When customers enter home store and interior design studio Li Luxe at 338 Plandome Road, they’re immersed in autumn-themed displays that combine colorful fall aesthetics with a luxurious, upscale feel. A kitchen table is adorned with a bronze-colored turkey, tall candlesticks and shimmering faux corn cobs. In a Halloween section, a sculpture of a witch doubles as shelves, holding Halloween-themed mugs among smiley jack-o-lanterns. Candles, picture frames and coffee table books sit in perfectly-curated piles throughout the store–seasonal at the front, but more appropriate for year-round toward the back.
“Some part of it in design is not just putting things together. It’s creating an ambiance,” said interior designer Pauline Frohlick. “This store has the ambiance when you walk in. You can go into each little section, and you would feel something because it’s so well blended.”
At the back of the room are double doors with frosted windows, which reveal the second half of Li Luxe’s business: an interior design studio full of wallpapers, drapes and other home furnishings, where Frohlick and owners and designers Andrea Deignan and Barbara Frank meet with clients for services from whole-house designs to finishing touches.
“The idea behind this: We’re bringing the showroom, the store, up-front, and then the office in the back is to be able to service the community in a lot of different ways–having the gift shop, being able to design for people off of the street, not necessarily having to hire a designer to do your entire house,” Deignan said. “It’s kind of an all service place now, which I think is great.”
Across from Louie’s and less than a minute walk away from Orlando’s Deli, the storefront reaps the benefits of its central Plandome Road location–including a great deal of foot traffic. The Manhasset-based owners don’t take this for granted. Li Luxe originally opened a Roslyn work studio in 2018, and established an additional showroom with a few pieces of furniture around the same time–but they were disappointed in the lack of customers their storefront attracted.
“I like the movement better than–I mean, I loved Roslyn, but I like it here a lot more right now,” Frank said.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses moved out of the building were the the office was based, inspiring the team to hold a showroom sale. The event was successful, sparking the idea of a pop-up holiday store at the Manhasset storefront that later became their permanent location.
“We were like, ‘Let’s try a pop-up for the holidays. Who doesn’t love the holidays?’” Deignan said. “At the time, I lived in Manhasset, and there’s always empty storefronts. It was just an idea, and it was a great way to introduce ourselves to the community, be a part of something. It ended up being better than we could have ever expected.”
Frank said the wintertime pop-ups were beautiful.
“It was just so magical entering here, because we had it so beautifully decorated,” Frank said. “It was a fantastic experience.”
Li Luxe hosted the temporary shop again last year, with the intent of possibly bringing their whole business to the location, and since then they’ve been working on getting permits and construction done.
“Every time people came in, they were like, ‘This is amazing. We need it. Can you guys stay?’” Deignan said. “It’s been so fun having people come in thinking that we’re just here for the season again and having the ability to tell them that we’re permanent.”
The team feels connected to the Manhasset community and are trying to get involved in various causes, including a recent Chamber of Commerce event.
“We feel closer to the community here than we did in Roslyn,” Frank said. “We’re constantly involved with the community and trying to give back to them.”
In an ideal world, Li Luxe wants clients seeking to make their spaces intentional to their style and space, and when their business faces challenges after clients bring in references from social media that don’t fit their homes.
“We find ourselves up against this whether it’s AI or a Pinterest page, and it just doesn’t allow us to do what we do as well as we can do it,” Deignan said.
Frank said the store also faces a challenge when customers come in with images from large furniture chain stores.
“Everybody wants those rooms, and they come to us, and they’re like, ‘Well, we want this.’ Well, then just go there and get it. You don’t need us to recreate.”
Frank said this limits their creativity.
“We take a lot of time, and we invest a lot of time and money to learn and to be informed on seating and what’s comfortable, and to go and see the product that we would love to be able to pass to our clients and say, ‘this, not that,’” she said.
But the Li Luxe team said they love the business they’ve created, reflecting on the joy of receiving praise from clients on projects over the years. Diegnan said her favorite part of the job is when it’s done, and she’s able to see all she’s created.
“You walk in and you really get to see all that you’ve done and your accomplishments after the fact, there’s that wow moment that I get when I’m like, ‘Wow, this really turned out great,’” she said. “There’s a pride you feel that never goes away. And that moment, that feeling of like, ‘This was successful.’”
In just a few weeks, Li Luxe will turn its storefront from an autumn haven into a winter wonderland. In the studio’s storage basement, oversized nutcracker statues, red-and-green ornaments and other festive decorations are “defrosting,” waiting for the interior designers to place them into their curated display.
