The story behind the Beach House Collection—a collaboration with Häti Home that began with a shared design approach, took shape in a workshop in Bali, and finally found its home at Casa Zuma.
When we first started designing the beach house, my favorite chair didn't exist yet.
We were still living in Austin, and the beach house existed mostly as plans spread across our dining table, material samples taped to boards, and long conversations about how we wanted it to feel. I could already picture the rhythms of life there—coffee outside before the marine layer lifted, friends drifting from the kitchen to the patio, evenings around the fire when someone inevitably pulled up another chair because nobody was quite ready to head inside.
We weren't designing furniture for rooms that already existed. We were imagining the way we'd eventually live there—friends gathered around the kitchen island, afternoons outside, evenings around the fire when nobody was in a hurry to go inside.
Around that same time, I connected with the team at Häti Home. I'd been a fan of their work for years and had several of their pieces in our Austin home. They designed the kind of furniture I was always drawn to: solid wood, woven textures, generous proportions. Not trend-driven—just pieces that made a room feel warmer.
When I finally met Adam and Kallie, we spent less time talking about furniture than we did about the kinds of objects people keep for decades. Natural materials. The hand of the maker. Pieces that become part of everyday life instead of demanding attention every time you walk into the room.
The ideas came easily because we rarely had to convince each other. We'd usually find ourselves pointing to the same detail at the same time.
Before long, we were sketching ideas for a collection for a house that hadn't even been built yet.
A few months later, Adam and I boarded a plane to Bali.
Bali also gave us something you can't really replicate over Zoom: a full week to work side by side with the people making the collection.
We spent our mornings in the workshop watching someone weave the chair backs, looking through wood samples, then gathering around prototypes to debate whether the arm should be another inch wider or whether the seat was finally deep enough.
Some of my favorite moments from the trip were the conversations that happened around those prototypes.
We sat in the lounge chair to see if it was deep enough to lean back cross-legged. We widened the arm because I wanted somewhere to set a cup of coffee in the morning or a drink at the end of the day. We made the seat deeper because I wanted to curl up with a book instead of feeling like I had to sit perfectly upright.
We'd make one small change, sit with it for a while, then come back and look again before deciding whether it was finished.
They're the kind of details you probably don't notice at first. A few months later, they're the reason it's the chair everyone fights over.
What stayed with me most was the rhythm of the place. Watching the artisans work. Sharing long meals together instead of rushing off to the next thing. Realizing how much better creative decisions become when nobody feels hurried.
Today those same pieces live exactly where we imagined they would.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in one of the finished lounge chairs around the fire pit as the sun disappeared behind Zuma Beach. Without thinking, I rested my glass on the teak arm, and it made me smile to realize we'd designed it for exactly that purpose.
The pieces have settled into the life we imagined for them all those months ago, back when this house was still just a set of plans spread across our dining table. Watching them make the journey from a workshop in Bali to evenings around the fire at Zuma Beach House has been one of the most rewarding parts of bringing this collection to life.
