Jeannie Brown of Diva Interior Design, Ltd., is a talented designer and creator and is the founder of Casa Marrón — a furniture resource for interior designers. Brown’s beautifully crafted, one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture are made for interior designers to complement their clients’ homes. We had the honor of speaking with Brown and are excited to share her story with you!
What makes Casa Marrón unique?
Casa Marrón is a unique blend of styles. Because all of the pieces were created for different projects there is a mixture of styles: some traditional pieces and some with clean, simple contemporary lines. My interior projects are usually a blend of these elements. I am drawn to objects that tell you they are hand-made, and that is what I love about the Casa Marrón pieces. There is a juxtaposition of the hand carving and hand finishing on a very well-made piece of furniture. Casa Marrón is not rustic. It is very refined, and the finishes are all very high end. Our tag line is “Made by hand. Finished by hand”. It is really quite amazing, and it’s an art form that we are proud to keep alive.
See what goes into making a Casa Marrón piece in this video here:
See Casa Marrón’s stunning pieces available on DesignerInc
What are your biggest sources of inspiration? Do you have a Spanish/New Mexican background or is that a style that you’ve always been drawn to?
I am from Southern California and grew up surrounded by Spanish style architecture, so it is a “native” style for me. I started going to Santa Fe, New Mexico in the mid 80’s and discovered another expression of Spanish design. I was, and continue to be, inspired by the carving details brought to New Mexico by a Russian artist and carver, Nicolai Fechin, who moved to Taos, New Mexico in the 1920s. His carving details have become a part of the local carving vernacular, integrated with traditional Spanish carving. I began to use some of these Fechin details in the furniture pieces that I designed for homes in Rancho Santa Fe, California, where my design firm was located. Now that I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I continue to design pieces with the Fechin influence.
What led you to want to go beyond interior design and begin designing/creating your own furniture?
I had the good fortune, many years ago, of having a close friend in Los Angles that owned a furniture manufacturing company. They produced pieces for many of the high-end, to-the-trade-only lines of furniture that originated in Los Angeles. It became a part of the way I executed my interior design work – to design exactly what I wanted for my projects and have everything made. All of the responsibility for the final product was on me – a perfectionist – but I had great people then, and continue to have great people, executing my designs. Casa Marrón always surpassed my clients’ expectations. They trusted me to deliver great, high quality furniture that they approved from a drawing. The same demand for excellence is behind every piece that is produced by Casa Marrón today and sold to interior designers for their projects. As an interior designer, I understand how extremely important it is to have 100% confidence in the company and the furniture you order for your clients.
What is your favorite part about designing furniture?
I enjoy all the stages of creating and producing furniture. Like all things creative, you start with an idea – a picture in your mind – then you work through all of the stages of design and production until you have the tangible result; a new piece is born. When I put together the Casa Marrón line of furniture I had to come up with a naming system. It was so obvious to me that each piece of furniture should have a Spanish male or female name. I looked at them as my “children” and thought “Are you a boy or a girl?” and named them accordingly.
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Can you walk us through your customization process that is available to designers?
Casa Marrón is a line of furniture that can be customized: size, finishes, details. As an interior designer, I understand why this is necessary and there is no upcharge for doing this. I work directly with the interior designers to make sure what they are ordering meets all of their specifications. Any time that an order is placed for a piece of furniture that is not our standard, I provide a CAD drawing for the designer so they can be confident that we are going to make exactly what they are expecting. No mistakes! I work very hard to be sure there are no mistakes.
I also welcome the opportunity to collaborate with interior designers to create something brand new. Sometimes we are inspired by pieces in the line that evolve into a new piece; a console table becomes a coffee table or carving from a cabinet is used on a new table design. And then there are times when we are the source for interior designers to execute their own original ideas. I love being involved in the design of new pieces, and I work directly with the designers in this process. I provide CAD drawings during this process, and there is no additional charge for my time or for making a new piece.
A little fun fact about Casa Marrón…
You might be wondering where the name Casa Marrón came from. In the Spanish tradition houses are given names, and they have decorative plaques on the walls by the entrance. I started having these plaques made as gifts for my clients to name the homes we designed. I did the same for my new home and called it Casa Marrón – meaning the brown house in Spanish. Seemed like the right name since my last name is, of course, Brown. You can see the original plaque below.
See Casa Marrón’s stunning pieces available on DesignerInc