A few weeks ago we sat down withTim Clarke, the interior designer of the 2010 Coastal Living Magazine Ultimate Beach House. He took advantage of his visit to Seabrook not only to make some final changes to the idea house before it opened for tours, but to also share with us details about his career as a designer and his experience with this year’s biggest project – the Ultimate Beach House.

We had a great conversation with Tim and you get to read all about it firsthand right here at the Ultimate Beach House blog. We’ve broken up the interview in two separate posts. Without further adieu, we present to you one of the most exciting interior designers in the U.S. at the moment – Tim Clarke!

Tell us a little bit about your early beginning in the interior design industry?

“I actually started out working in the clothing business. I had come out of school with a degree in marketing and while I was working in the clothing industry, I was also taking classes in history of furniture design and other similar topics which were very fascinating for me at the time. It just so happened that one of my employees was also working part-time for an interior designer named Waldo Fernandez,  which put me in contact with somebody in the design industry. A couple of months later, an opportunity came up for a position with Waldo Fernandez and I soon became the director of the designer’s showroom, which was a very good place to start learning the business. “

What was your experience like working for Waldo Fernandez?

“By the time I got to work with Waldo, he had become quite famous in the decorating world. He’s always been credited with creating the “California look” of the early 1980s, characterized by white, overstuffed upholstery and a natural, organic look and feel. Naturally, this made him very famous at the time and gave me the opportunity to work with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Merv Griffin to name a few, which proved to be an invaluable experience. I learned a lot about building furniture and about dealing with a diverse set of clients.”

Who else did you work with before forming “Tim Clarke Designs”?

“After spending three years with Waldo, I connected with another very successful interior designer named Michael Smith. I interviewed for the project manager position and was happy to get the job and work with him. While he was only a few years older than me, he was running a very successful business. Some of his clients included Richard Gere, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dustin Hoffman, and other famous celebrities that lived around Los Angeles. We had a small team comprised of young, ambitious individuals who were willing to pour their hearts into their work and it was a great working environment. The best part about working with Michael, however, was the opportunity to travel and work with international clients. Very often we would find ourselves buzzing down a busy Italian street looking for flea markets to do shopping for a client, and it was such a great experience both personally and professionally. We were able to form such a bond with some of those clients that I am still in contact with them today.”

Sounds like a great workplace. Why did you decide to leave and start your own business?

“I worked with Michael Smith for three years and it really felt like it was time for me to start working on my own. I believed the clientele was there and I was convinced I had the ability and creativity to offer something unique in the interior design industry. I started off with one client who  encouraged me to design her house on my own, and what started as a small personal business quickly turned into a well-established interior design studio. As word started spreading and more projects came my way, I also hired Clay who is still with me and helped me tremendously with the Coastal Living idea house. Then the Metropolitan World magazine did our first photo-shoot for a cover and things took off from there.”

What were some of your favorite projects after forming Tim Clarke Inc.?

“Matthew Perry’s house was one of the early projects that really put our name out there in the California design world. He had already completed several seasons with the show Friends and was quite trendy among the L.A. celebrities. He was great to work with and was very satisfied with the look and feel of his house. We also did the interior of Portia DeRossi’s house, who was starring in Ally McBeal at the time. Those two projects really served as the springboard for our success.”

Did you always know you wanted to specialize in beach home interior design?

“Not quite. I am originally from Kansas and had always dreamed of living by the ocean in a warm and sunny place. That was the main reason why I moved to California in the first place. After so many projects in and around L.A. and with our business growing at a steady pace, we moved our office from downtown L.A. to Santa Monica. We also closed our store in West Hollywood where we were previously located. That move really facilitated my immersion in interior design inspired by the beach and the ocean. Most of the houses we worked on after moving to Santa Monica were beach houses that complimented  the beautiful California coast, which really suited my passion and ambition. Hence, I decided to almost exclusively do projects that were on the beach and mostly focused on areas like Santa Barbara, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, and Hawaii.”

What does living at the beach really mean?

“You know, I started thinking about that a lot once I started focusing on beach interior design. When I was first starting in that particular field, shabby chic had become really popular, characterized by overstuffed, girly, faded, flowery paint and décor. Pretty soon people would build or decorate a beach house and it would become a very kitschy, ordered-from-a-catalog home that seemed dull and repetitive. I was obviously very opposed to that. I am a strong believer that there exists a way in which one can live at the beach and it can feel organic, warm, tailored, and modern. That is when we came up with this theme called “coastal modern”. Coastal modern is all about customization and individualism. We started choosing pieces for their individual strength and combined them for a grander theme of the house. Reusing the old and making it functional and beautiful is also important, especially when thinking about the whole “green” aspect of designing a beach house. All of these facets combined comprise what I am convinced is the “new beach style” in interior design, at least out here on the West Coast, which we like to call “coastal modern”.

The “coastal modern” concept is so popular that you are writing a book about it?

“Yes, that all happened quite randomly. An agent from New York called me one day after seeing a tiny advertisement about “coastal modern” in a magazine. The agent thought it was a great idea for a book, and even flew out to L.A. to meet with me and discuss the possibility of me writing about it more extensively. I ended up putting together a comprehensive proposal of what I wanted to say and added some pictures of my work. From the start, my goal was to create a book that was not only pleasant to read, but also looked like an object you would want to use to decorate your home, whether it was an addition for your coffee table or your book collection. I signed a deal with Clarkson Potter to do the book and decided to simply call it: “Coastal Modern.” We have decided to include a lot of material about the “sense of place”, which is something I have been implementing at the Coastal Living Magazine Ultimate Beach House as well. In fact, the Coastal Living Magazine Ultimate Beach House will be one of the main houses featured in the book.”

Let’s talk a bit about the Ultimate Beach House. How did the whole project come about?

“You know, I am not entirely sure what the process was to narrow down the list of interior designer candidates. My website had gone through a major redesign just before Lindsey Bierman, (Coastal Living Magazine’s editor at the time) called me and he had found my work fitting for the design of the Ultimate Beach House. I had done work on idea homes in the past, but it had always been ones in which every room is decorated by a different designer. What intrigued me about this idea house was that people could walk through the house and experience my vision as a whole. They could literally interact with the design of the house one-on-one and get the big picture of the design.”

What kind of an experience was it incorporating products from all our sponsors?

“The experience was great. It was both exciting and challenging. I knew what kind of products the sponsors wanted to use and I knew what products I wanted to utilize from their product lines. In the end, it was all about cohesively putting everything together. Over the years, I always took listened to other people’s opinions and ideas and tried incorporating them to my work. All of the ideas in the Coastal Living Magazine Idea House are unique and I am sure you will find them interesting.”