Coastal Couture for the Home

Find Your Style with Bohlert Massey

Interview by Jordan Staggs

In a region where many talented interior designers have carved a niche for themselves, the team at Bohlert Massey is defining its own style. The full-service design firm and retail location at 30Avenue embodies an effortlessly chic yet bohemian vibe that brings coastal elements into the fold while maintaining an air of luxury through textiles, antiques, art, and sophistication.

Susan Bohlert Smith is a native of Dothan, Alabama, who got her degree at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. During her tenure there, she says a study abroad experience in Florence, Italy, further inspired her love for fine art, history, and design.

“Upon graduation from the University of Alabama, I immediately relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and took a position with a design firm on Canyon Road,” Susan shares. “I began to work as an assistant to the principal designer, as well as assisting an art restoration and trompe l’oeil artist based out of Fenn Galleries. Through working with John Burr of Fenn Galleries, I was fortunate enough to work with him on a home for Carol Burnett. These experiences solidified my love of combining decorative finishes, murals, original contemporary and antique art, antiques, artisan fabrics, and interior architecture into a way to support myself.”

After moving back to the Southeast, Susan opened her first shop and office in Dothan, Indigo Interiors, before moving a couple of hours south to the beach communities around Scenic Highway 30-A in Florida in 1996. “I have always felt the most at home here,” she shares.

Bo Massey grew up on 30-A shadowing her mom, Susan, at her design studio and job sites. “I always had an interest in art, design, and interiors, but it wasn’t until I was in college at the University of Georgia that I decided I’d like to move back to Florida to manage our store and assist with design projects,” Bo says. “Once I was back in Florida, it became clear to me that I wanted to pursue interior design and stay in the area.”

Bohlert Massey Domestic Art & Interiors evolved with the mother-daughter duo at the helm. After several years in Seacrest Beach, the business moved to the shopping and lifestyle center at 30Avenue, where their showroom and studio are located today. VIE was thrilled to catch up with Susan and Bo to chat about their latest projects and endeavors!

VIE: When did you move to 30Avenue? What can shoppers expect when they come in?

Susan: My daughter Bo became my business partner after she graduated from the University of Georgia in 2018. At that time, the business was located in Seacrest Beach and had been since around 2003. Someone approached us to sell our location, and, both ready for a change, we said yes even before knowing where we would relocate. Fortunately, we were working on a home for the Corrs (owners of 30Avenue), who made it possible for us to shift effortlessly into an ideal space that was coming available at the perfect time in 2020. We felt like it was meant to be.

We divided the 3,000-square-foot space in half, allowing for our offices to be at the back and our shop to be in the front of the building. The shop is petite, but allows us to rotate out our different ideas, color stories, and new finds quickly. Our core aesthetic is combining classic but updated new furnishings with unexpected original art, unusual antiques, and vintage furniture and accessories. We love an item if it is made of authentic, real materials. My favorites are one-of-a-kind and hard, if not impossible, to find again. This can make buying difficult, but I also love a challenge and the thrill of the hunt for beauty.

Our shoppers can expect items purchased through eyes striving to transcend mainstream fads and become pieces that will endure and be cherished for years to come by other like-minded collectors and design enthusiasts. Bo and I have shared values and points of view about style, uniqueness, and quality, but we also each bring different strengths to both our design clients and store customers. I lean towards the classics, maintaining a baseline of correctness or authenticity, and Bo keeps a fresh breeze of youthful fashion injected into the design projects and buying. We push and pull gracefully, and the result is always better when we are both weighing in.

VIE: What’s one of your favorite pieces in store right now?

Susan: I find that as I get wiser and more seasoned in design, my taste has become a little more streamlined in furniture lines, but I find a roomful of streamlining is boring. I love this ornate early eighteenth-century Italian console we have. It is full of curves and hand carving, with the most perfect grody silver leaf finish and touches of pale aqua peeking through. I imagine it in a minimally treated home with white plaster walls bringing history and legend to the room it adorns.

Bo: We have a lovely 1940s table made of burlwood that has been bleached with gilt acanthus leaves at its base. It would be a great dining table or center table. I love that the bleached finish modernizes the table—it’s hard to pinpoint the time period it has originated from when you’re looking at it. That’s something my mom and I both love—a piece that is difficult to categorize.

VIE: How big is your team?

Susan: Our team currently has seven members. Bo and I are the principal designers. Chandler, an interior designer with degrees from Auburn University in architecture and a Georgia Tech engineering degree, does the heavy lifting with our drawings and documentation. Kaitlyn, an interior designer who works both on interior elevations and furnishings, is the best librarian we have ever had with the massive amount of samples and organization we are always using. Ramsay, an artist and entrepreneur with a degree in Fine Art from Ole Miss, is in charge of the showroom, sourcing, website, and social media. Beverly is our bookkeeper and office manager, and Brian is our accountant. Hoping that I don’t jinx us, but this is by far the most talented and lovely team we have ever had in the thirty-plus years I have been in business!

VIE: What is it like working with your mom/daughter? Do you often work on projects side by side, or are the responsibilities more split between you in different areas of the business?

Susan: Bo and I work very closely on most everything. We do each have projects where one or the other of us is the main designer, but we always collaborate. Chandler and I do the majority of the home’s bones, with Bo and Kaitlyn doing the majority of the furnishings and installations. We are all involved on some level on all of the jobs. We have some days when Bo and I are together all day working on concepts or other things, but we have to divide and conquer, too. It isn’t efficient for two people to be on everything together all the time.

I can’t imagine enjoying working with another person any more than I do with her. We do have to be careful not to talk about work when we are having family time. We both love what we do, but we are mindful not to let it take over the other areas of our lives.

Bo: We both have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. This wouldn’t work if we didn’t have that. We also enjoy using each other as sounding boards for ideas—when we both love something, that’s when we feel like we’ve really hit on something special. I do a lot more of the daily communication with clients, which gives my mom more opportunity to focus on the creative, design side of the business. It really is a complete collaboration because nothing leaves our office without both of us reviewing and discussing it together. There are many healthy debates held in our studio, but each of us contributing our opinions elevates and strengthens our projects.

VIE: Are you seeing any trends right now in home design or things your clients are asking for?

Bo: Trends run more slowly in interiors because items for the home are big financial commitments and the design process of a custom home takes years from start to finish. We are proponents of instilling a client’s core personal aesthetic into their home as opposed to following trends. That being said, we have more and more clients telling us they are sick of seeing a beige-and-white house! I think in Florida, people really embraced the light and minimal aesthetic of an all-neutral home. Now, we have clients who have seen enough homes designed like this to realize an all-beige house with modern furniture is not authentic to their taste. They want more color, patterns, and layers. This is a trend we’ve been seeing for a few years now throughout the design world, in fashion and interiors. Minimalism is taking a backseat, and people are going in a more maximalist direction. That doesn’t mean it has to be traditional or cluttered, just that there are more design details and decor throughout the home.

VIE: Do you work on many projects outside the 30-A region? What’s your favorite thing about working in this area? 

Susan: Absolutely! While our primary location we work is on and around 30-A, we do travel for out-of-town projects a few times a year. A few of the out-of-town projects we have completed are located in Boca Raton and Shalimar, Florida; New York, New York; Saint Simons Island, Georgia; Sun Valley, Idaho; and Cashiers, North Carolina. We are currently working on a large farmhouse project in rural Alabama. We always enjoy working in areas outside of Florida to embrace different lifestyles and cultures.

My favorite thing about working in the 30-A area is the convenience of being able to drop by a job site to check on the progress or to get there quickly when needed. With FaceTime and Zoom, staying on top of things on out-of-town jobs without a planned trip has become much more manageable.

VIE: What most inspires you when designing? Does it change depending on the client, or are there signature styles or inspirations you consider to be your own?

Susan: I would have to say that the project location, architecture, and clients are always our biggest inspirations when designing. Creating a new language for the three elements to come together and applying them creatively while staying true to the vision of the project is both challenging and fulfilling.

Bo: We are both inspired by art, nature, travel, and historical interior design. Our style is collected and timeless with a global influence that comes from how inspired we are by artisans and crafts from throughout the world. Whether it’s a seventeenth-century Italian console, an antique hand-embroidered textile, or a beautiful Panamanian basket, we love incorporating one-of-a-kind pieces with a story into our work. Using the client as inspiration and filling the home with unique pieces gives a house life and authenticity.

VIE: Do you often work with artists on pieces to place in your designs or store? Who are some of the ones you collaborate with the most?

Susan: Working with artists for both showroom items and client projects is probably at the top of my list of favorite things to do. We commission murals, wall finishes, custom furnishings, wallpaper, fabric, custom cabinetry and millwork, and ironwork, to list a few trades we work with. Some of the collaborators we work with the most are artists Marion Barnes, Ali Stayer, Hannah Yanetsko, Jos of Saltwater Steel, Robert Preston of Creative Metalworks, and Michael Morrow of MDM cabinetry.

VIE: Are there any standout brands or vendors you love to highlight in the showroom?

Susan: There are just too many to list, but some of our ongoing favorites include Baker Furniture, Hickory Chair Furniture, and Highland House Furniture.

Bo: We have a new collection of crystal glassware in the store from a company called ARTĚL. It is all hand-blown and engraved in the Czech Republic and is so stunning. I covet all of the pieces!

VIE: Are there any other projects you’d like to share?

Susan: One exciting new project our team is working on is the renovation of a home on 30-A that my family lived in for the past twenty-six years. Our goal is to make it the cutest little vacation rental it can be and the first of our designerly boutique rentals in this area. We don’t have a name for it yet, but we will be promoting it for 2027–2028 stays!

VIE: Thank you, Susan and Bo!

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To learn more and see more projects, visit BohlertMassey.com. Stop by the showroom to shop at 30Avenue: 12805 US Hwy 98 E., Suite K101, Inlet Beach, Florida.