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From Home Furnishing Business
Designer Round Table Highlights Top Western Designer
August 9,
2023 by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry
Western Home Journal (WHJ) convened a designer round table this summer, the magazine invited Jeremiah Young, owner and creative director of Billings, Montana-based Kibler & Kirch, to weigh in as one of five top Western designers.
“In a profession dominated by women, a set of men stand out as leading interior designers in the American West,” WHJ writes in the round table Q&A discussion featured in its just-out Summer & Fall 2023 issue, introducing readers to the fab five “whose influences are rooted in the West but who have made impacts coast to coast.”
Young has made a name for himself for his nuanced understanding of Western design as expressed through fabulous interiors that range from a Big Horn, Wyoming, cabin that’s handcrafted down to the nail heads in nostalgic tribute to vintage Wild West influences, to an art-filled contemporary home that serves as home base for a real Montana ranch.
His encyclopedic knowledge of Western art and history and passion for authenticity extend to mentoring rising Montana artists through his Stapleton Gallery, design work for rustic icon Old Hickory, and even consulting on furnishings for TV series “Yellowstone."
Sharing his take on Western design with the WHJ round table, which also includes WRJ Design’s Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer, William Peace of Peace Design and Colton Martini of Camp Martini, Young says, “There is a design brand of the West and the brand hasn’t developed in a vacuum. It’s eclectic.
It begins with what is found in nature—stone, soil, timber, water, animals … Native Americans were using these elements as the first purveyors of Western design. The Europeans and American settlers brought their own classical design principals and construction techniques,” he continues.
“The mixing of influences, including those from Hollywood and the mythos of the West, are what we have today. Now we’re adding the best bits of contemporary art and architecture.”
Other topics in the discussion range from working with clients: “What I tell my clients is that what I’m really going to be is your editor … In the end, we strive to create a home far better than the one that you or me initially envisioned,” Young says
“Our profession of interior design is so underrated. You are literally crafting the human experience through spaces that are experienced every single day,” he says. “People are trusting us to craft their lives.”