When Betsy Lay moved into the townhouse across the way from Kathleen O’Connell in the ritzy enclave of Port Liberte, the last thing she expected was a neighbor who shared her unique passion.
“We started doing tasks together,” O’Connell remembers, “clearing things out, gardening, moving furniture-‘let’s try that over here.’ We loved all these things about the home-including fabrics.”
That’s right. They’re both fabric fiends.
O’Connell and Lay are partners in the fledgling venture, alice g. AT HOME. They design, produce, and sell an original creation known as the petite duvet.
Lay is a fun and funny 46-year-old, the kind of good listener who masks good advice as good conversation. O’Connell, 60, always pronounces her T’s and dashes your name into her sentences like salt, habits she learned teaching history and English in the Jersey City school system. She’s bilingual in English-and Latin.
LAY’SWORKING LIFE has been a patchwork, with sewing and decorating a constant thread. “I learned to sew when I was really young from my grandmother and mother,” she says. “Some people collect Pee Wee Herman lunch boxes, I collect fabric. As a teenager, I’d go to a fabric store and buy five yards of fabric even if I had no particular use for it.”
The company name comes from Lay’s grandmother, Alice, and O’Connell’s grandmother whose maiden name was Grady.
“My grandmother, my aunt, and my mother were all very accomplished seamstresses,” O’Connell says. “I learned to sew from watching these women. I remember going into Manhattan with my mother and Aunt Ruth to buy the fabric for my First Communion dress. The first dress I ever bought in a store was my wedding dress.”
LAY’S ROAD TO EIDERDOWN ENTREPRENEURSHIP has not been exactly straight. Twenty-five years ago she worked for an interior decorator, but after that she had a 17-year stint in the marketing department of Otis Elevator Company. At age 40, she decided to study for a degree in philosophy at Columbia University.
That reinforced a principle she already knew in her heart: “I was always lecturing my stepchildren about pursuing the thing that gives them a charge in life, she says, “and they asked me, ‘Why aren’t you doing that?'”
At the time that Lay’s stepchildren ratted her out, they were watching a DVD, each wrapped in one of Lay’s hand-sewn duvets. That, says Lay, was the light bulb moment. BUT CREATING ALICE G. took another light bulb moment. “One day Kathleen and I happened to go to the D&D [Decoration and Design] building in New York, and as we were walking out, I said, ‘Why aren’t we doing this all the time?’
“I sewed the duvets myself for my own use,” Lay says, “but how do you get this product to the market?”
Lay and O’Connell set out on their learning curve going to boutiques door to door. “We’d go to the Hamptons, the Jersey Shore,” Lay says, “and approach shop owners who universally loved the product and the price point, but it was very time consuming with just the two of us. We decided that with the Internet approach we could reach more people.”
THE PROCESS STARTS WITH the selection of fabrics. “Betsy and I decide what the collection will be,” O’Connell says, “and then go to all the fabric show rooms in New York. We feel the fabrics, try to decide on a color palette that goes across the collection and go back again and again.”
“We started out doing some of the work ourselves,” she says, “but we finally had to find someone who would do as careful a job as we would.” Says Lay, “I love doing things the best way there is to the highest known standard.”
They finally settled on a work room in Elizabeth. “Each piece of fabric is individually cut by Marta, who has the mathematical mind,” O’Connell says. “Joanna takes pieces and matches them up, sews the zipper inside, and puts them together. They’re crisply ironed, folded the same way, and hung on hangers the same size. It’s a treat for the eye.” THE NEXT HURDLE was to learn how to run the business. “My husband, a CFO, gave me a two-hour training course in inventory management and accounting principles,” Lay says. “This was a brand new type of challenge.” (Just to be clear, at Columbia Lay was getting A’s in calculus, a discipline she describes as “fun but not challenging.”)
When it came time to incorporate, O’Connell’s husband Gene, a lawyer, offered the services of the firm he uses. “But we did it ourselves,” O’Connell says. “We went on the State of New Jersey website and just chipped away at it. We also knew that we had to file tax returns, but instead of hiring an accountant, we do it ourselves with a software program.”
LAY HAS AN ANSWER for anyone who thinks the petite duvet is a small niche: “You can get a duvet at Target, but we’re not just making petite duvets,” she says. “This is a decorating accessory that incorporates the fabrics we love.” Not to mention that you’re not going to find an exquisitely crafted duvet for $325 at the big box.
“We’re hoping to expand the business with other products for the home,” O’Connell says.
Lay hints at a “signature throw for yachts and private jets.”
In the Comforter Zone While the summer collection includes prints with starfish, shells, and flip flops, the home theater collection has a classic-movie theme featuring the “Casablanca,” “High Society,” “Moonstruck,” and “Nashville” duvets. Visit alicegathome.com or call (201) 788-0119.