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Richard Siegel and Karen Skelton had a life history . One they ’d expend nearly two decade building . One that any outsider , face pressed to the glass eight years ago , would have envied . Siegel was full pardner in a Manhattan ad agency ; Skelton , a mercenary computer graphic designer , had recently launched a cable of top - sell fabrics and wallpaper for Schumacher . The couple spent Monday through Friday in a chic West Village flat , then headed for their weekend place in the Hamptons — a shingle - covered cottage in Amagansett that they ’d touch on and ring with old roses , blowsy perennials , even a picket fence . Everything , it seemed , was as it should be . Then , in 1991 , Skelton walked into a pottery studio apartment on West 19th Street , and walked out with a fresh life , the one she and Siegelreallywanted .
“ On a whim , I decide to take a class at this place , ” she explains , “ and I went home with substantial , touchable thing : bowls and plate that I could use and carry and sexual love . vivid pattern is often a long , removed , cerebral cognitive process . This was immediate and tactile and satisfying . A lightbulb went off . I guess I ’m a late bloomer , because , lastly , I know what I want to do . ”
Well , sort of . When Skelton got her name supply to the waiting tilt for a booth at the New York gift show — an annual marketplace where wholesalers hawk their ware to retailers from around the country — she was n’t exactly sure what kind of clayware she planned to betray . But since it commonly take several years to secure a spot , she figured she had plenty of time to decide . That especial year , however , the show ’s creators were adding a newfangled floral and garden section . If Skelton ’s products check under that header , she was separate , a kiosk would be hers in three workweek .
“ I ’d love to be able-bodied to tell you that my decision to make flowerpot came from some need in my own garden , ” Skelton tell , laughing , “ but that ’s not how it happened . If they had told me they had space in a novel pet subdivision , I would ’ve done hotdog bowls . ”
golden for the rest of us , they — and she — did n’t . Instead , Skelton did for the flowerpot what Kate Spade has done for the tote , Calvin Klein for the slip : elevated the simpleton to a fashionable newfangled tier , making the intimate fresh again . The shape of Skelton ’s container , an inverted triangle with a brim , is n’t young . In fact , she uses store - grease one’s palms , terra - cotta plantation owner and then covers them with coloured and textured glazes : sheeny blueing as liquidity and bottomless as the ocean , delicate greens remindful of Taiwanese celadon , icy yellowness that refresh like cold lemonade , a crusty backbone you ’d depose was the real thing . At a time when garden goods tended to be either plain - Jane or over - the - top ornate , her Mary Jane were nothing short of mind - blowing . And buyers at the natural endowment show know it , even if Skelton did n’t . When she took orders for a whopping 6,000 pots — placed by high - end stores like New York ’s Bergdorf - Goodman , Chicago ’s A New Leaf , and The Gardener in Berkeley — she was pleasantly shocked . “ Then I thought , what the nether region am I going to do ? ”
With funding from Siegel , she ordered thou of pot from a supplier in Manhattan ’s prime district , hired a carpenter to transform her Hamptons Gallus gallus henhouse into a studio apartment , and immediately have to work . “ The studio apartment was under twist , ” she recalls , “ so here I was out on the front lawn in the chic Hamptons , surrounded by pot and covered in glaze . I was getting up in the heart of the night to release on this kiln or turn off that one . stool were drying all over the house . It was a mess . ”
Within two years , as early clients increased their orders and new one ( admit Barneys , Takashimaya , and Ad Hoc Softwares ) came on board , Skelton realize she had a full - fledged manufacturing operation on her hands — and that Amagansett , with its sky - high dimension values , was n’t the expert position to expand . “ Already , the drive out there was wipe out us , ” she says . “ We essay everything to beat the traffic , even hit the road at 2 a.m. Still , it was n’t easy leaving a house and garden we ’d been mould on for age . ”
The distich purchased four construction in upstate New York : an area rural enough to keep overhead down , but still fill up enough to the city for comfort . The business , which Siegel christened Potluck , go into three buildings — a 1930s kit house became the business office , a former roller rink blossomed into a studio apartment , and an old barber shop was reborn as a retail fund — on Main Street in Accord . The universe of the townsfolk , once home to a busy train place , had dwindled to around 5,600 , create for an strange labor pool . “ The first employee , Donna Connell , was a waitress when I hired her . Now she ’s the place manager and live everything about the business , ” Skelton says . Another key force coup d’etat was Siegel himself . Shortly after the move upstate , he depart his day task to exercise for Potluck full - metre . Over the next four old age , the yoke teach scores of unseasoned locals how to glaze pots ( as well as Potluck ’s newer lines of dinnerware ) and to start the company store .
Of the decisiveness to go retail , Skelton says , “ It was n’t much of a risk . We had the place and were already there all day . It began as an experiment , a way for us to read what our clients went through . ” But it before long became a terminus . Before the shop opened , virtually every storefront on Main Street was shutter . Today , thanks to Potluck , the local economy is reinvigorated , and all but a few buildings are internal to bustling clientele .
In the operation of renovating a downtown , though , Skelton and Siegel neglect their own position , an 1840s farmhouse 20 minutes off in Gardiner . At home they work more easy , from the privileged out . The house ’s funky floor design render a few outdoor nooks — garden rooms waiting to take place — including one near the kitchen that became a pergola - covered dining patio . “ But the best view was out back , ” Skelton says , “ where the lawn undulates down a mound . ” When the couple move in , the room face the backyard check a individual tiny windowpane . So they criticise down that wall , replaced it with Gallic door , and add a deck . “ Then I sat on the deck for a year , ” she says , “ take care and intellection , before I figure out what to do next . ”
The ideas arrived , as they so often do , in the form of a trouble : an unsightly well cover in the middle of the yard . Skelton commissioned a simple , spacious wood arbor to insure the eyesore . “ Then we demand a way to get from the deck to the arbour , so we put in a bluestone route . And dead , there were all these obvious places to take up planting . ” With the aid of Debra Tobin - Gray of Gardenmakers , a local garden - conception house , Skelton stationed Alberta smarten up trees at each of the arbour ’s four corners , put in billowy shrubs to soften the passage from pack of cards to path , and began a repeated boundary line that stretches out from either side of the route .
“ Most of the flora are old - fashioned : pretty , flowery stuff , ” she says . “ When I clip page out of magazines , I always go for the unornamented , modern , Nipponese thing . But I do n’t have a Zen family . I have a bungalow , so I establish a traditional cottage garden . ” Still , it ’s the unexpected spin on tradition , the surprisal — such as two spiky pineapples rise up from a pair of classic urn — that define Skelton and Siegel ’s garden . And their aliveness .
Last year the couple in the end deal their Manhattan apartment . “ You worry that if you leave the city , ” Skelton admits , “ you ’ll become unplugged and disappear . It was a huge leap of faith . ” But just another in a long series of such spring . As Siegel puts it : “ I named the company not so much for what Karen was make as for what she was doing . Potluck means you ’re never certain how something will come out . ” And that ’s the way — without a set menu or a elaborate road single-valued function — he and Skelton arrive to where they are today , which is exactly where they want to be .
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