According to Tribbles Home & Garden owner Cara Stone Pfeifer, the natural materials and living plants found throughout her store "make the difference between a plain, simple interior and one that really has personality."

Her first retail store, New York City’s Tribbles Home & Garden, came into the picture a year ago, an enterprise born of “being in the right place at the right time,” Pfeifer says. Her sister had moved to New York’s Tribeca area, where she noted a surprising dearth of retail stores that served the community’s abundance of new apartments and condos. A good friend happened to be developing a new building in the area, and the two sisters decided to reserve a space for their first retail venture.

Still technically in its infancy, Tribbles Home & Garden is already enjoying satisfying success. Here, Pfeifer shares her exciting journey from architect to retailer.

 

Cara Stone Pfeifer

Did you run into any challenges while launching Tribbles?

CP: Well, we signed the lease in mid-September, and we opened on Dec. 14, so we had to do everything really fast, including the construction. The store was a completely raw space because it was a brand new building. But this gave us the opportunity to customize it so that our philosophy and our look really came across. It unfortunately cost us a lot of money, but I think we were successful in creating a destination and environment that shoppers really enjoy coming to and walking around in. There’s a community about the space; it translates from the definition on the floor. We have perimeter shelving that is divided by stone pilasters, and that is continued on the ceiling. It’s a kind of organization that doesn’t hit you in the face, but you understand it immediatey.

Are you particularly proud of any aspect of the construction?

CP: We have a floral and garden area, which is right up front. I designed it so you have a very defined grid in the rest of the shop, and as it intersects this floral and garden area, the forms start to break away and become more and more organic. It’s in the ceiling panels and even in the lighting” All around [the store] I have straight track heads, but in the floral area the heads are on snakes, so they can twist and take on these fluid forms.

Is the garden and floral area a big part of your business?

CP: It’s a growing part. We really have three businesses in one: the retail store, our continuing design business and, with the garden area, we’re a full-scale florist. That end of the business was completely new to me, but incorporating natural elements has always been very important in my philosophy with interiors and design. It makes such a huge difference in a space. Nothing is more beautiful than natural materials; some flower even have their own personalities. Or take black granite, for instance. Polished, it’s this deep, rich, shiny, hard material. Flame-finished, it becomes gray and takes on a different texture. Sandblast it, and it gets these valleys and plateaus. You can use natural materials in so many different ways to have so many different looks, and I think that’s beautiful. When I buy [merchandise] for the store, I look for products that do the same thing, [that] can be repurposed and used in many ways. Don’t ask me for advice on the stock market, but give me any [product], and I’ll tell you two or three ways to use it.

Do these design philosophies translate into your visual display?

CP: Definitely. I’ve done everything from very contemporary interiors to very traditional, and I think they all can be beautiful. So, [when I create my displays], I always start with the basics. The line of dishes I carry, for example, is a very basic white porcelain. Depending on what I put with it, it can be very Zen, or it can be Colonial. It all depends on how you build upon [the base]. I mean, I’m trained as an architect; that’s just how I think. I always start with a foundation.