Trieste On The Move
Home and design store enjoys more space for furniture and accessories.
After moving several times since she began Trieste Home & Gifts in 2005, owner Diane Young has settled into new space at 595 S. 60th Street at Stagecoach Drive in West Des Moines. Signage on the building indicates the 595 Tower.
Her curated collection of furnishings and accessories offers a transitional look at home design. “We offer an upscale boutique of luxurious home decor and furnishings,” she points out.
She grew up on a farm in nearby Booneville and attended the former Westmar College in LeMars, Iowa, where she majored in home economics and piano. Her moves have come from a desire for more space to share her love for design.
“I have always loved design, and I was thrilled when Terrill Bailey of the former Roberts and Williams store in Windsor Heights told me she liked my taste in design,” she says. “When my three kids were grown, I decided I might want to go into business.”
Her husband, Dennis Young, was retiring, and he encouraged her to go into business. She worked at Roberts and Williams for a time, then worked with shops such as Statements, Imaginations, Expressions, and Finer Things before going out on her own. Her previous shop locations were at West Glen and Ponderosa in West Des Moines.
She started a shop that focused on European antiques at first before taking on furnishings and accessories. Ultimately, she purchased the business of designer Sue Kenney, a design collaborative IDG (Interior Design Group) in which a cadre of 25 designers work independently and separately, in a space at 2437 106th Street in Urbandale. “We set it up like a country club, where there are three options or levels of membership. It works beautifully, and designers draw from each other and often work together on projects.”
So why the new shop? “It gives us a little more space so we can have more emphasis on furnishings but still offer boutique items such as baby items and seasonal trims for Christmas and Halloween, for example.”
The result is a clean-lined look with a soft and calm feeling. “We tend to focus on neutrals in our furnishings and then accent with smaller color items,” says Tammy Burmester, store manager, who has been with Diane for 10 years. She, too, is a designer, a graduate of Iowa State University in Ames. She says, “I have worked for By Design and on my own, but I prefer the retail end of the business.”
Tammy says the shop designs for the person, the customer, not for the desires of the designer. “Diane is amazing and talented. I cannot say enough good things about her. It’s so fun to go to market with her because markets are mind-boggling. She retains a calm approach. I love it.”
Trieste Home & Gifts
595 S. 60th Street, West Des Moines (at Stagecoach Drive)
515-240-8842
triestewdm@gmail.com
triestedesign.com