As previously mentioned, I have done Interior Design professionally for almost 40 years. Over these years I’ve had many clients; some years as many as 30. While working as a retail designer for a now defunct, very glamorous company, Jacobson’s of Michigan, we had very large client loads and sold a high volume of merchandise. That’s when I learned to make my job easier. I had to shut up and LISTEN: every client knows what they want they will tell you if you listen. I absolutely loved Jacobson’s. I worked with the most wonderful group of people every one a story in them selves’ .I stayed 8 years and only left because I needed to experience a big city. I chose Washington DC, where I worked for W&J Sloane. But it really was Jacobson’s were I learned how to put together rooms that worked for the clients who bought them. I had some wonderful clients. Among them was Madame Curtineas.
She was the tiniest French woman I think I’ve ever met, and spoke with a halting accent. She drove around in an especially equipped Eldorado so could reach the pedals. She lived in a fantastic big mansion (there were very wealthy people in Kalamazoo at that time) . Her living room was huge and had French doors all around and big double doors at the entrance. The foyer was huge and the halls were probably 5 feet wide, there was a winding stairway in the foyer that led to bed room after bed room The master bedroom was the size of the living room One could have held a dance in there. There were servants’ quarters but no longer any servants. According to her the house was built by her mother in law. We had a really crazy time together she had her ups and downs .She was probably in her 70’s when we met .I would be her best friend one minute and the next she would treat me like a commoner, then she’d apologize profusely.
Jacobson’s designers were not allowed to dump a client. After all, they were really not our clients but the stores’ and it was very costly to get them through the door. In the middle of decorating the big house she suddenly became ill (she thought she was going to perish at any moment) and she set me off with Fritz, her husband to find a new house, I was told he was not capable of finding one by himself. Hell according to her he couldn’t find the door! Fritz was very nice and extremely handsome in his old age .I had seen photos of them when they were a beautiful pair in their youth: he tall and blond her tiny and dark. But the years had gone by need I say more. We found a suitable house in a very uppity gated community with lots of nouveaus riche. Madame of course hated it but bought it anyway and we set off once again to decorate it. We upholstered all of the furniture and purchased some new. The most difficult part of the job was fitting all of what had to be kept in the new house that was half the size or less of the big house. Now I like lots of furniture and stuff so in that way she and I saw eye to eye, but this place was really full. She actually loved it and we finished on good terms, until she invited me to some kind of affair for some reason I could not attend: I became a guttersnipe and she disappeared for years. Then one day in another Jacobson’s she spotted me and called out across the room as though we were long lost lovers. “Jak, how I have missed you!!” I never saw her again…….
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