This antique wooden work bench is
where Rebecca does her flower
arrangements. She created the
coffee table by covering a cast-iron
stand with slate squares.

H&G: What inspires you?
Cole: This is cliché, but it’s nature, mountains, the world, New Hampshire. I actually can’t think of anything that doesn’t inspire me. I just moved into a new apartment, and I’m looking across the street at a building of artist lofts. They inspired me to take this apartment. I was originally looking for a space with a garden, but I couldn’t find the right space. At the same time, I couldn't imagine living without a garden. In this apartment, I can look at people creating things day and night. It’s exciting and nourishing.

H&G: How did you select your own home?
Cole: I've been in New York for a very long time, but in Wexford, everyone knew everyone. In New York, you know every person in a seven-block area. There are neighborhoods you feel comfortable in, and I love these funky, bohemian neighborhoods.
When I’m selecting a space, it can’t be too done or ultra über-renovated. I love modern stuff with old architecture. I look for light and clean lines. I saw a million places before I picked this one.

H&G: How do you make a space your own?
Cole: The things you love are the easiest way to do that. I live in a 12-foot-high loft space, and I don’t want to chop up the space at all, so I’ve selected things that don’t disturb the vast space. I also don’t try to force a space that wouldn’t already be there.

H&G: How did you get started?
Cole: It really just happened. I was an actor at the North Star Players in Wexford, and my teacher at Pine-Richland High School made me put a portfolio together. I was a visual artist as well as a performance artist. After high school, I went to Northwestern to study set design and acting. But I was always obsessed with my space. The day I would move into a place, the boxes would be lined up like a couch. It was an odd, quirky thing about me.

One night, when sitting on my rooftop, Manhattan garden, I was searching for what I wanted to do. My friends told me I could do anything, that I could design gardens. Eventually, I took an assignment to do one garden, and then it just kept going.

H&G: What has been the most surprising thing about your career path?
Cole: Just that I have it. It never felt like a career, just that there was always the next job tomorrow. After 10 years, I was completely defined by this. The biggest surprise was that I could follow a dream that I didn't even know I had.

H&G: If you had to pick one thing you like best about what you do, what would it be?
Cole: Definitely the two hours at the end of a multiple-month project. It's that final tweaking, moving the furniture and looking around saying, 'This is incredible.' Those are the final moments before a client returns that I can take it all in.

H&G: Was there someone who influenced you that led you in this direction?
Cole: My Irish grandfather, John McQuade, was an unbelievable gardener and had an eye for beautiful things. He traveled Europe and was very worldly. He really had this passion for gardening. His rose gardens went on and on, and there was only one place he would buy roses from. So he would drive 16 hours when he needed a new rose.

He was an inventor. He was always searching for ways to make the growing season longer. When I look at him, it fits my idea of living a really great life because gardening enhanced his life.

H&G: How do you define your interior-design style?
Cole: It's a nod to the past with a wink to the future. My early books are about an older style using antiques, and that's what people know me for. I still take the essence of those things and combine it with clean modern lines.

It's really about having a sense of humor. You have to design a space that people are comfortable living in.

H&G: How do you seek out new ideas?
Cole: "Surprise by Design" has made me go to nearly every source for new ideas. We try not to repeat ideas, and we need 12 to 15 new ideas for every show. So I'm a big stealer of other ideas! I take photographs and notes about things I see. I find a million of them in restaurants, because they're always trying new things.

H&G: Your shows are pretty ambitious. How do you prepare?
Cole: I have files and files and files of pieces of paper and photographs that are ideas organized by living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, or by walls, lighting, floors. I have so much work now, it's crazy how many ideas I need.

About once a week, I line up all of my files and fly though all of the ideas. There are photos or fabrics or even the clipping of the lining from a piece of clothing.

Then I put it away so I don't copy it. I carry around the photo of the room with me and pull it out when I'm in a cab or an elevator to be inspired. But I've learned not to rush it, because sometimes I walk into the subway station, and the tile on the walls gives me the idea I'm looking for.

H&G: What are your next steps and what are the goals for Cole Creates?
Cole: To take it all national! I feel like I have two businesses: the local design business and a national design television show where I inspire people.
I'd like to take these two things and put them together. There are items that I have custom-made for clients or for television, and I'd like to have them manufactured and available for the masses.

H&G: If you lived in Pittsburgh, what kind of outdoor space would you have and where would you live?
Cole: The part of Pittsburgh that is so great is that it is like San Francisco or the Alps. There is so much terrain; I'd want to be on top of a hill with a cascading rock garden.

It wouldn't be a suburban backyard, but I like the small-town living of the city neighborhoods.

H&G: What is the biggest mistake someone can make with a garden?
Cole: It's like grocery shopping when you're hungry—people fall in love with a plant they see and bring it home. Whatever your garden is going to be, you have to have a plan. The garden is a space to live in. Not having a plan is like asking movers to put the furniture anywhere in the house.

You have to put the furniture in the right place first and then accessorize around it. The garden has to be viewed the same way. Select the place you want to view the garden from and create your living area first. Plants are the accessories for your garden.

Jennifer Pesci-Kelly is a freelance writer with her own urban garden at her South Side home. She’s also a contributor to Pittsburgh magazine.

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