I SAW EMILY AT A PARTY. I hadn’t seen her since our interview. I walked over and she didn’t see me, so I rather impertinently eavesdropped on her conversation.
My mother was a zoologist and worked with Jane Goodall, and when Jane couldn’t find a good place for orphaned chimpanzees, she brought them to our house. It was great.
I finally got her attention and said, You didn’t tell me that during your interview; maybe that explains everything!
Maybe.
Why start a general store?
It started many generations ago in my family; my great-grandmother immigrated at the age of 16 from Wales to San Francisco to work in the family’s general store in the early 1900s. She took a ship from Wales to New York and then a train across the country all by herself. I come from this long line of very brave, independent Welsh women, and I always dreamed of having a general store. This was fulfilling my family dream from generations ago.
In our world, providing vertical experience in everything we do is at odds with the idea of a general store, where it’s not defined by age, by demographic, by psychographic, or by interest.
This general store is about a lifestyle. It’s about finding well-curated things that have a light footprint on the earth. And it’s about being able to go into one store and get something for everybody. It’s like, get your olive oil, or get a dress, or some sunscreen. And you can leave with a cookie.
You have a background in tech. How did you wind up at a general store?
I studied art in college, specifically metalsmithing, jewelry design, ceramics and photography. And when I graduated, I worked for different artists. I had my own jewelry line, and for a while, I was an event planner. I’ve done a million things in this lifetime. I was lucky enough to be a pretty early employee at Airbnb, a very exciting time.
I opened their Oregon and Seattle sites, and then was back at headquarters in San Francisco. It was a whirlwind seven years. I got like five master’s degrees in that amount of time – scaling sites, growing these offices from 30 to 500 employees. It was wild, and it’s something I’d never trade. But I’m not meant to sit behind a computer all the time. It wasn’t sustainable.
But I think one of the things I learned at Airbnb was about being entrepreneurial. The founders were like that. So I think that my goal was to be entrepreneurial, to create an authentic experience for people when they come to Santa Fe.
Your other company is the Santa Fe Surf Co.
Santa Fe Surf Co. was a goofy idea. When I first moved here I didn’t know anybody. I was staying on the east side in a long-term Airbnb, and I only talked to the dog. I started reading about the history of the water wars, and the acequia systems, and the Spanish farming in this arid climate. One day I was walking along the acequia, and to be frank, I was stoned, walking the dog. I’d smoked a little joint, and took the dog on a walk. And I thought, Wouldn’t it be hilarious to do a riff on surf culture in the desert? What if the acequia is the ocean? So I built a brand around this idea. It’s ironic. I was like, Oh, I’d call it Santa Fe Surf Co. And then I was like, Oh, that would be cool. Santa Fe Surf Co. just stuck with me and I couldn’t shake it.
And are people getting it?
They are, which is surprising. A lot of my friends were like, You’re fucking crazy.
At the beginning, most people who bought Santa Fe Surf Co. stuff were people I know in California who are actually surfers. But now we sell it at the general store and when people see it, they love it. There were New Yorkers in here last week who thought it was hilarious. They bought three shirts and a tote bag to bring home with them.
The tagline is, “Built to Stand Taller Together.” With streetwear it’s like if you’re in a city and you’re wearing some cool gear, you stand a little bit taller, you feel confident. So for me, Santa Fe Surf Co. is about community. It’s about bringing people together, and it’s about the fact that if we work together as a community, we’ll stand taller together. And it’s about bringing some youthful flare to Santa Fe.
And this is something for the people who are here, not just the people who visit. I think that’s the difference with Santa Fe Surf Co. Yes, it’s ironic. It’s a total stoner goofy idea. But people love it. Our bestselling shirt, which I’m sold out of, is the Cowboy Surfer. It’s a cowboy riding a horse, holding a surfboard. Everybody who comes to Santa Fe wants to leave with a little something cowboy, but you can’t go back to Connecticut wearing a ten-gallon hat. So you’re able to take this shirt home and you have a little something cowboy, a little something Wild West.
We’re creating something that when we wear it, we all belong. We all belong to this land in Santa Fe. I sell a shirt that says, “Pray for Surf.” I created that when there were fires on the mountain and Mora was burning, and generations of people were losing their livestock, their land and their family homes. And it’s like, pray for rain. So it’s about things that are really happening here, but with a little surfer twist.
How did you come to Santa Fe?
COVID hit and Airbnb laid off 3,000 people. My job was to make people feel like they belonged. And then, in the height of a pandemic, I’m laid off by a contract HR person, not even my own boss.
I went to Colorado to work on a friend’s cannabis farm, and then decided to visit Santa Fe. I put the dog in the truck and came to Santa Fe. Within the first hour of being here I just knew this was my place. I could heal and start fresh with these intentions of building a sustainable life in a beautiful place, a place that actually felt like there was community, even during COVID. And the pace at which Santa Fe moves is the pace at which life should be lived. For years, I was sitting in traffic for three hours a day and behind a computer for 15-plus hours a day. That’s not how humans were created to exist.
So I moved here two years ago and I have the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. I live in a beautiful place and have this beautiful business. But I do feel like you have to go through life’s shakeups to get to who you really are and to understand your own truest, most core values.
You think starting over is helpful?
Sometimes you think you’re on the right path, and you’re not. I thought I was on the right path. I was working a corporate job, I had health insurance, I had paid time off. And I bought the lie. Society tells you, Get a job with health insurance and all this stuff. Get married. Have kids. Live in the suburbs. Get a dog. All those things. But it’s not fucking true. I think blowing up your life, whether intentional or not, is the greatest blessing – it allows you to discover the things that are really valuable.
Learn more here: santafesurfco.com
Photos Courtesy Santa Fe Surf Co
