Revisionist History - Revisionist History LIVE with Nate Berkus

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Malcolm Gladwell sits with interior design legend Nate Berkus in a live conversation covering everything from travel, to their moms, prestige TV, and finding the places that can cure us of melancholy. This episode was recorded at the AC Hotel New York Times Square, and is brought to you by AC Hotels.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. famous interior designer. You may know him from his appearances over the years on the Oprah Winfrey show. You may have read one of his books. You may even have some of his products in your home. Anyway, this all came about because AC Hotels wanted to host an event about design and creativity at their Times Square location in New York City. And we decided to invite Nate to come, which turned out, as you will hear, to be an inspired choice. I had so much fun doing this. We talked about our moms, about Paris, about the TV shows that fill us with rage, and a million other things, but mostly about design and creativity. Nate is as charming and funny as he is smart. Anyway, here it is. This all took place in the rooftop bar of the AC Hotel in New York, with all kinds of fabulous cocktails and appetizers being passed around. Just a heads up, you may hear some city noises in the background.

I hope you enjoyed this live episode as much as I did. I wanted to say before I started, I think we should get this little order, a bit of business out of the way. I've scored enormous points with my significant other this evening by interviewing you. Kate, normally if I'm interviewing like the, you know, hypothetically the CEO of whatever, Microsoft, she would say, oh, interesting, and then go back to her phone. When word leaked that I was interviewing Nate Berkus, it was like, Nate Berkus? It was like, you can't imagine the kind of celebrity power you have in my home. You are welcome.

Yes, yes. So, no, it's huge. It's huge for all of us in the Gladwell household. May I just say that when I told my mother that I was going to be a guest on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, her response was, why? That's not very nice. We're going to be talking about travel and design

and your career and all kinds of interesting things. Before we get to your career, though, you and I both have the travel bug. Because I have a theory that the travel bug is innate. It's not acquired. You either have it or you don't. So is the design bug. So is it.

Oh, good. So we're talking, we're trafficking. And I have a little story about myself, which I think proves this is true. But before I tell that story, I wanted you to tell me, when did you realize, when is the first evidence the world has

that Nate has the travel bug? How young are you? I think, yeah, tell me when did you realize what is the first evidence the world has that nate has a travel book how young are you i think it yeah i think it was um the first time i was somewhere without a chaperone like a proper chaperone i did a semester abroad in europe and moved to paris and sort of lived in this tiny little box at the top of a beautiful old building with a shared bathroom. It's the fantasy. It was amazing. I sold all my clothes to have spending money. Were you wearing all black at that point?

I wanted to wear all black. I was wearing Ralph Lauren and that's not what it was. No, no, no. So yeah, I had to sell that. Get some money for a leather jacket. But I found myself in Paris alone. And I remember walking the streets and feeling really good. Feeling like really solid and not being afraid and not being intimidated

and being fascinated by modern life in an ancient place. And I think that that was the first moment for me. And when I travel, I'm not really reaching for the sort of where the guides say you should go. For me, it's what is most indicative of that place as seen through objects. So I'm in the markets where people buy their pots and pans and the fabric they make the potato sacks out of. And those are the kinds of things that I'm always searching for. But that trip to Paris, that first move really to Paris,

was when I knew I would never really stay in one place for a long time. My version of that story is we moved from England to Canada when I was six. And there's a picture of us about to get on the train to go to the, we took a boat, took the Empress of England. We're about to get on the train to go to the boat. And so there's a family shot. My oldest brother is weeping. He's leaving the only countries he's ever known, all of his friends. My middle brother is clinging to my mother anxiously.

You know, it's a long 10 days through uncharted stormy seas. I look like someone who's just given me a million dollars. I am five years old, and this is the single greatest moment of my life. I'm like, are you kidding me? We're going to some unknown place on a boat for 10 days? This is amazing. That's amazing. Couldn't wait to get out of there.

That was when, if I look at the photo, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly. That's you. Nothing has changed. So I want to go back to you in Paris. You're how old? 17. Did you experience Paris at 17

the same way you would have experienced today? In other words, were you doing the same things in a new city that you do today only without realizing why? Were the habits there? Yeah, they were. I still love doing all the things that I did when I was that age in that city,

no matter where I am, allowing myself to get lost. Not relying on, you know, an Uber or a driver or whatever it is, but really digging in and seeing the space and seeing the place, trying to figure out how to ask the right people where the best Chinese food is or the best croissant or the best coffee. I have this aversion to being told what to do when I'm... I have this aversion being told what to do. How's that? Let me just leave it at that. But especially when I'm traveling because I want to figure it out for myself. And if a friend says, you have to eat here, you have to see this, or you have to go to this museum or see this historic home, I'll do it in two seconds.

But I also like to be the guy that has days doing nothing and just kind of soaking in what the culture might bring. I want to go back to something you said about allowing yourself to get lost, which is nearly impossible today. But all of us over the age of 40 remember a time when that was kind of not the norm. It was really easy to get lost and thrilling in this way. I remember when I, as a 15-year-old, me and my brother went to London and spent, we spent two weeks with my uncle and aunt. They lived just on the kind of furthest reaches of West London.

I would get on the Parsons Green tube and randomly get off at a stop and walk around. I had no, I knew nothing about London. I had never read a guidebook. What I knew about London, I knew from Dickens. Yeah. Wow. I totally get that. I had the best time.

You're a little bit afraid, but it's anticipatory, and you never know what you're going to stumble upon. The coolest place, the best restaurant. You know where I ended up going without realizing I was there until many years later. Malcolm McLaren, the founder of the Sex Pistols, had a clothing store with, was it Vivienne Westwood? Yep. On something road in Chelsea? That I don't know, but yes, I remember. I went there. I was 15. I had no clue what was going on. I was like, oh, this looks interesting.

But you found it. I found it. And it felt differently because you found it. It's like, you know, and I, yeah, I mean, to allow yourself to get lost, it wasn't really that scary. Now, I mean, as a dad, I think it's super scary. I would kill my kids. Be like, what are you talking about?

There's a lojack in your shoe and we have an apple tag in your forehead and, you know, you're, you know, but I can still see you. But I think, you know, it was just, I don't know, there was just something about being in a foreign capital in a new culture, in a place that was so old and so beautiful. And the architecture was so special to my eye at that age that I wanted to be lost. I wanted to be lost every day. Does that, if we think about that phrase as a kind of metaphor, does it also describe your professional practice as a interior designer? Yeah. I think it describes it in that I'm really afraid of people who present themselves as like they've, they're mastered a craft. Like I just, it's the weirdest sort of place. I've been doing

this for almost 30 years now, assembling spaces, hopefully that have meaning for the people that live there. But I am trying really hard to do that, but it's all evolving constantly. And, you know, in any creative endeavor, if you've made decisions about how things need to be or should be, you're missing every other sort of bright, shiny thing you can reach down and pick up and incorporate. And so I think after this long in design, I'm adept at scale. I'm adept at certain things that have practices, sort of refined a skill set that's a practical skill set. But the creative, the magical, the imaginative, yeah, I'm always lost.

I love it. Yeah. So walk me through, you're in Paris at 17. Take me from there to how you became a designer. So I'm 17. I've sold all of my Ralph Lauren clothes to the lovely kids in the neighborhood. What do you like, just briefly, in two sentences, what do you like at 17?

Guys. And fries. Nate, you can do better than that. And I still do. You can do better than that. And I still do. You can do better than that. What do I like at 17? If my 17-year-old Malcolm and 17-year-old Nate meet. Yeah, we would probably talk about music.

I was listening to like the Smiths and, you know. Of course you were. So was I. Music, music, my Walkman was on my whatever, Discman, Walkman, whatever, Talkman. And I liked clothes. And I liked clothes. And I liked history. I was interested in history even at that age. That's what we would have talked about.

What's that? We would have talked about it. That's what we would have talked about. I don't think we would have talked about clothes if you saw the clothes I was wearing when I was 17. You may have been a little further ahead of me. But you came, you grew up in Chicago. No, I was actually raised in suburban Minneapolis. And I split my time between Southern California and Minneapolis.

My parents divorced when I was two, and they both remarried instantly. My mother actually tried to get married before her divorce was legal for my dad. They went, and they said, ma'am, you're actually still married. My mother was like, oh. So go home and wash my hair. But they both remarried. My stepfather was a radiologist in Minnesota. And so I was raised there.

And then I went away to school for high school out on the East Coast. So I've been all over the place. Oh, I see. Yeah. But you do sound more sophisticated than I was at 17. I don't know about that.

I don't know. I mean, listen, I don't even know if I'm sophisticated now. My favorite restaurant worldwide is the State Fair of Minnesota. So it's just the best, guys. When you say you were interested in history at that age, what does that mean?

I was interested in architecture, and I was interested in spaces, and I was interested in a little bit in mythology and a lot in sort of, like, royal palaces and sort of aristocratic homes and like really beautiful, beautiful homes and castles and hotel particulars and things like that. I was interested in the intersection between history and design, even though I didn't know that I would make a life for myself working in design.

But I was always very sensitive to environments. I grew up with a mother who was an interior designer, so our home was constantly changing. My job was to carry these old wallpaper books in and out of the trunk of her car that weighed more than I did. Did you like your mother's sense of style? I appreciated it. She used a lot of old things, but no.

I mean, it was French country. She knows this. We've talked about this. Trust me. She's listening right now. I'm glad you said that because I had a sudden panicked thought that your mom would tune in to her sister by accident. No, she's totally tuning in and I'll be living with you under witness protection. No, my mom knew that.

But what I admired about my mother's style was that she never reached for new things. She always reached for antique furniture or vintage things. And she loved an auction or an estate sale. And that was how I got the bug of caring so much about assembling interiors for other people with things that have a little bit of history and soul. Yeah. Did your mother have the travel bug? My mother had the shopping bug. Yeah.

So, I mean, my mother was very intrepid. She was, you know, she had a point of view. And growing up, actually, now that I, now that you ask me that, I knew at a very young age that pearls came from China or, you know, great shoes came from France or great leather came from this place, from, you know, the tanneries were here. That's probably why when I land somewhere now, I'm always interested in, like, the local craft, what's made there, what they do the best job doing.

That's what I always want to know. It doesn't have to be expensive, but, like, what's the best thing in Sri Lanka? What's the best thing in Barcelona? Like, what's the coolest craft in Oaxaca? What are they known for? Yeah, you said earlier that you're very interested in investigating the culture of a place through its artifact. Yeah, through its craft. I love that. And what you're describing in your mother is a version of that. Yeah, it is. It is.

You know, my favorite, this is one of my favorite things to do, by the way, is to locate someone's passions in an earlier form found in their parents. My favorite, can I go on a total digression? Yeah. My favorite example of this was, I was once at a party in LA and I met a very famous LA manager, maybe one of the most famous of all the managers. He was famous because he was the hardest negotiator in Hollywood. He was like the guy who would argue with you for, you know, two weeks for the down to the slightest detail of a contract. And I was chatting with him and I was like, oh, tell me about your childhood.

And he goes, oh, yeah, well, my parents were, and I was really raised by my grandfather. What'd your grandfather do? Oh, he was in the button business. I was like, oh, what was that like? Well, every day after school, I would go to my grandfather's office in the garment district and I would sit in a chair

and I would listen to him argue over the, you know, the 10th of a cent difference in a large order of of buttons pause and i'm like exactly and he looked at me like i what are you talking about no connection no connection didn't see it same thing he takes the buttons and he takes it to hollywood and makes a fortune exactly right exactly so he's negotiating over 10th of a cent of the price of a button still. But do you see where I'm going with this? Of course. Of course.

I'm following this. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, you know, my mom and I have talked about over the years. She's asked me, like, what do you think my influence on you was as a young person and then obviously in design? And it was she taught me how to source. And I think a good designer has to be really good at sourcing. Because even in today's age where, you know,

obviously like at any given moment, at any place in the world, you can find exactly what you're looking for online. It's not really enough. You have to know who makes the hand painted lampshades on Etsy and who makes the Mexican pineapples in Morelia and then who

you know it's just and then who can put it all together for you and turn it into a coffee table so you know you've got to know the guy in Brooklyn too so it's but sourcing is like is what she gave me and especially a love of vintage and craft and handmade. We'll be right back after the break.

And we're back with Nate Berkus. Let's talk a little bit about hotels. Since hotels are such an integral part of the travel experience for so many people. I was thinking when I was preparing for this about, so what is the most wonderful hotel experience I ever had? And it was in a little hotel in Stockholm, which is in an old mansion. And I've forgotten what the mansion looks like, and I've forgotten what my room looked like. I know that it was nice and comfortable.

The genius thing was there was a huge old oak table immediately adjacent to an open kitchen. And when you wanted to eat, you went down and you sat at the table, and the cook came over to you and said, what do you want? And everybody who was staying at the table, it was a small table, everyone who was staying just came and sat at the table it was that thing yeah their intention was that they were recreating a swedish family home of which you were a visitor yeah and that's not what i want from every hotel but no they executed that intention beautifully yeah that's what I cared about. I think, listen, I think that every hotel wants to be welcoming. They want to be curated.

They want to be, you know, intentional in their design decisions. And most definitely design does translate and communicate sort of what, are you meant to feel chic and urban and, you know, free? Are you meant to feel relaxed and calm and sunburned? Like, you know, of course, the furniture and the textiles and even the distribution of the rooms lends itself to certain activities and certain feelings. So I have these clients in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They're incredibly wonderful. I was wondering what was going to come out. No, no, they're brilliant.

They're brilliant. You said you wanted to be there too. The pause after incredibly was. That was the genius. They're wonderful. And they travel probably 300 days a year. Yeah. And the goal was to create a home that they liked more than anywhere they've ever stayed.

They can stay anywhere in the world. And they can stay in a five-star, rent a house, rent a villa. They can literally go anywhere they want to go. But my assignment was to make home feel better than that. So it's me against, like, man against the world, man. You know. Did this make you nervous? No, I was so excited about this challenge.

Yeah. Because what it did was it allowed me to really figure out who they were as a family, what really mattered to them, what ceremonies they do in their home, how they spend time together. And it offered me an opportunity to build that tile by tile, pillow by pillow, book by book, and create a space that dreamt a bigger dream for them as a family than they had even dreamt for themselves. How did you figure that out about it? We had the architectural framework there. We knew it was a house. We knew it had these many bedrooms and these many bathrooms and whatever. But we started with a lot of imagery. And I just watched their eyes as they commented.

And I would ask them, why are you smiling when you're talking about that fireplace? You've never picked a fireplace in your entire life, but what is it that you like about that? And they were able to communicate, well, it feels so rustic and it feels so interesting and it feels like this house in Italy that we stayed in years ago and I don't know. And we really like the idea of not using a lot of marble in the bathrooms. It feels too pretentious to us. And I said, well, what if we just use the marble on the trim

and the floor is wood and there's no, and the marble on the countertops and the trim, but we'll just we just use the marble on the trim? And the floor is wood, and there's no, and the marble on the countertops in the trim. But we'll just go around the baseboards and the doors. There'll be no slabs in the shower. And so it just gradually became this dialogue that went back and forth. And, you know, the goal is not just to assemble something that's beautiful and meaningful,

but it's to delight the people who have spent this time and money hiring you to do something. And I have to say, I get a text from them weekly. They moved in over a year ago. Yeah. And then they just, we just love it here. Like we just, you know. The greatest thing would be if they stopped traveling. Right. How much do you travel? I travel a lot. How much for fun and how much work or is there no distinction in the sense that you're always collecting? Yeah, I mean, there is a distinction.

I mean, obviously, I'm going to a beach trip with my kids, you know, that I know what I'm doing there. But all the work trips, I mean, I spent 25 years doing makeovers in all these towns across the country, sometimes staying there for up to two weeks, sometimes being there for 48 hours. I always make it fun. I want to go to the local antiques malls. I want to find out who has the best hamburger.

I want the vintage fashion, the coolest monument, the private museum house. I can't sit still. The funny story about the first time I was ever in Madrid with Jeremiah, my husband, we had canvassed all these museums and we had this beautiful lunch and then we met friends and then we went to another district and we were shopping and we came home and our feet were bleeding. So we're like, you know, wearing the wrong shoes, of course. You know, even though we're well-traveled,

we wanted to look cute. You want to look cute when you're in Madrid. So we got back to the hotel and he like had his feet in the bathtub and just sitting there like sort of softly moaning. And I was on the bed with one of the magazines that was in the hotel. And as I was reading this men's fashion story, I was looking intently at all these decorative boxes and objects and frames and like leather from the 50s and like all this like really cool stuff and then I went to the back of the magazine and found the credit

and it said the name of this store and I called downstairs the concierge and he said it's closing but it's actually owned by my neighbor if you want me to call him he'll stay open for you and I said yes yes please call him I want to see this store. And Jer finally comes around the corner with his bloody feet. And I go, you got to put your shoes back on. Nate, you're exhausting. I'm so exhausting. Describe to me when you encounter spaces

for the first time, what's your process of judgment? Do you always have a kind of reaction to it? Do you find yourself frequently appalled, outraged? No, I'm never outraged. You know why I ask this question? Because my version of what you do is stories. And when a story is badly told, I am furious.

I just, parenthetically, wasted a good three weeks of my life. And I have no free time to smudge them. Watching Ozark. And after a season and a half, I'm like, this is absolutely, indescribably appalling. How did they do this? I want to go after the showrunner and just say, you destroyed three weeks of my life. Do you have any idea how precious that is to me? Yeah.

But you don't have this. I don't have the rage. You don't have the rage. No, I mean, I don't. We're both Virgos. I know. I mean, I have rage about other things. I have rage about dirty laundry, but I don't have the same... I don't have the rage. You don't have the rage? No, I mean, I don't. We're both Virgos. I know. I mean, I have rage about other things. I have rage about dirty laundry, but I don't have rage about that.

Okay, okay. But I... No, I mean, the answer to your question, though, is when I walk in... First of all, I hate that show, too. It's so badly done. Oh, God. Oh, my God. It's miserable.

Like, catch them or don't catch them already. It's the same thing. It's the same scene every episode. Leave Ozarks. If it's so much trouble being in the Ozarks, leave the Ozarks. Yeah, exactly. Talk about travel. Don't start another casino.

And then at the end of episode one, you know, Laura Linney, Wendy, says, oh yeah, we have a spot in Australia all picked out. Go there! I know. Save yourselves. Save yourselves. When I walk into a space, honestly, it's almost like AI. Like my eyes open and I look in a space and I can immediately see what I would change. And there's not one right way to do anything, obviously, in life. And there's certainly not

one right way to assemble a room or renovate a space. Marry another designer for 10 years, if you don't believe me. But honestly, like the minute I walk in, and this is I think one of the reasons why I've had so much fun with real estate over the years. It's like I can just like I walk in and it's just like a film goes over me and I can see like, raise that, take out that beam, bring the cabinets to the ceiling, do a floor here, change the floor there, move this doorway over three feet. And by the time, I mean, most of our renovations actually,

and this is true, most of our renovations, and we've renovated everywhere we've ever lived. We've never just walked in and been like, this is great. My little plant here is going to be perfect. But every single renovation started with going home and writing out initial ideas. And short, and those initial ideas

were 85% of the final product. The instant knee-jerk reaction of how the room should flow, how the space should be laid out. Not for furniture floor plans because, you know, we're two designers. Like, we move stuff around all the time. But in terms of the actual bones of a place,

it's like a film just comes down, and on the film, I can see it. The thing that I'm reminded of as you talk about it, it's like a point guard describing what he or she sees on a basketball court. Yep, and that is a reference that is so hard for me to follow, but you are 100%. I'm sure you're right.

I love a sports analogy, Malcolm. Bring them at me. It's like the 40-yard line. Let me try again. No, no. There is a kind of... No, but what's funny about listening to you say that, which makes perfect sense to me,

because that is your gift, right? That's the essence of what you do, is being able to see a different, a more interesting version of what you're presented with. And a version that's easier and better to live in. It may not be better than the original, of course, but it's going to be better for whoever lives there. But Nate, how does this...

I want to go back to this question of why you don't feel rage. So if you go in and you can't change it, how do you cope? You come to my house for dinner. Yeah. And you walk in and you do that thing. And you're like, oh God, that was got like 50 things wrong. And you realize, well, you're not going to change it.

He's not a client. I'm not going to be here. So do you sit uncomfortably through dinner just thinking, why is that there? No. What are you thinking? You know what? Honestly, first of all, a little side note about me. I appreciate a home-cooked meal more than I care about what the dining room looks like.

Because my mother made nothing growing up. So I would, I mean, that sounds delicious. I don't even care. I love how large your mother has loomed. I know, she has really loomed. What's your mother's name? Nancy. Shout out to Nancy.

Yeah, there you go. But yeah, she has been looming. Large in a lot of ways. You know why that is? Because my favorite thing is talking about people's parents. You do? I didn't know that. I could talk about people's parents.

If you had told me I could do this, I would have made this the entire show about your mom. Why not? She would love that. Let's just talk about your mom. That's amazing. People think moms get too much airtime. Wrong.

Yeah. Way too little airtime. It's all about mom. My mom is aware of that. What? My mom actually is not. This is one of her charms. That is charming.

I can't imagine. That's like a point guard, too. My mother, if you talk on the phone with her too long, she will remind you of other things to do. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I can't even imagine. Where were we?

You're upset that, I think you're upset that I'm not rageful when I come for a meatloaf at someone's house. No, I'm trying to, here, no, we're getting back to the serious question. Okay. And that is, I'm trying to understand how you manage your, you have a powerful aesthetic sense, right? Which dominates your life. It's why you're who you are, why you're good at what you do. I can answer that. I know where you're going.

I wonder how you manage it. There's two things. One, there's a time and a place for everything. And I believe that. And so if I'm looking at a property because I'm going to live there personally, then I can't turn off that AI kind of thing. If I'm looking at a property that somebody is paying me to change on their behalf, then I can't turn anything off. But if I'm going to dinner at someone's house or I'm sitting on my sister's floor playing with my nephew, I don't care.

I just don't. I mean, I couldn't care less. I'm like, where are we bringing lunch in from? Do you like my haircut? There's so many other things that are, did you read this book? Did you hear what happened to so and so? What really makes me ragey actually- Good, I'm glad we're finally getting- Okay, you ready?

Yeah. Okay, here you go, Mr. Malcolm Gladwell. Now'm glad we're finally getting there. Okay, you ready? Yeah. Okay, here you go, Mr. Malcolm Gladwell. Now, Mom, you know why. What makes me ragey is people who are really confident in their bad taste. It makes me insane. And it usually is tied to a lot, like a great deal of money, like a huge fortune wasted. And I cannot stand the shape of their heads

when they tell you how special and fabulous, because they use that word a lot. That's a key word. If you're going to have really terrible taste and be confident about it, you need to say everything is fabulous over and over. So you yourself apparently believe it, but that makes me insane.

Do you want to name names at all? Sure. I think that there's, the reason why it's not extremely complicated to have a career in design at any level is because there's so much insecurity around design. And I've tried to make that okay over the years to to not be so heavy-handed. I have my own convictions. I know what I think is beautiful. You know, when you're on makeovers for 15 years

on the Oprah Winfrey show in 200 countries and everybody's looking to you, the question was always like, what's the trend? What's the trend coming up? And you could hear the representative from the wool bureau in the background and the Pantone color of, you know, and not that I would decide that, but they were just like, is he going to agree?

Is he going to whatever? And I've always felt like all these waves, these trends are designed to make people feel bad about what they didn't buy at the last trend. And so my whole philosophy has always been like, if you actually spend the time to get to know yourself well enough to know what really what you really do enjoy what really like makes your heart sing when you look around a space um then you can shut out all that noise and build something that matters because the the interiors that i've been inspired by over the years the ones that really mattered to me are the ones where people just like kind of busted a move. You know, it was France in the 1950s and this Mexican count decided that he was going to

make all these follies in his garden and design the house. It's called Chateau de Grousse for anyone who wants to look it up. But like, it's a real place. And he put a royal blue rug down in the dining room with Kelly Green chairs because no one was doing that. And that's what he wanted to live in. And maybe it was because he was half from Mexico. Maybe it wasn't, who knows.

But it was revolutionary. And, you know, had he been worried about what color the sweaters on the mannequins in Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue were going to be, like, it was, you know, it was inconceivable. So am I like a real renegade am i breaking all these rules am i zaha hadid making buildings that look like they balance on the bottom of a pin and you know no i'm not my goal is to make like really livable

spaces that if they're designed right now 25 years from now, they still look great. And more importantly, they still feel great. So that's my niche. That's what matters. And I think that's what all this, loathing people with lots of money and bad taste and being vehemently anti-trend, you end up with some nice tile. Yeah.

Okay, last question. Yeah. Not meant to be a downer question, but imagine that you were sad. You were melancholy over something. And I came to you, Nate, and I said, I will fly you tonight to the one place in the world that will cure you of your melancholy. Where do I take you?

Home. Oh. Oh, that's lovely I take you? Home. Home. That's lovely. Thank you so much, Nate. This has been so much fun. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this special live episode of Revisionist History, brought to you by AC Hotels.

It was produced by Tali Emlin, with Nina Lawrence and Ben Nadaf-Haffrey. Editing by Sarah Nix. Mastering by Jake Gorski. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Kira Posey, Joshua Crowley, Brianne Moreno, Raya Anthony,

Benjamin Jester, and the whole production crew at iHeartMedia. Not to mention Nate Berkus' shop. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.