Living the Good Life

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A Jarrett Bay Boatworks greeter’s desk anchors the foyer of Vineyard Vines’ headquarters.

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Living the Good Life Take a look at their fresh new office space and you’ll be sure of one thing: At Vineyard Vines, endless summer is a reality. By Molly Calhoun beginning of fall, but inside the glass doors at the new Vineyard Vines headquarters at 181 Harbor Drive in Stamford, CT, it still feels like mid-summer. A bright-eyed, fresh-faced receptionist sits smiling behind a shiny greeter’s desk modeled like a boat stern. Nautical teak and holly cover the floors, and glossy, white beadboard lines the walls. An oversized navy couch and nautical-striped chairs welcome you to sit back and relax. On a big screen TV, Vineyard Vines CEOs and co-founders Ian and Shep Murray are shown boating, sporting sunglasses and enviable tans. The message is clear: Check your stress at the door. Since Vineyard Vines’ inception in 1998, the Murray brothers have worked hard to grow the brand while maintaining their live “the good life” philosophy. Ian and Shep—Greenwich, CT, natives and Brunswick School alums—quit the Wall Street jobs that made them miserable within

photogr aphs by jane beiles; murr ay brothers: Allegr a Anderson

It may be the

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Business The cafeteria, which overlooks the marina, has a shuffleboard table for friendly competition.

Island-themed meeting lounges are equipped with comfortable seating and cool details.

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minutes of one another. They maxed out their credit cards with cash advances to create a line of ties, and they’ve been building their brand on their “every day should feel this good” motto ever since. Today, they have 55 stores from Nantucket, MA, to Newport Beach, CA, and they’re opening more this year. They have over 190 employees at their headquarters and 1500 employees in stores. They’ve set up licensing and custom-design deals with professional sports organizations and universities. They’ve even dressed presidents. By 2014 the company’s office space at 37 Brown House Road in Stamford, CT— which they’d inhabited for 10 years—had become close quarters. So they enlisted a team led by Phillip Meyers, Jenny Paik and Carl Mirbach, from regional architec-

ture firm CPG, to help them find the perfect new home. “We had three criteria: We wanted it to be on the water; we wanted to have our own building or campus; and we wanted it to be the best possible representation of our brand,” says Shep. CPG prepared seven “test fits” before Vineyard Vines selected 181 Harbor Drive, a freestanding, 90,000-square-foot building at Shippan Landing in Stamford. It was a large-butunassuming, pale-red brick building that had been gutted. “We stood on the top floor for two hours,” says Meyers. “It was just concrete with windows at the time. Shep and Ian went from one corner to the other deciding where they wanted their desks, while staring out over the water.” And so began the year-long process of

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The largely open floorplan features workstations, high ceilings and natural light.

transforming the blank slate into the perfect nontraditional workspace, using input from all departments and the two founders. At planning meetings, Meyers recalls, the Murray brothers occasionally took breaks to get popsicles from the ice cream truck that visits the office weekly in the summer and true to form, they wore shorts well into the winter months. “Every single meeting was fun,” Meyers says. CPG and the Vineyard Vines visual design team outfitted conference rooms with teak and holly tables; they called upon Jarrett Bay Boatworks in Beaufort, NC—who custom makes the cash wrap counters for their stores—to build their foyer desk; they added fishing reels and custom rods from Fisherman’s World in Norwalk, CT. “On the first day we officially moved into the new office, we had a steel drum playing, catered breakfast and lunch and a scavenger hunt,” says Shep. “Everyone came in with a huge smile on their face, and the good vibes have continued.” And it’s no wonder: The antithesis of corporate America, the space has no sterile, high-walled

cubicles, dropped ceilings or oppressive fluorescent lights. (Remember the movie Office Space?) Instead, there are open, airy workspaces, spacious lounges, lofted ceilings and a fabulous view of Stamford Harbor. “Ian and Shep were adamant that people sat along the window line near natural light,” says Meyers. “And for the few who do have offices, they have residential windows and French doors.” In effect, the office was made to feel as comfortable as home. The ground floor, like so much of the office, is a mix of business and pleasure. There are conference rooms, an employee gym, a photo studio for shooting products and a mock store for testing product displays and lighting and for presenting collections to teams internally. The expansive cafeteria is there, too. “We eat lunch there every day with different team members,” says Ian. “We host company-wide meetings; we even have a shuffleboard for friendly office competition.” The suninfused space opens up onto a deck overlooking the marina, which includes three boat slips owned by the company. The upper floors are modeled after island vacation destinations that inspire the brand. The second floor is themed from the Florida Keys, the third is designed as an ode to the Bahamas, and the fourth is classic Martha’s Vineyard, complete with cedar shakes in the lounge. Each has meeting spaces to encourage collaboration and communication between teams, and the lounges feature bars and enormous flatscreen TVs. When walking through, one wonders how any work gets done. The answer, it seems, is that a relaxed workspace fosters efficiency and creativity. “We want our employees to feel like they have a little bit of the good life with them at work each day,” says Ian. “We’ve found that creating a positive, supportive work environment has contributed to our productivity and overall happiness.” Despite a sleek new location, the brothers have clearly worked hard to retain the

The company mantra and history is displayed on the wall of a conference room.

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The Murray brothers share this top floor office overlooking the water.

The brand’s motto is “Every day should feel this good.”

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disarming authenticity and small company feel of the brand they founded more than 15 years ago. “Even with the extra space, we still wanted to share an office,” says Shep. “We’ve shared an office from day one.” Their office on the top floor at 181 Harbor Drive is filled with family photos and the wooden whale their dad carved that once hung above the door to their childhood home. The whale that is the foundation for it all. During our visit, not surprisingly, many employees are dressed in clothing bearing the brand’s iconic smiling pink whale. Some are in sundresses, some are in flipflops, some are in backwards baseball caps. The fashion, like the office space, is quintessentially preppy, yet unpretentious. In the cafeteria, ties signed by customers at store openings hang from giant oars. User-generated images from Vineyard Vines customers line the office walls. The company has even kept their customer service call center in-house on the second floor so that entry-level employees—who often start in the department— One of the company’s boats, docked outside the office in a private slip in the marina.

learn the value of customer service from the outset. At Vineyard Vines, business is personal, and they want it to stay that way. “We grew up in Greenwich, and we’ve always tried to support communities that have supported us along the way,” says Shep. “So we’re extremely pleased we were able to stay in Stamford.” The mayor of Stamford, David Martin, who has worked hard to keep job-generating businesses in the city, is thrilled the brand has stayed, too. “Ours is a great community to operate in,” he says, pointing out that he has several Vineyard Vines ties of his own. “To have such a quality brand in Stamford makes me proud of the city; it’s a great success story. Their space is a reflection of the creative and inspiring things they do.” Speaking of inspiring, on a recent day in June, LPGA player Dori Carter, who works with the brand, stopped by the office and gave a chipping clinic on the front lawn. It was, of course, followed up by a contest and a company lunch. You know, just another day at the office at Vineyard Vines, where every day should feel that good.

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