By design at BeDesign

Boutique Montrose furniture store celebrates exclusive partnership with premium Italian brand

While the “quiet luxury” aesthetic has reigned supreme in Houston for the last two summer seasons, the inevitable transatlantic migration of European influence has officially come to the Bayou City. An unmistakable continuity exists among the city’s newest and most posh patios — color! If the cherry red, lemon yellow, and acidic greens on full display around town make people thirsty for an Aperol spritz, it’s not only by design, it’s BeDesign.

Eponymous Italian furniture brand Paola Lenti, known for its colorful, elegantly low-slung collections, can be spotted upon the decks of the most well-appointed yachts and vistas throughout Europe. Globe-trotting Houstonians, who always like a little European flair, have embraced the brand with equal fervor.

Celebrating a partnership

It’s no small wonder why the fashion-forward proprietors of BeDesign, Adrian Dueñas and Marcelo Saenz, have dedicated the entire third floor of their luxurious Montrose furniture boutique to showcase the store's exclusive partnership with the prestigious indoor/outdoor brand. Moreover, they threw a party at BeDesign on Wednesday, March 6 to showcase the brand and the comprehensive renovations to their building.

Celebrating 25 years of collaboration with Paola Lenti, designer Francesco Rota and CEO Anna Lenti traveled from Italy to join BeDesign for the unveiling of the new Linea for Outdoor line as well as the store's display of their wares Moderated by the always stylish Patty Dominguez, vice president of design and architecture for Cosentino, the intimate, invite-only crowd gathered for a charismatic conversation on all things Paola Lenti.

"Through the unveiling of our extraordinary third floor, BeDesign brings to life its passion project – a rooftop paradise that envelops guests in the unmatched mastery of color and design by Paola Lenti," Dueñas said in a statement. "From a shared vision years ago, we have forged an interior design nirvana that sets a new standard. The Paola Lenti experience here is our realized dream: vibrant, sculptural, and simply unrivaled in sophistication. This rooftop oasis stands as the crowning achievement of our endeavors."

Paola Lenti Anna Lenti Francesco Rota Anna Lenti and Francesco Rota.Photo by Johnny Than

The secrets of Paola Lenti's success

Before the festivities began, Rota and Lenti sat down with CultureMap to discuss the brand’s design concept, manufacturing processes, and the question: Why has Paola Lenti found so much success in Houston?

When Francesco Rota met Paola Lenti 27 years ago, they took a look at industrial-grade felts, refining those to compressed felt textiles, and created what Francesco refers to as “flying carpets,” colorful floor coverings that became an immediate success. From selling carpets, they moved to three-dimensional furniture. Durable, yet soft, these pared-down new textiles have taken them on quite an adventure. Francesco’s creative process for designing new pieces is beautiful in its simplicity, as he explained.

“I go to the shows and the trades. I look at what everyone else is doing, and then I don’t do that,” he said.

Clearly a winning approach. The Linea chaise lounge is still as iconic twenty-five years later as it ever was, making way for Wave, which is the company’s companion outdoor piece.

As any creative will concede, to get a concept to become — well, anything — one needs an eye for business. Enter Anna Lenti. Sister to Paola, Anna makes sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed back at Paola Lenti’s headquarters near Milan.

Realizing in 2003 that the outdoor furniture market remained limited to traditional materials, the brand saw an opportunity to innovate. Anna and Francesco wax poetic on those early days, recalling how the only options for outdoor furniture were teak wood or stark, hard plastics. As it did by using industrial felts for indoor furniture, the brand took a look at existing, durable materials that could be retuned for outdoors with the retail market in mind; the answer: polypropylene.

The material takes well to dyes, is colorfast, and completely recyclable, meaning the brand was into sustainability long before it became a buzzword. Durability being key, we asked if Paola Lenti's outdoor line can withstand a climate as diverse and extreme as Houston’s. Francesco’s answer did not disappoint:

“We were pioneers. We investigated materials because we wanted a product to perform. So metal had to be a certain kind of steel, 316, which is nautical steel,” he said. “The textile needs to be of a material that resists UV rays, to salt, to traction. The fabric comes, in reality, from the boat world. In the sense that, if you think about a yarn that makes textile, a sailing rope makes our fabrics.”

Curious how the outdoor market has evolved in 25 years, Anna explained that what clients are looking for now is different than what they wanted in the '90s. Turns out, it took awhile to convince customers to spend as much as $15,000-$18,000 for an outdoor sofa and between $5,000-$8,000 for each outdoor armchair, which is what the pieces retail for at BeDesign.

“In the beginning, people were not ready to spend and invest this amount of money for the outdoors, because they weren’t used to having beautiful furniture outdoors,” she says. “Year-by-year the market completely changed because people spend so much more time outdoors. Now people want to have more continuity between their indoor and outdoor furniture.”

Paola Lenti in Houston

Two of Houston’s favorite design darlings, Nina Magon and Lucinda Loya, chose Paola Lenti for two of the city’s most talked about new projects — Cocody Restaurant in River Oaks and The Thompson Hotel, respectively. Both designers attended the BeDesign fête, saying, essentially, Paola Lenti is the best choice for ultra-premium outdoor furniture that holds up to Houston’s heat and humidity.

“Paola Lenti started from a thread, as passionate artisans, paying attention to the quality of materials: always looking for a point of contact, a special harmony between colors, signs, and shapes,” Magon said. “I fell in love with the colors and vibrancy of the brand ten years ago when I was introduced.”

Cocody Patio Find Paola Lenti at Cocody's patio.Photo by Mickael Zibi

$BeDesign Paola Lenti event Adrian Duen\u0303as - Nina Magon - Anna Lenti - Patty Dominguez - Francesco Rota$

Photo by Johnny Than

Adrian Dueñas, Nina Magon, Anna Lenti, Patty Dominguez, and Francesco Rota.

This author’s aunt, who has been known to spend a season or two taking up residence in The Raffles Hotel in Singapore, once stated that she “cannot afford to buy cheap.” Alternatively, the adage goes “If you buy it right, you buy it once.” Can’t argue with that.

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artist to entrepreneur

Houston artist rolls out new Hawaii-inspired wallpaper collection

Kristen Leigh Studio Island Collection wallpaper

Courtesy of Kristen Leigh Studio

The Island Collection introduces Mili, Lana, Meadow Check, and Kiko to the Kristen Leigh Studio line of textiles and wallpapers.

Houston watercolor artist Kristen Steen, founder and artist at Kristen Leigh Studio in West University Place, is set to make a colorful splash next month with her latest textile and wallpaper collection. Inspired by a family vacation to Hawaii, The Island Collection features four new patterns in shades like soft seafoam, muted blue, terracotta coral, and crisp white.

The collection unfolds across four patterns, each offered in a range of colorways. Mili anchors the group and is the only pattern to come through in both fabric and wallpaper, moving through chambray, lakeside, terracotta, olive, and shades of blue and green. Lana follows in a similar range of chambray, lakeside, blue and green, and terracotta, while Meadow Check and Kiko round out the offering with the addition of forest and, for Meadow Check, olive green. Fabric is woven on French linen and linen cotton canvas, with wallpaper finished in a premium matte.

The Island Collection brings the Kristen Leigh Studio line to approximately 85 fabrics and 30 wallpapers — quite an accomplishment for a studio that, like many, was created during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Relying on what Steen refers to as “the power of Instagram,” Connecticut-based Cailini Coastal tapped Steen to design her first wallpaper, a delicate herringbone pattern named Parker that is available to this day.

Courtesy of Kristen Leigh Studio

The Island Collection introduces Mili, Lana, Meadow Check, and Kiko to the Kristen Leigh Studio line of textiles and wallpapers.

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The success of her first wallpaper commission inspired Steen to design collections of her own, which have become designer favorites for providing classically-relaxed, nonchalant refinement elevated through their quality craftsmanship and sophisticated finishes. Fabrics are woven in either French linen or a linen cotton canvas, while wallpapers are premium matte, paper weave, or premium grasscloth. As with anything, trial and error ensued, but Steen quickly found a community that she credits with offering continuous support throughout the evolution of Kristen Leigh Studio.

“I just jumped in and learned everything I could about manufacturing wallpaper. I tried out a few here and there; it’s just a lot of research,” explains Steen. “Now that I am in it and have friends who are wallpaper and textile designers, we talk and get together. For being such a singular and solo industry, it’s so valuable to have other designers to bounce ideas off of: what’s working, what isn’t, and what swings in the industry.”

A family health scare kept Steen from creating anything new for a couple of seasons, until a wayward family vacation forced her hand. What was meant to be a week on the beaches of Hawaii ended up being a week indoors during a tropical storm.

“You just kind of had to make the most of it. We couldn’t just sit there and complain — that doesn’t do any good,” says Steen. “There was a lot of sketch time — a lot of just doodling — then afterwards I was playing with color and thought ‘this could be fun.’”

As a studio that mainly markets to designers and showrooms, the pressure to create a new collection each season can grind the gears of the creative process to a halt. After an 18-month hiatus, Steen credits the lack of pressure she felt while just passing time on vacation, while admiring the local flora and fauna, for the inspiration she needed to accumulate enough sketches for a complete collection.

“It sounds really cliché, but just being able to draw and sketch without any end game in mind, being able to not really care about it, is where this collection came from,” explains Steen. “I’m biased, because it’s one of my favorites now, because that’s how it was created.”

Lush botanicals, winding vines, and the easy, unhurried rhythm of island life came into focus, not as literal tropical motifs but filtered through a quieter, more classic point of view. As a watercolor artist, Steen’s work often maintains a traditional, serene dialect. However, her occasional use of bold, saturated color can feel electric and dramatic — something entirely foreign to those who speak in watercolor.

“I do love how the watercolor will have variations in the tones and the shades. You can’t mimic that, you can’t fake it,” says Steen. “There are some patterns — like the Kate, or even the new Mili — that all started with just sketches and brushstrokes, but it just didn’t translate as well to pack that color punch that I wanted. So, when I was editing, I ended up really pushing the saturation to where it almost felt like a solid. But everything is done by hand, for sure.”

More consumers than ever before are seeking out niche studios like Steen’s. Kristen Leigh Studio is not exclusively to-the-trade, a distinction that once made products nearly irresistible. Steen’s collections are available through her Houston studio, website, numerous trade studios throughout the country, through interior designers, and even through select pop-ups. So, with that being said, who is a Kristen Leigh Studio client?

“Someone who wants to have something that feels warm and joyful. Something that feels special and authentic, but not necessarily fussy,” says Steen. “They want to feel proud of it, ‘This is a designer fabric. This is a designer wallpaper. This is something special that I don’t see in my neighbor’s house all the time.’ They want to feel like this is something special, but I’m also a mom of three kids. I realize that the fabrics have to be durable. They have to be something you can touch and live in and it’s not like a museum. Something that’s approachable and sophisticated. Just approachable design—something that’s everyday, but still special.”

Kristen Leigh Studio’s The Island Collection will be available beginning October 1.

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