Ireland’s leading Interior Designer Arlene McIntyre on her journey to being one of Europe’s most in demand designers.

Arlene McIntyre is Creative Director and Founder of Ventura Design, a company that is now credited as being Ireland’s leading interior design and bespoke furniture manufacturer. Since the creation of Ventura Design in 2005, Arlene has now become one of the most sought-after interior designers in the Irish market and beyond, spending her time between high end projects in Dublin, London and the rest of Europe. Together with her husband Juergen Riedel (CEO of Ventura), Arlene currently employs an exceptional team of over 70 talented designers, interior architects and artisan craftspeople, all working towards one goal – the creation of luxurious homes. In addition to this, Arlene recently featured in an RTE series, Design For Life. We sat with Arlene to chat about her career and the world of interior design.

Arlene, it’s a pleasure to chat with you, I know our reader’s here in Connect will be very excited about this interview! Can you tell me the background of your career and how you founded Ventura Designs?

Certainly, I have been in the business for what seems like 500 years! I feel like I’ve worked in every corner of the business, I’ve worked in sales, a furniture agent and the interior side so I feel like I have a great 360 view to bring to the Ventura business. I started working for a furniture store in Dun Laoghaire 20 years ago and was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to visit the international trade fairs in Paris, Italy, Copenhagen and New York. I got to know some of these amazing companies that were not being represented in Ireland at that time. I was given the opportunity to work on a big project of fitting out apartments, all of these opportunities started to come one after the other and I just became really busy so that to me really is when Ventura was born. I was working out the back of my garden in a little shed with an electric heater for a very long time. My husband said “This is crazy, you need a showroom and an office”. We did that, we got a showroom with just a couple of staff that we took on and now we have over 70 people working within the company. I never worked in a comfortable office like my team do now and I’m very proud that I can provide that for them. As I mentioned, it hasn’t always been easy, I had to work hard to get my breaks but then things started accelerating and the work grew it’s been an incredible journey.

You recently took on the prestigious project of Luttrelstown Castle, how was that from a career perspective?

It was an incredible opportunity, I had worked in The Adare Manor in the Rose Cottage and in the Lavender Cottage and also their town houses. The General Manager of Adare Manor was also involved with Luttrelstown Castle and he recommended that we look after some work there. We started to do one room at a time and then it suddenly became that we did all the rooms and all the major rooms in the entire castle.

Over the last decade, people moved away from printed wallpapers and bright colours to the more classic, neutral tones of grey. What, in your opinion, is coming along trend wise for interiors?

With the grey tones, so many people had invested in that colour over the last decade to the extent that I can’t see a lot of people throwing out their greys or introduce whole new palettes. But I certainly feel there is a movement going towards really warm, earthy tones bringing the outside in. I think we really have enough of the grey in terms of our grey skies! I was never really a big fan of the grey tones but my clients were, so for me it was important that they were happy and I tapped into what they wanted. I personally love the more warm, rustic tones along with more sustainable fabrics, solid woods and that kind of feel of a more paired back contemporary look I think we will see a lot more of.

Sustainability within business is part of a huge conversation and a progressive movement. Is that part of the focus within Ventura Design?

We are about to receive, after a very long process, our cradle to cradle certificate. My husband, who is also my business partner, has been applying and going through this whole process to get this level of certification and I believe we will be the first company in Ireland to have this certificate. It’s a really big, exciting movement for us. We have been working hard to honour our pledge to become more sustainable on a whole, all of our tables, frames are solid wood, over 70% of our fabrics are completely sustainable. Like organic food, it might feel a bit more expensive but it’s an investment and it gives people peace of mind that they are doing their part.

You recently featured in RTE’s Design For Life, what was that experience like for you and is it one you would like to do more with?

With Design for Life we were approached and I nearly didn’t go with it because of all we have on in work. For me, it was a question of how could we take this on because I just couldn’t let my clientele suffer so it was a really hard decision for me to do it. I was very happy I did it but to tell the truth it was hard to balance out my real world business with the TV show, it demanding, scheduling was tricky. I have a very big business and I am really busy, I mean that in the most respectful way. It was a wonderful opportunity but extremely challenging. At the moment I don’t think I could do it again, I have a young child and a huge portfolio of projects that I am working on so I have to prioritise things, but then who knows!

TV rarely shows the reality of what goes on behind the scenes, with that said, just how difficult is it to run such a big, demanding business?

It’s really tough and I do wish the program could have shown just how tough it is behind the scenes but you can only fit so much into 30 minutes! I do a podcast and have interviewed some amazing top female designers from the UK and one of the questions I ask them is about balance, the percentage of time you spend in project managing a job and then the time you spend on the creative side, all of them said 80/20, 70/30 and in one case 90/10. The lower side being the creative side and the higher percentage is just pure project management. So it’s not as glamorous as it might seem, it’s tough and especially in these times when you are dealing with materials and supplier delays, it’s been tough. I actually feel really sorry for anyone starting out in the business in this current climate because it would be a very tough time to start out.

When working with clients, how difficult is it to manage their expectations and reality of the project?

It’s a huge part of the job, we have a team of designers who work on all of their own projects. I then have my own team where we would work on big projects, perhaps more private projects. Houses from 8,000 to 12,000 sq. foot where we would be involved from the very beginning at planning stages. We work very close with the architects; we do a lot of interior architecture ourselves. That would be a huge part of my job and it is very time consuming, you have to be so careful when you are building relationships with people that you manage their expectations. There are so many moving parts and of course the pandemic was the biggest moving part of all, I’ve seen peoples building costs go over €100,000 with supply costs. So yes, it’s been tricky but managing client’s expectations is definitely the key.

Arlene, finally can I ask what 2022 has in store for Ventura?

2022 is already such a busy year! We are extending our fabric collection. We are thinking of doing something very interesting in the UK which unfortunately I can’t mention right now. We are already established with a premises in the Chelsea Design Centre so certainly expanding in the UK is an option. In addition to that we have the opening of our new office in Portugal and we are working forward with our pledge to be more sustainable. We actually have a lot of projects in the Kerry area at the moment, I cannot wait to visit again. It truly is a beautiful part Ireland. So for the rest of 2022, I would say watch this space!

Arlene, it was a pleasure!
For further information on Ventura Design log onto
www.ventura.ie
Design For Life can be accessed through the RTE player