Luxury home furnishings retailer in Austin debut

Restoration Hardware Holdings has entered the Austin market with the latest generation of its design gallery store format.



The new RH Austin, The Gallery includes an entire floor dedicated to the retailer’s new RH Modern concept, with an integrated contemporary art gallery.



It also includes an interactive design atelier, a professional workspace that allows customers, designers and architects to conceptualize and customize a home.



“Our vision with RH Austin is to reimagine the retail experience by blurring the lines between residential and retail, indoors and outdoors, physical and digital – creating an environment that is more home than store,” says RH chairman & CEO Gary Friedman.



RH Austin marks Friedman’s ongoing collaboration with design architect James Gillam of Backen, Gillam & Kroeger.



Conceptualized as a grand-scale, classical contemporary structure filled with fresh air and natural light, RH Austin features a charcoal-grey Venetian plaster exterior with glass-and-steel French doors that open onto a streetscape lined with Italian cypress, geometric topiaries, king sago palms and towering Mexican sycamore trees.



As night falls, the building is transformed through dramatic illumination, highlighting its architectural details and landscaping.



The design atelier, on level two, is a nearly 4,000-sq.-ft.studio anchored by four, 10-ft. custom tables. It offers a fully integrated workspace for customers, designers and architects to reimagine one room or an entire home, inside and out. It also features access to the retailer’s library of fabrics, leathers, and furniture and lighting finishes.



“With the introduction of RH Design Services, we have now moved the brand beyond creating and selling product to conceptualizing and selling spaces,” said Friedman.