partners' discussion of whether or not to carry a particular item may end with the revelatory exchange, "I'm talking about Biltmore." "Oh! Yeah, it'll work in Biltmore."

Tableware, accessories and gift items are offered at the Scottsdale Haus location, as well as in Phoenix. Simple white accessories offer a modern touch.

The partners go together to trade shows, but unanimous decisions are not required. They honor each other's vision, just perhaps buying a smaller quantity if only one of them loves an item. Purchases are emotionally driven rather than predetermined, and, Gallo explains, finding one piece will dictate other pieces that will look great with the first.

While both locations are retail, Haus offers courtesy to the trade. Price points range from curios of a few dollars to a four-poster rune bed at $13,000. One-hundred percent American made, the bed is one of Gallo's favorite pieces, as it combines simple external lines with ornate turned-lathe designs on its inward faces. Another favorite he describes is the Fjord chair by Moroso: "It's a piece of sculpture you can sit in."

In addition to Gallo, Haus has taken on a second designer, Najla Al-Rashid, as it has grown from only the three partners to include a staff of 12. Positions are all full time because, Gallo explains, that fosters greater interaction and "they get more in the groove."

Haus Modern Living, 4821 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ, (480) 423-5444; 2440 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ, (602) 277-0111; www.hausmodernliving.com.