Tommy Smythe says he doesn’t care about being on camera any more. For someone who came to prominence as a bespectacled and bow-tied bon vivant on the small screen, Smythe’s new reality represents a big change.
“I call it the Dan Levy approach,” he says, referring to the Schitt’s Creek creator’s decision to end the series after a successful run. “I had a great body of work in media with Sarah Richardson at HGTV and Marilyn Denis at CTV, two women who are titans in their fields. But it’s good to go out when you’re on top.”
Since early 2020, Smythe has embarked on his own before-and-after transformation, leaving Sarah Richardson Design, the firm he’d worked at for 19 years, and striking out on his own with fellow SRD alumni Kate Stuart and Lindsay Mens. Though their new endeavour, TOM Design Collective, is humming along now – with 18 employees, projects across North America and features in U.S. design publications such as Elle Decor – its early days served up hard-won lessons.
“I will tell you, leaving my previous post and starting a business in a pandemic with all the financial repercussions nearly killed me,” Smythe says. “It was the hardest time of my life, and I’d hope like hell not to repeat it, but it was what we needed to do. Lindsay, Kate and I were determined to find enough work and grow a business that would be sustainable long term, and we did.”
Farmhouse meets ski chalet at this winter vacation home spearheaded by Mens. Dark cabinetry painted in Black Panther by Benjamin Moore adds punch and drama to the oak cabinets and woven stools. “I’ve learned to find the right balance in trusting myself and listening to the client,” says Mens.
Though Smythe has no formal design training, resilience and good taste are in his genes, qualities he credits to his mother, Anne, and paternal grandmother, Dorothea, who was an interior designer. At the age of 8, Smythe became his own first client when his parents allowed him to decorate his bedroom. He visited his grandmother’s design firm, perused fabric swatches and wallpaper books, and made choices beyond his years: herringbone grasscloth wallpaper, animal-print fabric, a hanging rattan chair and a chandelier made from goat horns.
“My mother and grandmother were astonished that I understood those things went together,” he says. By 14, when the family moved to a new house, Smythe was designing his own bedroom furniture: a floating desk and triangular bed made of Formica.
During high school at downtown Toronto’s Jarvis Collegiate, Smythe admits he was smart but misunderstood, and hardly a model student. “I excelled at ‘social studies’ – in other words, I studied billiards and recreational drugs and got into trouble swinging from firehoses under bridges in Rosedale Valley.”
The party ended abruptly in the late 1980s. AIDS was spreading through the community and many of 18-year-old Smythe’s gay friends started getting sick, some dying. “I grew up overnight and got serious about a lot of things, including keeping myself safe,” he says. Smythe moved to London and with the help of Canadian film director Mary Harron, who was the sister of a friend, landed a job in production with Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, now famous for creating RuPaul’s Drag Race.
By the time he moved back to Canada in 1992, Smythe was ready put his newfound television skills to use. He teamed up with Richardson, whom he’d met through his sister, Christie, the founder of the fashion label Smythe. Together over the next 19 years, Smythe and Richardson made magic with their on-air banter and approachable-yet-chic decorating on some of HGTV’s biggest hits such as Design Inc. and Sarah’s House.
The end of their professional and personal relationship in late 2019 is still the subject of speculation among the decor media-loving public. Smythe gets it. He knows that when you search his name online, “Tommy Smythe Sarah Richardson split” is one of the first auto-fill prompts. He’s read all 80-plus posts on the speculative Reddit thread.
“I’m aware that everybody wants to know the answer to the question,” he says. “I’ll say this: She and I had a 25-year friendship that ended abruptly and that was something I had to grieve. It happens to everyone. I wish nobody cared. The difference is, we’re public people.”
Choosing to partner with Stuart and Mens, who also left the firm around the same time after working there for 18 and 16 years, respectively, has reinvigorated Smythe’s creativity and allowed them all to explore a new way of working. The experienced trio looked around the industry and carved out their own vision – a structure that would allow for collaboration and different styles. The name TOM is a cheeky reference to Smythe, the group’s most recognizable name, but also the range of looks the firm offers: traditional or modern.
“The reason we’ve branded ourselves as a collective is because it’s a different kind of model where people could all do their own thing and flourish,” Mens says. Stuart adds that structure and processes are the key to their recent successes. “We’re designers, not businesspeople,” she says. “We looked at our strengths and weaknesses, then hired for our weaknesses.”
TOM’s more traditional side is on display in a Toronto powder room designed by Smythe, with a floral mural, antique mirror and marble wash stand to give the small space a dose of personality.
Launching at an uncertain time, the group found themselves saying yes to everything – ”We couldn’t be snobs, and we took on jobs we would’ve turned down 15 years prior,” says Smythe – and discovering the generosity of others. A client who is a CPA offered up a retainer against future work; that cheque helped buy a printer and office supplies. Jann Arden called Smythe and offered to let his new firm decorate her Toronto condo, which was sitting vacant while she was in lockdown in Calgary. Another client asked the TOM team to redo their kitchen, even though it didn’t really need the makeover.
“These people provided life-saving balance and kindness that I didn’t necessarily know I’d be receiving after the big split,” Smythe says, his voice catching with emotion. “To this day, it still moves me to tears.”
Five years after a midlife career change, Smythe has reinvented his own brand and remembered to trust the person whose instinct he’s been relying on for 50-plus years: himself. “I worked for someone else for nearly 20 years and never expected to be doing this now with two other people,” he says. “The biggest surprise is, I’m not terrible at it. Interior design and running a business are both about people.”
Lessons for a stylish life
Home truths from designer and TOM Design Collective co-founder Tommy Smythe
On why decorating matters “The feathering of one’s nest is not a trivial pursuit. It’s important to a person’s well-being and the life of a family. Your home should be as beautiful as you can afford to make it.”
On living with marble “I had a client who wasn’t comfortable with white counters in her kitchen, and I said, ‘This is a one-word conversation: Parthenon.’ If you think white marble isn’t durable, you’re wrong. That’s been sitting there for thousands of years.”
On the element of surprise “My grandmother wasn’t afraid to inject something a bit madcap into her interiors. In the corner of her cottage was a lamp in the shape of a goose. It was the tackiest thing you ever saw, but it made the room feel fun and not so perfect.”
On a design pet peeve “Stop asking for your neighbour’s house! I see interiors that look store-bought and self-conscious, with no colour and no commitment. Anybody could be living there. Create a home for yourself, not other people.”
TOM founding partners Tommy Smythe, from left, Kate Stuart and Lindsay Mens apply a democratic process to the way they work, assigning projects based on whose style is best suited to the client wish list.
