What do home-design gurus Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams like to

SPECIAL
DELIVERY
House Calls
Mitchell Gold and
Bob Williams (RIGHT)
like to test-drive
their company’s
wares in their
midtown Manhattan
apartment. In the
living room, a
quartet of Mitchell
Gold + Bob Williams
Major chairs echoes
the clean lines of a
Noguchi floor lamp.
The photograph is
by Tipper Gore.
See Resources.
What do home-design
gurus Mitchell Gold
and Bob Williams like
to do most in their
New York pied-à-terre?
Rearrange the furniture!
BY MICHAEL LASSELL
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM WALDRON
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T
his
is a love story—
well, several
love stories.
It begins in New
York in the ’80s,
when a Jersey boy named Mitchell Gold, then in
the employ of Lane Furniture, met a Texas transplant named Bob Williams, a graphic designer for
Seventeen. They fell in love and set up housekeeping,
ready to pursue their Big Apple dreams and live happily ever after.
But Lane transferred Gold to High Point, North
Carolina, the epicenter of American furniture making, and he and Williams departed Gotham. Soon
the enterprising duo decided to start a home furnishings company of their own, pooling their aesthetic
and entrepreneurial resources and launching the
company that now bears their names.
Twenty-three years later, Mitchell Gold + Bob
Williams employs more than 600 people and sells
upholstered pieces, case goods, rugs, lamps, and accessories in 80 retail venues, including 16 of its own showrooms. National chains like Pottery Barn, WilliamsSonoma, and Restoration Hardware carry MG+BW
products, as does Bloomingdale’s, where Gold first
worked right after college. Annual sales exceed $100
million and retail profits are up 27 percent over last
year, according to Gold. Among the many American
homes that contain MG+BW furniture is a certain
white house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After 14 years together, Gold and Williams
decided to go their separate romantic ways, although
they remain devoted friends and business partners.
Williams met and eventually settled down with
Stephen Heavner, who now works for MG+BW,
and Gold moved forward as a solo act.
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Sky-High Style
The white leather
and chrome Dean
armchair is a new
introduction from
MG+BW. A NASA
photograph of
Saturn’s rings hangs
on a wall painted
in Benjamin
Moore’s Kendall
Charcoal HC-166.
See Resources.
march/april 2012
new york cottages & gardens
115
Not surprisingly, their amicable split had absolutely no bearing on their shared longtime desire to buy
a New York pied-à-terre together. (You can take the
boys out of New York, but not New York out of the
boys.) Several years ago they started shopping for an
apartment with an open living/dining/kitchen space
and two separate but equal master suites, though the
market did not oblige.
Eventually they purchased two adjoining onebedroom units on the 58th floor of the Orion, a new
glass tower in gentrifying Hell’s Kitchen, and enlisted architect James Bartholomew to combine them
into the high-rise haven of their dreams. In addition
to the building’s amazing views and amenities, Gold
says, “The floors were a beautiful cherry wood, and
the kitchens and bathrooms were great.” Now all
they needed to do was furnish the place.
No problems there. Although MG+BW produces
pieces with a variety of historical influences, the
principals chose some of their mid-century-inspired
designs for the Orion. “They just seemed right
with the architecture,” says Gold, although he and
Williams, like all designers, confess to an almost compulsive need for periodic makeovers.
“The first sofa we had in the place was blue,” says
Williams. “It was inspired by the sky,” adds Gold,
“which is all around you when you’re up here. We didn’t
want anything that would upstage the views.” Indeed,
when one stands in the airy living room, the 240-degree
panorama spans east down 42nd Street, south to the
Statue of Liberty, and west to the Hudson River.
By the time the renovation was finished, in 2007,
Gold had met Tim Scofield, who was working in
the Smithsonian Institution’s Postal Museum in
Washington, D.C. The two men married in Iowa in
June 2010, and Scofield—now CEO of the not-forprofit Velvet Foundation, which is dedicated to creating an LGBT museum in Washington—moved to
North Carolina and changed his surname to Gold.
Today the Golds, Williams, and Heavner are
fast friends, if not family. “It’s not unusual for us to
share Christmas dinner,” says Williams—or even
for all four of them to be in residence at the Orion
simultaneously. (Gold is even on the condo board.)
“Every time I come to the apartment,” Williams
muses, “I wind up staring out the windows. One of
the places I can see is the YMCA, just a few blocks
away, where I stayed when I first got to New York,
in 1982. And I think, I never would have guessed 30
years ago that I could ever be way up here, looking
out. It’s just so fantastic!” ✹
Conversation Pieces
An MG+BW Josie sectional
upholstered in multiple
fabrics sits in the southeast
corner of the long living
room, which adjoins the
open kitchen (ABOVE LEFT
AND NEAR LEFT). The artwork
is by Karen Cappotto.
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new york cottages & gardens
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T
heir split
had absolutely no
bearing on their
longtime desire
to buy a New York
pied-à-terre
Quiet Contemplation
The painting above the
bed in the Golds’ room
(OPPOSITE) is a $39 fleamarket find. The bed
linens are by Matouk; walls
are painted in Benjamin
Moore’s Wedgewood Gray
HC-146. See Resources.
03.2009
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