When Jill Johnson showed up at Suzanne Ascher’s Manhattan Beach home on Rollerblades and with cornrows in her hair, Suzanne didn’t know she was meeting her future business partner. But she did know something: “That girl was a baller,” she laughs.
Brought together to plan a wedding shower for a mutual friend, it’s no surprise the future owners of Waterleaf Home and Waterleaf Interiors hit it off. With their parallel yet contrasting backgrounds (Jill running her own surf fashion business, Suzanne working in manufacturing and corporate sales for the ultimate preppy fashion house, Ralph Lauren), they respected each other’s definitive creative streak.
Their friendship blossomed, but it wasn’t until more than a decade later that they decided to join forces. Suzanne had already launched a solo career.
“I’d been contributing to the interiors of my husband’s and my own homes,” she says. “When the one I’d designed solely on my own was published in House Beautiful, it seemed like it was time to make the jump to making design my career.”
Jill’s story is a bit more unexpected. She was deep into her fashion business when a friend approached her about an opportunity to decorate a Beverly Hills home.
“I said, ‘I don’t do that,’” she recalls. “But they thought I should interview for the project. I didn’t even know what a paint deck was! So I asked Suzanne to help me.”
Jill got the job. Realizing that a career in interiors was more sustainable than fashion if she wanted to start a family, she launched a design business from home. But running a company from her house wasn’t for her. So once again, she turned to Suzanne—this time to go all in.
“Our look reflects the location we’re working in. It could be a Manhattan Beach home, a mountain retreat in Idaho or an estate in Santa Barbara.”
The first step? Figuring out exactly what their focus would be.
“We found a great shell of a space to work out of in Manhattan Beach,” Jill says, “but it wasn’t an ideal retail location. We didn’t know which direction it would take—either a furniture store or a design studio. We opened both and waited to see which would do better.”
In the beginning, that was Waterleaf Interiors. But even with the firm’s burgeoning success, the first few years were anything but easy.
“Our studio wasn’t much bigger than a closet,” Jill recalls of the 6-by-10-foot office into which the pair managed to squeeze six desks.
Beyond the challenge of tight quarters came family commitments. When they opened their businesses, Suzanne had two little girls, and Jill was pregnant with her first child. Tag-teaming was the solution.
“Suzanne would do school drop-off, come in after and work until pick-up,” Jill explains. “I came in at lunch and worked until the evening. Once I had my baby, I brought him to the office in a sling.”
Some smart business moves took Waterleaf Home to the next level. “Once we could afford it, we expanded into an adjacent building we’d purchased,” Jill says. “Then the store and design firm had separate spaces. That’s when the shop really picked up.”
The interplay between Waterleaf Home and Waterleaf Interiors wasn’t something Jill and Suzanne planned. But upon reflection, it makes sense.
“People come in, admire the product and ask if we do interior design,” notes Jill. “So it brings in a lot of clients.”
But Waterleaf is about more than products or interiors. “Often people don’t even come in to buy something,” Suzanne says. “They come in to connect.”
Waterleaf Home’s light-filled coastal aesthetic adds to the welcoming atmosphere. This blue-and-white palette that the shop is known for is as much a nod to Suzanne’s East Coast roots as it is to its California locale. Inspired by the clapboard homes along the Eastern seaboard, the designers brought this airy look to the South Bay during a time when heavy Tuscan interiors were at the forefront of design.
“I definitely feel that we’ve contributed to a coastal vibe in Manhattan Beach,” Jill muses.
At the same time, the designers are quick to point out that their interiors are less prescriptive than their shop.
“Our clientele in the store is very different than our design clients,” Jill says. “We do a range of styles: Spanish, modern, traditional, coastal.”
Adds Suzanne: “Our look reflects the location we’re working in. It could be a Manhattan Beach home, a mountain retreat in Idaho or an estate in Santa Barbara.”
Twenty years after Suzanne and Jill launched Waterleaf in a 60-square-foot space, they’ve become fixtures in the South Bay design scene. But they are convinced their greatest achievement isn’t the hundreds of homes they’ve designed in the area and beyond, or the recognizable aesthetic they’ve helped cultivate. It’s the partnership itself.
“People always say, ‘Don’t go into business with your best friend,’” Suzanne says. “Well, I think quite the contrary. I trust Jill with my life and my future.”
