At Casa Perfect, Retail Gets a Big Dose of the Hospitality Factor

Sometimes there’s no better way to gauge what’s happening in an industry than to go straight to the source. So in conceiving a special series on hospitality, we turned to AvroKO, a global full-service design bureau founded in 2001. Currently working in 25 cities in 14 countries, the studio has delivered crowd favorites—from hotels like the Hoxton in Chicago and the Eaton in Hong Kong to eateries like The Zodiac Room and Saxon + Parole in New York. Stepping in as guest editors, AvroKO shows the extensive reach of hospitality across design typologies, from health care to retail and living.

At Casa Perfect, buyers are invited to take off their coats, drop their bags, and luxuriate in the splendor of spectacular private houses ranging from Elvis Presley’s onetime Beverly Hills mansion to a pictur – esque Greenwich Village brownstone (above). “It isn’t a showroom. It’s a home,” says David Alhadeff, founder of The Future Perfect, the New York City design gallery that has produced each iteration of Casa Perfect since 2013. Missing from the typical retail equation is the hospitality factor, Alhadeff suggests, and he goes out of his way to create a memorable visit by closely pairing art pieces with each venue (a San Francisco “Casa” is the third in the series). Elvis’s casual midcentury digs in L.A. recently served as the backdrop for Chris Wolston’s Technicolor immobiles, while the dignified Manhattan brownstone recently played host to Matthew Day Jackson’s squiggly Kolho collection. Echoing a mantra of hospitality gurus, Alhadeff downplays the moment of actual exchange: “The experience is about way more than just shopping.”

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