Jim & Hester

DESIGN

Partners & Spade - “This is the most important store in downtown New York. It’s a design shop and gallery and I am completely floored by the selection and range. Everything is on a continuous rotation and there is nothing like it in this city or any other.” - Jim

Droog - “When you walk into Droog you don’t feel like anything is for sale. It's like a retrospective of their own work. Everything is better than the next and everything they design is important to the lineage of design.” - Jim

"Some guy walked into my store and was looking at my best pieces of 60’s and 70’s conceptual furniture that you could imagine, and this guy said, “Is this children's furniture?” I was like oh my God, this is never gonna work out for me, never ever ever." - Jim

Moss - “Moss goes above and beyond the call of duty. Even at a time when not many folks aren't spending $6,000 on a chair, they manage to introduce new and interesting things while bringing down the prices. Designers and artists are always in there.” -Jim

"Moss had a lot of stuff I wanted and were very helpful. Jim would find something and it would be buried in their warehouse but they'd always dig it out and either bring it to the store or once in a while they would bring it to my home." - Hester

Karim Rashid - "Karim Rashid's doing great things. We have a pair of his lamps and he is one of the only North American designers we used at all." - Hester

Karim Rashid - SOURCE

"In the United States, if you want to be a designer you either go into product design and pray that somebody picks you up at a trade show, or you decide that your furniture is either art or craft and that’s it. There’s no design movements, there’s no nothing." - Jim

Nick Dine - "Nick Dine designed several pieces for me where there weren’t production pieces that suited me. His studio did all the detail work, which there was a huge amount of in a job this size. He did my rugs and my coffee tables." - Hester

Johnson and Kelly - "Johnson and Kelly are designers who started their collaboration designing a massive light that hangs over the bar at the Four Seasons. They also designed an extremely rare floor lamp that Hester has three of. If you're looking to get into design these guys are a good place to start." - Jim

Marcel Breuer - "Hester had a summer house that was a barn that Marcel Breuer designed for her. Marcel also designed the Whitney." - Jim

Gordon Bunshaft - "Gordon Bunshaft and Hester are really good friends. He was a partner in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and he built a lot of the Manhattan's great buildings. His masterpiece in New York is the Lever House." - Jim

Ikea - "Ikea is the only design movement that successfully got tasteful and affordable design furniture into the homes of everyday Americans. It has turned people on to design. I have seen cabinets there that rival anything you might find in a high-end home. They're the most important design movement since Bauhaus, in fact Ikea even works better than Bauhaus.” - Jim

Nile Rodgers - "I remember I saw Nile Rodgers on TV and he was talking about taste with the interviewer and he was saying 'that the second you start to make good money, you go out and buy art deco...and then you start to learn about taste'." - Jim

"My favorite Beastie Boys album is Paul's Boutique, what can I say? I just love it."  - Hester

Le Poisson Rouge - "It is the most extraordinary mix of hipster and anti-hipster that you could imagine. It’s where the Village Gate used to be and I think it’s the same old furniture the Village Gate used to have. It’s absolutely fascinating because it’s such an introduction to the new of every kind, and it works so well with all these different audiences." - Hester

ART

"The first time I came to Hester's, the door opened and every question that I had prepared just went away, because I walked in on this bomb of Hester sitting there surrounded by Picasso, Brancusi and Kandinsky on the walls!" - Jim

Kandinsky - SOURCE

Astro Minerals - "For my most recent collection, I’ve been buying mineral specimens. I just find them extremely beautiful and there’s something amazing about the fact that they are entirely out of nature. My mineral dealer is John Trinchillo of Astro Minerals at Madison and 34th Street." - Hester

Janet Borden Gallery - “Janet Borden is the best. She's adventurous in every way and has successfully carried the spirit of what Soho is about. She supports artists and I am a really big admirer of her for that.” - Jim

Work by Fred Cray, Janet Borden Inc.

PLACES & SITES

"The glory of New York is not the interiors and it’s not the individual buildings, but it’s the ensemble, the ensemble is just extraordinary and there’s something about this crazy jumble of styles with totally fake French Renaissance here, and a tutor over there and then international style and lots of Deco all over the place.  When you put them all together they have a terrific kind of vitality, which is really the vitality of the city." - Hester

"The thing about New York City is that it's amazing wherever you look. You see the Pan-Am building there, then you got the Seagrams building over there, and you’ve got Lever House there and then you look straight ahead and you’re hit with Grand Central Station.  And, there’s a language of this town and the way that it constantly either eats itself, feeds itself or grows, that is unique and unlike any other city anywhere." - Jim

Pan Am Building - Source: Photo by Meredith L. Clausen

Chase Building - “This is one of the most beautiful buildings that I’ve ever seen anywhere. There's a Harry Bertoia sculpture here that’s one of the largest ever commissioned and they have a gigantic vault door that used to open up and reveal the cash held by the bank. Very cool.” - Jim

Chrysler Building - "If I were sending people to see interiors of buildings in New York, I would certainly send them to the lobby of the Chrysler building." - Hester

FOOD

Elaine's - "I always wind up at Elaine's.  It'll be me, Big Elaine Kaufman, a bunch of 75 year old guys that were really hip at one time, my girlfriend and three other younger people that really don’t want to be there." - Jim

Elaine's - Source: Photo by Larry Fink/Robert Klein Gallery

Big Nick's - "I love diners especially Big Nick's on 71st Street. Midnight Cowboy was filmed there and I go there all the time." - Jim

The Viand - "The Viand is good place to go and I go there all the time." - Jim

Vincents -  "I love every tourist trap that you could possibly imagine. There’s not one single hipster anywhere near it. When you’re at Vincents, you’re having Calamari next to German Tourists who read about how Crazy Joe Gallow got shot there and I just love that." - Jim

Balthazar - "I used to eat at Balthazar with Hester and it was so loud that she would have to pretend as if she understood every single word I was saying." - Jim

"But they have calves liver, good calves liver." - Hester

Balthazar - Source: www.1440wallstreet.com

The Minetta Lane Tavern - "The Minetta Lane Tavern is pretty great. They have the most incredible hamburger you could ever possibly imagine." - Jim

Knickerbocker - "I love to eat at the Knickerbocker because there's nobody under 70 there. I remember Hester and I had calves liver and green mashed potatoes for St. Patrick's day, which was kind of creepy but really good." - Jim

"Now Knickerbocker, there’s a great New York place!" - Hester

Four Seasons - "There’s a couple of places in New York that are still sort of invisible.  I don’t understand why people would eat in some of those restaurants when they can go to the Four Seasons.  The greatest part of the Four Seasons is that you go there, and if you do any type of design work or anything, you start to think that I’m never gonna be that good. Thank God nobody comes here or I’d never get hired again." - Jim

"The food at the Four Seasons is also really good and it’s heavenly quiet."  - Hester

HOTELS

Thompson LES - “It’s weird the way people keep reviving things in New York. Thompson LES is a modern hotel and a serious piece of architecture that has incorporated art into the design. I'm the first person that Lee Friedlander ever licensed his work to and we present his photos in huge light boxes in every room.” - Jim

SOURCE

Gild Hall - “My work at Gild Hall has been quite rewarding. This is the first boutique hotel on Wall Street. It was an old men's club which made it fun to play around with. Gild Hall was a huge success and won the Michelin award.” - Jim

SOURCE: mymotels.com