Monday Muse: Kelli Vogelgesang
One of the things I love most about what I do is I get to meet some pretty amazing women. I’m sure I sound like a broken record each week when I post my Monday Muse, but it’s the truth. There are some damn amazing women out there that are crushing their goals and going after their dreams. I am so grateful to these women for sharing their (sometimes non conventional) career paths, risks, and advice with me. I met this week’s Monday Muse- Kelli Vogelgesang of West Bay Homes - when she reached out to me for a commissioned illustration for her business. I took one look at her website and the homes she’s designed and I was in awe. Not only is she the most lovely of people (and possibly the nicest I’ve worked with), she approaches everything she does with gratitude, passion, and style. Read on to learn more about Kelli and how she got started in Home Design.
Let’s start at the beginning. What did you want to be when you grew up and what did you study in school?
When I think of myself as a young person I think my love of homes and yearning for creativity ran the gamut. There were just so many recourses in my little corner of the world in Naples FL: the hobby farm I grew up on, the trees— the tree houses, the beach— the beach houses, my papa’s drafting tools and his love of old Hollywood films (I was enraptured by the homes) and my incredible family; my mother and all my aunties who knew how to make a home and the holidays feel so special. I grew up with a lot of love, and many resources and people around me that nurtured the gifts I was born with. I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I loved to sing but I was terrified to be on stage around 7 years of age so there went that idea. One thing remained consistent though, my love of all things creative and living beautifully. I was the kind of kid that would fill page after page with drawings of my jewelry collection or plans for a new bedroom design. My sensational mother graciously stepped aside as I took over the task of Christmas holiday decorations in our family home around 12 years of age. My mom was always so wonderful about indulging my creative side. It also became my job to set the table for our large extended families Thanksgiving table when my parents would host, I was so resourceful and would use wildflowers that I picked for the floral arrangements. I’d light candles and make hand written place card settings for everyone who attended. I was doing this by age 10. I had a lot of role models to show me how it was done. I was decorating the tree houses my sister and I would build with our 3 cousins on the weekends. Actually they built them, I brought the fresh flowers and the pillows of course. As I got older I was rearranging my girlfriends bedrooms when I went over to their homes for sleepovers. Their mothers loved me! I was painting murals on my bedroom walls. I was fantasizing about what the inside of the mansions on Gordon Drive looked like. As I got older, I was expressing my style with vintage clothing finds and helping my little sister and my girlfriends with their looks for homecoming. I spent the money I made from work at the pizzeria and babysitting on gas, clothes and decorative accessories for my bedroom and get this... napkin rings and vintage cloth napkins to give you some insight. I adored vintage textiles and small delicate pieces that had a patina where you could see the history. In school, I loved pottery and painting classes most (art classes and art teachers got me through high school) and language arts and creative writing classes were a favorite of mine as well. When it came time for college, at that time in the late 90’s creative careers were still looked upon as risky and slightly impractical. I decided I would become a teacher. I am dyslexic and thought I could help children that were like myself with early detection, and I had always enjoyed caring for children. After shadowing a teacher for a semester, I realized the idea of going to the same place within the same building day after day for years and years just was not for me. I changed my focus to business. I found it interesting but something was missing. I took communications classes in hopes to usher in that creativity piece I was longing for and after 2 years of pivots at a community college, I took a gap year. It was absolutely the most beneficial decision I had made since graduating high school, although is was a little scary too. During that year I worked (a lot) as a cocktail waitress at the Ritz Carlton Naples Beach Hotel. I also worked as an assistant to a designer and took a trip to Paris, France. I did a lot of soul-searching in that year and I realized that my dream was to be an interior designer. I was going to give it a shot even if it meant that I may struggle. I was prepared to take that chance to do something that I loved. I signed up for a two year residential design program on the east coast of Florida at the Art Institute. I flourished. I devoured my classes. I was on the deans list. I was learning what I had always loved.
Tell us about your career path - how did you end up co-founding West Bay Homes?
After graduating from the Art Institute, I took a job at Arhaus Furniture as a design sales associate. I did well in this role, but again something was missing so I asked to be a part of their visual team at their flagship store in Naples. Being a part of this department fed my creatively as I was part of a team that produced vignette after vignette and continuously revolving interior room environments with high impact for the showroom floor. I would continue to get calls from individuals I had helped while I was a design associate at the store, so I would incorporate helping them to continue refining their homes, a side hustle if you will. I also worked part time at a boutique design firm that turned over a good amount of business, and I was getting a lot of exposure in this way. The boutique business owner that I worked for actually handed me a couple of jobs she thought weren’t profitable enough and I took on these design projects with immense gratitude and enthusiasm! Soon, their friends would see my work, then their friends and my phone started ringing. My projects continued to advance in scope of work and my very own boutique interior design firm with it. Then, the housing bubble that affected more then half of the U.S. burst resulting in a recession. Around this time is when I met the love of my life, business partner for WEST BAY HOMES and now husband, Richard Vogelgesang. Basically, we fell madly in love with each other during a time when we were both losing so much of what we had worked so hard to create but Rick was the answer to my prayers, literally. Rick, being a successful builder from the midwest, and me being a designer, we naturally just started taking on jobs together. We found ourselves and our separate businesses collaborating on large scale high end remodel projects for clients not affected by the housing recession who were taking advantage of the plummeting home prices. Also during this time, Rick and I bought homes together, we made them beautiful, lived in them for a couple of years with our children, and on to the next home. We enjoyed this process of buying and beautifying homes and just working together in general. We realized we would like to pursue working together exclusively instead of being two separate entities. When we moved from Naples back to Minnesota (where Rick is from) we decided we would merge our two individual companies into one, WEST BAY HOMES real estate development, a boutique design build firm where our unique skill sets were brought together to produce highly distinctive truly custom homes.
What's been the biggest risk you've taken in your career and how did it turn out?
I became a business owner at 24 years old, and since then, I have never depended on a paycheck or had the security of a salary I could count on to pay my bills and live the life I want to live. It hasn’t always been easy but what I’ve learned is that I am resilient, and the expertise and skillset that I bring to the table is valuable in any economy. I made it through the biggest housing recession our country has seen since the great depression, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, along with many other people in this country that didn’t let that time break them or define them. There is a tremendous amount of confidence to be gained from an experience like that. It was an adventure and we overcame it together. Rick and I, and our amazing children. I believe that you have to take risks in this life, if you want to truly live it.
What does a typical day look like for you?
There is a lot more to my day than this, and no two days are ever alike. Here are the highlights:
decide what to wear
visit our project sites: specify a tile design or a millwork detail on a ceiling
selections meetings with venders, sometimes with clients, and sometimes without choosing flooring materials, or designing the custom cabinetry for one of our model homes
make dinner and spend time with my family, I love to cook
answer emails, revise floor plans
hot cup of tea, Bravo and off to bed.
What/if anything, would you do differently now that you know what you know?
In the beginning of my career, I felt so authentically myself when producing those first few design projects on my own. Truly, it was like finding myself, but in retrospect, it was always there. It must be what a vocalist feels when they release their first album. Or what an artist feels when they exhibit their first body of work. It was there all along, it just had to come out in a way our culture would recognize it, and when the timing was right. For me, design is a culmination of intermingling everything I delight in doing and watching it materialize. It’s also very satisfying to see lives being impacted in a positive and personal way by good design. I am still transported to a place of complete presence and tremendous appreciation when I am released to do my part on a real estate project for WEST BAY HOMES. I think if I could do something different it would be nothing at all. It’s my journey as an artist, and without the challenges, the mistakes, the lessons I learned, I wouldn’t be exactly where I am today. I wouldn’t have the contrast or the awareness of what I want and what I don’t. I’m an artist, and my objective is to bring ease and elegance to living that is what I do best.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start their business?
I create my livelihood. I create my business practices. I create my timelines and my deadlines. I don’t have a boss driving me or setting goals for me. Not one day of work is anything like the day before, because the project is always different or the client is always changing. I have come to understand that I am the type of person that needs freedom to flourish in my work, and I believe it was my destiny to create this scenario for myself and for my life. Ask yourself, can you dig deep? Can you handle pressure? Do you have grit? You know yourself. You know if you possess that entrepreneurial drive. I always tell people who are contemplating starting their own business that they will never work so hard in their lives, but if they are doing something that they love to do, they won’t mind all the work it will take to achieve success. I believe that living and embracing your passion (what you love to do) just might be the secret to a life well lived. I want to look back at my life and say I did it. I did all the things I wanted to do. I had dreams and goals, and I did my best to realize every one of them. If you want to look back on your life without those regrets of not doing something, then that’s your answer. Jump in! Another bit of advice: trust in your instincts and come from a place of gratitude in all that you do.
Rapid Fire:
Early bird or Night Owl:-night owl- ideas come to me at night I keep a sketchpad by my bed
Coffee or Tea to start your day:coffee in the morning tea every night
Favorite design project:That’s like asking me to pick my favorite child. I can’t. Each design project is so special and wonderful to me in their own ways. Every home has a story. Every home I’ve chosen to be a part of has taught me something. I’ll also say that for every project I’ve ever worked on, I’ve given that home my best. I love homes.
Go to paint color: -I do not have a go to paint color but if I were a color I would be a pale taupe with a matte finish.
Describe your home style in 3 words: BOLD | ALLURING | TIMELESS
Thank you Kelli for sharing your journey with us! You can see all of Kelli’s amazing designs on their website and instagram.