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Anthony Goodh
Anthony Goodh
Title: Designer and Partner, Boconcept
Age: 47
Experience: A lifetime’s worth
Born in Mexico City, Anthony Goodh grew up in Europe, where his mother worked as a designer for Armani and where he says his design sensibility was formed. He later moved to Hawaii and then New York, where he managed a high-end Italian restaurant. His partner, Luis, had managed a Boconcept store in New York for over a decade before the two got the opportunity to buy the Cambridge location in 2012. Goodh’s free design tip: Never use overhead lights. Properly placed floor lamps and table lamps give a space a cozier, more natural feel.
Q: Is Scandinavian design gaining popularity in the states?
A: Denmark, Sweden, Finland … these are countries that are becoming more popular; design and food and music from these countries is reaching the entire world. IKEA has influenced the design sensibilities of a huge generation. When kids go to college, they buy their furniture at IKEA. When they graduate, they’re not going back to the big, tall, rounded-arms sectional. They just don’t like it. They adapted to the Scandinavian sensibility; it’s attractive and cozy. When they come here, it just makes sense to them.
My design sensibility is European, since I’ve spent most of my life abroad. Boconcept has a Scandinavian look which is very appealing to me. It’s also a very streamlined and architectural design when it comes to the sofas and board furniture. I really thought that was the way to go for us.
Because it’s a Scandinavian look, the attention is not called to the furniture itself; it makes more sense in terms of the space. If you have a 200-square-foot space and you have no idea of its size because there is a triangular chimney in the wrong spot and a large window in the wall, we come in and make the most of out of that space.
Q: Do you go to customers’ houses to do in-home design consulting?
A: That is one of our best selling tools. We go to people’s homes so we can understand what their needs and challenges are and understand what their aesthetic sensibilities are. We create floor plans in our proprietary software system where we can show them 3D views of what we believe would work best in their space. Once we have those plans, we invite them back to the store, show them the renderings and can even adjust the size, color and positioning. Most people find it incredibly helpful to be able to see how it will look before they buy anything. It helps them make a much more informed decision. It’s great to see their faces after they see what their space will look like.
Q: Do you get walk-in traffic as well?
A: Oh yes. In a successful store, it’s about 50/50. The more walk ins you have the better. They’re great. We get a lot of people in August who walk in and are just looking for a table or a chair or a desk or a bed, but that’s not the only thing we can focus on. When university students and faculty leave, they often want to go back to their country and they want to bring new furniture. They shop when they get here and when they leave.
Q: Do you stage homes for sale as well?
A: Yes, we prefer to stage condos in brand-new construction buildings so we work alongside builders, architects and developers. We have worked with some homes if they fit the furniture. It’s a service that we provide at a very low cost to the real estate agent, but it has to make sense to us. We’re not in the business of staging, we’re in the business of selling furniture. We’ll stage if the home provides a good stage for us, too.
The stagings we’ve done have been fantastic. Real estate agents love what we do – it brings a much higher value to their investment. We create a whole new design element that is not recognizable. When you go into a Boconcept-designed home, there’s a “wow” factor and the home sells.
Q: Has the explosion in luxury condos been good for business?
A: We do see an uptick. Those buildings have been our bread and butter; they love us and it goes well with the architecture, as they like modern and urban architecture. But rest assured, we have a ton of clients in Brookline and the Back Bay. That is actually what this furniture was made for – spaces that may have some challenges. But it has to make sense and you have to feel comfortable in them. You can’t fit a huge sofa in one of those brownstones because it would just take over the whole space.
On the other hand, we have customers from all over the world that come in and buy huge homes. They buy our stuff because we can make a sectional sofa as big as they need it to be. We can do anything. People are sometimes surprised; they think of us as being very small – a niche, specialized store – but we have 300 stores around the world and we’re the largest manufacturer in Europe. We can furnish an entire building in three to four months with no problem whatsoever because the company that backs us is incredibly organized.
Q: What kinds of projects do you like best?
A: We love modern spaces. They just allow for more creativity. We love floor-to-ceiling windows and open space, but we also love to see, in smaller spaces, where the personality of the customer is a little more predetermined. We like to work with customers in a brownstone setting where the customer is a lot more involved in the details because it’s more challenging. It’s a lot easier in a place like Millennium Tower because we’ve done so many units there.
My favorite room is the living room because with the sofa I’m sitting on, we have 30,000 different options on it. Creatively speaking, there’s just so much you can project onto a living space because then you have the rug and the coffee table and the chairs, pillows art, entertainment system and lighting. No challenge is too big for us. We can always help. Our prices range from IKEA on up.
Goodh’s Five Favorite Films:
- Cleopatra (1963)
- Excalibur (1981
- Dune (1984)
- Bladerunner (1982)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
