Keeping the legacy alive
Owner combines sensibilities and vendors of famed interior designers in Wells Abbott
Lauren Hudson ran her hand along the long swaths of lush fabric and smiled.
“There’s truly an art to selling Fortuny,” said Hudson, flipping through the fabric-covered boards hanging at the front of her Wells Abbott showroom in the Decorative Center Houston as she launched into a story about this luxurious Italian fabric.
Because the fabric is made when it’s ordered, showroom samples might not exactly match the bolts that would arrive for a customer, she explained. So when a design client wants Fortuny, get him or her to like three samples so that when new cuttings arrive, one of the three might be the right shade.
“Jerry taught me how to sell Fortuny,” she said of her business mentor, Jerry Jeanmard, who once was an owner of Wells Design. “When it’s made, the color or texture can be off, so what you see in a sample is not necessarily what you get.”
Fortuny is the gold standard of fabric for home design, running up to about $400 a yard. The Egyptian cotton is so fine it feels like silk, and its velvets might be the softest textiles you’ll ever feel.
The fabric samples hold court in the front of Hudson’s showroom, and the line plays a key role in this new chapter of her life as an interior design entrepreneur who has managed to keep alive two legendary businesses that could easily have vanished.
Reinvention
Hudson gets comfortable in an armchair — it’s covered in Tillett’s iconic chrysanthemum pattern — in a vignette inside her design studio. She owns what used to be two businesses — Wells Design and Ellouise Abbott, merged and renamed Wells Abbott — for just four years, but the short story of how she got here sounds like a made-for-TV movie.
A handful of years ago, Hudson hired Jeanmard to help her update the Highland Village home she shares with her husband, Brock, who works in the oil-and-gas industry, and their 15-year-old daughter. Their friends had used Jeanmard for decorating projects, and she admired his work.
“My home is a ranch-style home with 9-foot ceilings and small rooms, but I wanted every inch to be perfect. So we made every inch perfect,” said Hudson, 52. “It’s Cape Cod-meets-ranch, and it’s got a great vibe.”
Working a room at a time, they spent much of 2009 and 2010 reinventing it. When they were done, her friends asked if Jerry might do their homes, too.
The answer was “no.” He’d already told Hudson that her project would likely be his last. So Hudson made him a proposition: If she helped her friends decorate, could she lean on him for advice?
When Jerry invited her to his office to talk about it, he had a proposition of his own: Would she want to buy Wells Design?
Jeanmard had owned the business since 2000, when he purchased it from his mentor-turned-business partner Herbert Wells, the legendary designer who died in 2010 at the age of 86. Wells put his elegant-but-unpretentious imprint on the homes of some of the city’s most notable residents, including philanthropist Louisa Sarofim and former Mayor Bob Lanier and his wife, Elyse.
Jeanmard, now 73, came to Houston in 1968 as a graphic designer and in his late 30s wanted to start a new career in interior design. A mutual friend introduced him to Wells, and Jeanmard became his part-time assistant. Quickly, he shifted to full-time work and eventually was a partner and then sole owner.
Until he met Hudson, Jeanmard was ready to retire — to simply close down Wells Design.
Although Hudson was ready for something new, she was hardly ready to take it on by herself, having never worked as an interior designer except for helping a few friends. They struck a deal: She would buy Wells Design, and Jeanmard would spend two years teaching her the business.
That was three-and-a-half years ago, and Jeanmard is still around.
“I’m very happy I didn’t close the business. Lauren has done a good job of keeping the legacy not just alive but vibrant, and the same with Ellouise Abbott,” he said.
Diving in
Hudson studied history at the University of Oklahoma and got a job teaching U.S. history at Lee High School in Houston. She was there five years, but former students still show up in her showroom as interior designers looking for fabrics, wallpaper furniture or window shades.
“Lee High School endures,” she said, laughing. “I like to say I was a teacher in my 20s, a recruiter at Arthur Anderson in my 30s, a housewife and mom in my 40s and, now, in my 50s, I’m in interior design.”
From teaching, Hudson went to work for Arthur Anderson, eventually leading the campus recruiting efforts for its assurance division. It was there that she learned to engage her right brain and get in touch with her inner executive.
“I knew I wanted to go back to work. … I was asking myself, ‘What do I want to do? What do I feel like I’m good at?’ when the whole Jerry thing fell into my lap,” she said. “I feel like when you open yourself to other possibilities and explore those things, they have a way of presenting themselves to you.”
So she bought Wells Design and learned lessons as they came at her. When their building on San Felipe sold, she and Jeanmard moved it into a temporary space before settling on the third floor of the Decorative Center.
She wanted to reach beyond design to create a showroom and started contacting the firm’s longtime vendors, such as Ann Morris Lighting and Tillett Textiles.
“They were easy calls to make because they had a relationship with Wells Design going back to Mr. Wells. I said, ‘If we were to open a showroom, would you want to be part of it?’ and they said yes,” she said. “It began to be the joke around the office that all I did was ask. Before I knew it, I thought, we might have a showroom.”
Hudson lined up a variety of boutique fabric makers, most unique to Texas, and in February 2017 held a grand opening.
Betsie Weatherford was Hudson’s Decorative Center neighbor, operating Ellouise Abbott — the state’s oldest design showroom — across the hall. One day Hudson was commiserating with Weatherford and made an offhand remark: “If you ever want to retire, let me know.”
Weatherford didn’t hesitate: “Well, I’m telling you now. I want to retire.”
Once she got over the shock, Hudson realized the benefit of acquiring Ellouise Abbott, its exclusive lines and its square footage in the sought-after Dallas Design Center.
In the middle of negotiations, Hudson went on a family vacation, and they agreed they’d finish when she returned. But Weatherford suddenly became ill and died before the contract was signed.
Word got out, and showroom owners all over the area pounced, hoping to acquire the lucrative Fortuny line. Weatherford had exclusive regional rights to Fortuny, and if you were a designer wanting even a single yard of the fabric, you had to go through Ellouise Abbott.
It was a business lesson for Hudson, who managed to keep Fortuny as she learned about the brisk competition in the design world.
“I was new to this business and didn’t understand that the design hub in this region is Dallas. If you have a showroom in Houston, you’re competitive in Houston, but you’re not competitive in the region,” she said. “Betsie summed it up this way: ‘Like it or not, Dallas pulls from five states and Houston pulls from five neighborhoods.’ ”
“Initially this was a fun little project, Wells Design; it seemed like a good idea at the time. But taking on Ellouise Abbott was serious. Hanging on to those lucrative lines was serious, and competing in Dallas was serious,” she said. “I was like a deer caught in the headlights, but I managed to hang on. I was able to get scrappy and just figure it out.”
Creating a new niche
A vignette inside the Wells Abbott doors is filled with those colors, and racks of fabric samples nearby create a charming textile boutique with solids, prints and handsome motifs by Fermoie, Nicole Fabric Designs, Fleurons d’Helene, Jed Johnson Home, Nicholas Herbert and Chase Erwin. Funkier Pukka Print Linens and prints by Pintura Studio are around the corner.
On a small rack, Jean Roze silk samples dangle like little gems from hanger clips. The Roze line has its own history, dating to 1470 in France, one of the oldest silk factories still in operation.
Hudson has amassed these small boutique lines as part of her business strategy: offering something designers can’t find elsewhere in the city.
“Lauren has gone out of her way to find uncommon things … not only are they wonderful, but they didn’t have representation in Texas or, in some cases, the U.S.,” said J. Randall Powers, one of Houston’s most notable interior designers. “As a designer, that’s appealing. I want to see unusual products or things I’ve read about or seen in Europe that are relatively new here.”
He also admires Hudson’s business sense and tenacity.
“I do really love the way she has this gung-ho attitude … it’s very brave. If she had any idea (how tough it is), she wouldn’t have done it — and I mean that in the kindest way,” Powers said. “It’s like walking to the edge of the high dive and looking down. Sometimes you just run and jump and do it.”
Just down the hall from Wells Abbott are the Lucas/ Eilers Design Associates offices, an interior design firm led by Sandy Lucas and Sarah Eilers.
Both knew the original Elloise Abbott and Betsie Weatherford, too, and they’re glad that Hudson is keeping their friends’ legacy alive.
“They have such a wonderful array, and so many of their lines feel so bespoke — the wallpapers that are made on a kitchen table in England or the handprinted designs that give a real unique feeling to a project,” Lucas said.
Ultimately, Lucas and Eilers think that both Herbert Wells and Ellouise Abbott would be pleased with what is now Wells Abbott.
“Ellouise was a wonderful lady, and Herb was such a talented man. Both dedicated their lives to creating businesses that set a level of quality for the city. It’s the ultimate compliment that Lauren appreciated that and wanted to keep them going.”
Paul and Hunter Bell moved to Houston from Manhattan three-and-a-half years ago. When they needed an interior designer to decorate their new home here, they called on Wells Abbott in part because Herbert Wells had designed homes for Paul Bell’s relatives who lived here.
Hunter Bell is a fashion designer who likes more contemporary, forward-looking design. Her husband is more traditional, so it was Hudson’s job to create spaces that would please them both, feel unpretentious and handle the wear and tear of the couple’s three young children.
Their ’50s-style Briar Grove home had dark-wood floors, which Hudson had painted a light color, and their foyer has a painted geometric design that reaches into the back hallway. Painted floors were a common theme in Wells’ projects.
“Lauren has so much knowledge and wisdom on these lovely brands and I don’t, but I know what I like,” Bell said. “She and Jerry opened my eyes so much to the interior design world.”