RH opens its first freestanding RH Estates Gallery in Greenwich, betting on classic design over modern
Chairman and chief executive Gary Friedman says the classic design concept will grow to half of RH's assortment within five years.
RH opened its first freestanding RH Estates Gallery on Thursday in Greenwich, Connecticut, inside a nearly 20,000 square foot building that previously housed a Ralph Lauren store. Chairman and chief executive Gary Friedman calls the concept classic design reimagined through a contemporary lens.
The Greenwich building is alongside two existing RH sites on Greenwich Avenue: RH Greenwich, The Gallery, housed in the village's historic post office, and RH Outdoor Greenwich. Friedman describes the trio as forming a design ecosystem within walking distance of one another.
What the Greenwich building looks like
The gallery has a Beaux-Arts limestone facade, grand arched windows and a carved stone balustrade. Inside, a Great Room has limestone floors, twelve foot ceilings with cornice detailing and sculpted medallions, and towering arched passageways leading to rooms of designer and atelier work.
Those rooms present pieces from Valencia, Paloma and Baldacchino by Formations, displayed alongside rare art, antiques and artifacts sourced from around the world. Upstairs are pieces cast from Michael Taylor's original molds, including the Jennifer chair, first designed for actress Jennifer Jones in the 1970s.
Also on the second floor is the Monastery dining table, reproduced from a seventeenth century original in Friedman's own home in Belvedere, California. Other collections include Oliviero, from the Van Thiels, and the Palla Sofa by Dmitriy & Co., handcrafted in Los Angeles and inspired by 1940s French glamour.
The building also holds Cucina Angelina, RH's Italian restaurant named for Friedman's mother, with an emperador marble bar and an oak dining room fitted with Italian wool velvet banquettes. First introduced at RH Milan, its menu runs to Italian classics, wood-fired pizzas and RH's own signature dishes.
How fast RH Estates is rolling out
RH Estates launched last June and July through RH's Sourcebook catalogue and online, and Friedman says inventory is building fast. He expects it represented in 80 to 85% of RH's business by November and in 100% of it by December, alongside the brand's modern and contemporary lines.
Two further RH Estates projects are under way in Florida, both structured as multibuilding compounds with a connecting garden courtyard and a central atrium restaurant. Naples has the site of a former Nordstrom and is scheduled to open at the end of 2026 or in early 2027, while Aventura, built on a former parking lot, follows in 2027.
A West Hollywood project on Melrose Avenue is expected to be completed next year, and Friedman is also pursuing a freestanding site in Walnut Creek, California. He has scouted Madison Avenue, including an abandoned attempt to buy and develop the historic James Duke Mansion at 1 East 78th Street.
Friedman says he would rather find an old brownstone or house on New York's Upper East Side, even off the main avenues, than build something generic. He points to RH's 2018 move into the Meatpacking District, a 90,000 square foot gallery that critics doubted at the time.
Why RH is pivoting back to classic design
Friedman says RH Estates has been five years in development, built through the acquisition of design firms Michael Taylor Designs, Dennis & Leen, Joseph Jeup, Dmitriy & Co. and Formations, alongside work from independent designers and pieces reinterpreted internally from antiques.
He frames the model on Apple's approach to the Consumer Electronics Show, where outside developers build for a platform Apple itself never exhibits at. RH, he says, aims to be the platform the best designers bring their ideas to, curated and integrated under one point of view rather than built entirely in-house.
Friedman admits the earlier tilt toward modern and contemporary design cost RH business, since roughly 60% of high-end American homes, and an even greater share in Europe, are classic and traditional in style. He estimates the strategy gave away a billion to a billion and a half dollars in sales.
RH generated nearly $3.5 billion in sales last year. Second-quarter revenue rose 2.6% to $922.2 million and adjusted earnings per share reached $2.70, down from $2.93 a year earlier, though both figures beat Wall Street's expectations against a housing market that Friedman describes as weak overall but strong at the top end.
Friedman, who started as a stock boy at The Gap and spent fourteen years at Williams-Sonoma before joining RH as chief executive in 2001, expects RH Estates to become the largest part of RH's business over the next 24 to 36 months, building toward that position across roughly five years.
In his latest letter to shareholders, Friedman said RH will keep expanding the RH Estates assortment over the next five years and predicted it will make up half of the company's total offering by the end of that period, with modern and contemporary lines edited back to make room.
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