HE HAS DESIGNS
Fred Hershey helped interior designers gain professional status, and he is still at it.
Fred Hershey calls himself one of the last generalists. Today, interior designers tend to specialize in either residential or commercial work, Hershey says, but when he launched his career, designers did it all.
Hershey, the founder of Burlingame Interiors in Albany, grew up in East Stroudsburg, Pa., and decided when he was 14 he wanted to be an interior designer. He drew houses and cut furniture out of the Sears catalogue to decorate them. Hershey’s grandfather worked for the publisher of International Design magazine and used to sneak copies to his grandson, Hershey said.
Hershey chose Syracuse University for college because, although Parsons Art and Design School in New York City was the most prominent school for design, it didn’t have a football team – and Hershey was and remains an avid football fan.
Hershey developed his design aesthetic in college and it has stayed with him to this day: less is more.
His style was driven by the Bauhaus, the Weimar-era modernist art school in Germany. His favorite piece of furniture is his Eames lounge chair and the contemporary designers he admires are Joanna Gaines and Candice Olson.
In addition to restaurants (the former Conservatory Grill in Clifton Park is a favorite), the Steuben Athletic Club, the St. Peter’s hospice - both in Albany - and too many offices to count, Hershey’s proudest achievement is his work to establish a license for interior designers in New York state. It took nine years and talking about it makes Hershey emotional.
“We wanted to be seen as professionals, and you’re not a professional if you don’t have a license,” Hershey says.
It required a vote by the Legislature to create a state Board of Education exam, but Hershey says there was a turf war with the architects. Eventually, the designers’ efforts prevailed, and, after sitting for the first exam in 1994, Hershey was the first interior designer certified in the state.
Hershey and his wife, Donna, moved to Albany in 1963 when Hershey was hired by the office furniture company Martin, when he graduated from college. The couple, who would later have two sons, bought a house on Hamilton Street in Center Square and fixed it up. Hershey’s work took him around the state working on buildings at the SUNY campuses in Geneseo and Oswego. Fall colors were in demand then, Hershey said: olive, rust and gold, wherever you looked.
When the Empire State Plaza was completed in 1976, the demand for office design exploded. It coincided with the proliferation of the Herman Miller Action Office. Now fabric walls and cubicle-style portioning are commonplace, but in the 1960s the approach changed the way people worked. Before, desks were arranged in rows. The “action office” introduced work-stations with components that could be rearranged as circumstances changed.
“It took the rigidity out of office space,” Hershey said.
Hershey keeps scrapbooks of his work in his home office, including several projects that won awards from the Institute of Business Designers. A picture of a conference room he did for the advertising firm Woodard, Voss and Hevenor, could almost be mistaken for a present-day image because of the resurgence of modern contemporary furniture. But, Hershey laughs, the slide projector – then the height of technology — gives it away.
Hershey says he was reluctant to go into business for himself, but eventually created Burlingame to handle the work he was doing on the side. It blossomed into a successful enterprise on its own. After 55 years in the business — and moves to Albany to fulfill Donna’s dream of owning a center-hall Colonial, and then to Loudonville when she tired of the stairs — Hershey is still working. His recent work includes the common area at Park South, a two-tower apartment complex by longtime client Tri-city Rentals.
“Fred has developed a large portfolio of highly successful, functional, colorful and unique projects with Tri-city Rentals over a long period of time,” said project manager Brian Owens on behalf of the company. “Our relationship has developed to a point that Fred is considered one of our most trusted advisers and partners.”