House of Three: NYC’s New Event Space and Creative Studio from Kelsie Hayes of Popup Florist
Ten years after founding Popup Florist, Kelsie Hayes has fully settled down. After studying fashion design in LA, Kelsie early in her career worked as a creative director for a now-defunct clothing label that staged picnics and other surprise in-store happenings. These events are what inspired her to become a self-taught florist. Her specialty: coming up with arresting ways for fashion brands to get people to crawl out from behind their screens.
Based in NYC but initially peripatetic, Kelsie ran pop-ups and sold bouquets from a flower cart at a Theory shop. Soon, she was working on a bigger scale for the likes of Prada, Gucci, Hermès, Gigi Hadid, Eva Chen, and Netflix: creating sets for fashion shows, producing influencer dinners, and designing the florals for red carpets. Constantly asked for the perfect Manhattan location to hold events, Kelsie realized it was time to open her own.
A decisive sort, she knew that the second place she looked at was The One. Kelsie also happens to be visionary: the former lighting showroom on West 28th Street was nothing more than an industrial white box (conveniently a block from Popup Florist’s workroom in the Flower District). It’s now House of Three, a clubby, other-worldly gathering spot where Kelsie and crew host private events and creative workshops. Designed as intuitively as Kelsie’s florals, the space is filled with inventive, doable ideas worth trying at home. Come see.
Photography by Ori Harpaz, courtesy of Popup Florist (@popupflorist) and House of Three (@houseofthreenyc).
Above: A “florist’s pantry” showcases Kelsie’s ever-growing collection of vases, new and old—and serves as an intriguing jewel box right off the entry. Two of Kelsie’s go-to sources for ceramics are the antiques malls and Goodwill in her hometown of Cumberland, Maryland, (her sister cases the offerings for her every Monday) and Apotheca Botanica of Mexico City (Kelsie and her husband and their four-year-old daughter spend weeks at a time in CDMX and always return with new pieces).
Kelsie had her go-to contractor, Jeremy Hogeland, build the glass-walled partition. It was a splurge, but since they didn’t make any structural changes, no permissions were required.
Above: The pantry, also known as the Blue Room, is painted Farrow & Ball’s Sugar Bag Light. Kelsie is a visual thinker who swears by mood boards and recruits people who understand her ways: rather than supplying Jeremy, her contractor, with plans, she had Crystal Ochoa, an illustrator on the Popup Florist team, sketch her ideas and he worked from her drawings (scroll to the end to see two examples that are remarkably true to the finished results).
The ruched cotton ceiling light is the Aldwin Pendant from Soho Home.
Above: Kelsie brainstormed the House of Three plans with her husband, Justin Fine, a consultant for tech consumer businesses, whose input led to the living area: “Justin loves a conversation pit.” The floral Cassina sofa, a vintage Italian design from Mid-Century LA, sets the tone; it was the first piece Kelsie bought for the space, “so everything had to be designed around it.”
The Ubud Coffee Table is from Arhaus; Jeremy hung the weighty glass Pollensa Chandelier hours before the opening party.
Above: House of Three ‘s showpiece is its “florist’s kitchen,” complete with a potting sink, classic flower fridge, and plenty of storage—but no stove. The brass knobs and Floral Brass Pendant lights are from British designer Matilda Goad’s MG & Co. The faucet is a Jason Wu for Brizo design.
Above: The tiles are Moroccan zellige from Tiles of Lucca, a New Jersey company Kelsie chose because she could drive to see the samples firsthand and “make sure the color variations all work.” The pale yellow cabinets are painted Farrow & Ball’s Bombazine. Scroll to the end for a glimpse of the space in progress.
Above: The under-counter Liz Linen Drape-Pleated cafe curtains (with black-out lining) and floor-to-ceiling Flax-Linen Sheers are from Two Pages, an online company that was able to deliver custom dimensions quickly. Right outside the window is a prime view of the Empire State Building.
Above: Kelsie describes her arrangements as “expressive and eclectic with something to say.”
She came up with the name House of Three because she wanted the space to feel like a home and three is her lucky number: she writes on Instagram, “I always come back to three—rule of thirds, things in threes. The third month of the year, a quiet transformation, from the last frost to the first bloom. It was also my own transformation, when I became a mother. My family—the trio that shapes everything I create. This is House of Three.”
Above: The back of the room is a flexible area used for workshops. Raise-and-lower butcher-block-topped steel tables from Global Industrial can be grouped in various ways for parties and classes. The wooden flooring and track lighting came with the space—they’re holdovers from its lighting showroom days.
Above: Kelsie made the screen from Home Depot wooden moldings and canvas, and enlisted Portland, Oregon-based illustrator Crystal Ochoa—who had helped with the initial sketches—to paint the panels when she was in town. The two had talked about Crystal creating a mural for the space; Kelsie came up with the idea for the screen as a flexible alternative.
Above: Kelsie sources her stems a block away in the Flower District and says that from spring through fall she’s able to focus almost entirely on American-grown plants. Popup Florist delivers bouquets in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.
The Pre-Construction Illustrated Plans
Above: Using Kelsie’s drawings and inspirational images, illustrator Crystal Ochoa translated her pantry vision into a sketch—and contractor/builder Jeremy Hogeland used it in lieu of a formal plan. “He understands Kelsie’s shorthand,” says her assistant, Calli Haramaras.
Above: Crystal Ochoa’s kitchen sketch includes all of the final details, including farmhouse sink, cafe curtains, florist’s fridge, and pendant lights.
In Progress
Above: Contemplating shades of green for the pantry. Kelsie says she “loves to create experiences.” She envisions designing her own tabletop collection next.
Above: Jeremy Hogeland did just about all of the work on the space himself, including the challenging task of fitting the kitchen’s perfectly imperfect tiles.
More inspiration from NYC’s multipurpose spaces:
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