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Joni Vanderslice moved to Hilton Head for a summer job, and never left. That was more than three decades ago, and in the years since, she’s seen the island thoughtfully evolve. Alongside this resort community’s growth, Vanderslice founded and evolved her own interior design firm, J. Banks Design Group, specializing in residential and commercial projects throughout resort communities worldwide.
“Being born out of a resort community, it’s very much our outlook,” says Vanderslice. “We love to bring that attitude even to places that are not resorts.”
Vanderslice says even though it’s based in the relatively small community of Hilton Head on the South Carolina coast, her company has been able to extend its reach globally as their clients move or acquire other homes. Now the company boasts 50 designers on staff, including offices in Sonoma, Denver, New York City, Charleston, and Winston-Salem. And at any given time, the firm could have projects in 12 to 15 states, as well as in countries as far-flung as Mexico, Italy and Canada.
Understanding How Customers Live
In Hilton Head as well as in other communities, J. Banks specializes in designing not only the common areas of
a resort, such as clubhouses and restaurants, but also the privately and individually owned residences. Vanderslice says her clientele is typically evenly divided between residential and commercial or hospitality projects.
Because of this duality, she’s able to see the overlap between these public and private spaces. “It’s really the same demographic. Seeing how people live and what amenities they expect \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\[in their homes\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\] helps with our hospitality work,” she notes.
“And then our hospitality projects help us to make a person’s home their own personal resort. It becomes a place where they can
get away, and it’s not just a house but something that expresses them, relaxes them, and defines them.”
What the two types of projects share is an understanding of the demographic and the locale. “We want each of our projects to
have a unique sense of place,” she says. “Steamboat would have a different aesthetic than if we were working in Kauai.”
Understanding How People Live and Play
But there are definitely unique considerations for commercial projects compared to a private home. For one, the commercial projects have a dramatically longer timeline, as long as two or three years. “If you design to today’s current colors or looks,
it could be dated by the time you’re done,” says Vanderslice. Instead, she turns to the fashion world and to European trends so she has her finger on the pulse of the latest colors and design trends. “Often it’s hard to find the colors you want because
they haven’t even started using them here (in the U.S.),” Vanderslice says.
Another difference is the durability of the products installed in
a commercial application. While it needs to have a comfortable, luxurious look and feel, it has to hold up to the heavy traffic of a public space, or unique conditions, such as ocean spray that would mist furniture on a beachfront club patio.
“The last thing you want to do is to install 60 chairs in a dining room and then have them start breaking,” she says.
“You need to find that unique chair and make sure that it’s been tested for hospitality.”
Then again, Vanderslice has also seen a big change in the durability of residential fabrics and finishes. “We live differently now,” she observes. “Dogs and kids are on the sofa, we’re eating or drinking red wine in the living room. We need furniture
and fabric that really hold up better, and manufacturers are responding to this.” >
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