Who needs Wall Street? She swapped the trading floor for Red Bank interior design firm
RED BANK - Growing up in a suburb of Boston, Sarah Brady had a natural affinity for architecture and interior design. And she brought those skills to Shore-area homeowners through her 2014 launch of Salt Design Co., a Red Bank-based provider of stylish and timeless interiors with a touch of New England flair.
“My father is a residential contractor in the Boston area, so I grew up on jobsites watching him work,” said Brady, 38, a Rumson resident. “As a kid, I was always redecorating my room and was more interested in painting or wallpapering the inside of my dollhouse than playing with dolls.”
Attending Boston College after high school, Brady started out majoring in math and graduated with a degree in finance and marketing — all skills which served her well as she pursued a career trading equity derivatives in New York City.
“I loved applied math and the opportunity to work with numbers in a dynamic environment on the trading floor,” Brady said of the job she held for eight years. “But ultimately, however, I felt that it used very little creativity and I didn’t have a passion for it. My husband Matt had a lot of hobbies and I realized that I didn’t have any, so I started re-exploring my passion for interior design.”
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On a leap of faith, “I left my job in June 2014 and gave myself two months to open my own design business,” Brady said. “Matt was building a new beer garden in Asbury Park at the time and there was a 2,000-square-foot space available nearby on Cookman Avenue, so we leased it. We built out the space with floors and walls, ordered inventory, and officially opened on August 1, 2014.”
She named her venture Salt Design Co. to reflect the company’s Shore-area setting and her organic, of-the-earth style, “although my husband always joked that Salt stood for ‘Sarah’s ALTternative’ path!” she said.
“In 2017, we opened a second location in Fair Haven that was a retail shop with furnishings, home accessories, furniture, bedding and kitchen décor,” Brady said. “The store served as my portfolio and a way to meet potential clients, who could come in, see the items we curated, and get a sense of our design taste.”
That approach worked and the business grew through social media and word of mouth, “but as we evolved and got more into design work over the past seven to eight years, we realized that we didn’t need two retail storefronts — rather, just one site that offered more dedicated office space,” she said.
After shutting down her store in Asbury Park, Brady said, “we moved into the former Anderson building in Red Bank in 2020 and closed our Fair Haven location this February in order to focus more on the design side in Red Bank.”
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Seamless experience
Today, “we’re a luxury residential interior design firm specializing in renovation and new construction projects, but also full-service interior design,” Brady said. “We pride ourselves on our customer service and ability to manage the design process from start to finish and make it as seamless as possible for clients.
"There can be thousands of decisions to make,” she explained, “but we leverage our experience to pull things together professionally and help prevent mistakes. People may build or renovate one or two houses in their lifetime, but we do 25 projects a year, have seen the mistakes, and have the experience to help homeowners navigate the process smoothly and successfully.”
According to Brady, Salt Design’s services include everything from 30- to 60-minute virtual consultations to discuss layout, furniture selection, renovation ideas and anything architects have undertaken, to more hands-on activities.
“Through our full-service interior design expertise, we can ‘fill the box’ when it comes to paint, wallpaper, decorative moldings, window treatments, artwork and all furnishings down to coffee table books,” she said. “For renovation and new construction interior design, we can handle everything from millwork, cabinetry and hardware selection to furniture, accessories, artwork and more, all personalized to each client.”
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“Our virtual consultations run from $300 to $500, full furnishing projects start at around $15,000, and some of our more comprehensive, full-home projects can run upwards of $1 million,” said Brady, whose firm works with over 250 local, national and international vendors to secure the most unique and high-quality pieces.
“We’ve done everything from single room designs (such as a bathroom or living room) to whole houses that are over 8,000 square feet and contain a lot of guest rooms and entertaining space. Projects can take anywhere from four to six months for a full furnishing and one to three years for new construction,” she said.
Serving a primarily Monmouth County-based clientele, “90% of what we do is operational and logistical in nature,” Brady noted.
“Our functional designs and layouts are driven by our understanding of each client’s preferences and lifestyle, but then it’s all about execution and project management — providing vendors and tradespeople with the information they need, implementing the designs properly, managing deliveries and being onsite to oversee the process,” she said. “That’s been my background and we pride ourselves on that element of client support.
“We work on houses of all styles and genres, but based on our location, many of our projects are beach houses and we specialize in a style that we call ‘sophisticated casual,’” Brady said, adding that two of Salt Design’s most recent projects involved oceanfront homes in Bay Head and Sea Girt. “In both cases, we were involved at the architectural phase before plans were even finalized and created a soft, organic feel to the homes with a focus on the views.”
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Clean lines, natural elements
As for her firm’s approach to projects, “we have a minimalist style with a touch of luxury and opulence,” Brady said. “We like clean lines and uncluttered spaces and try to integrate natural elements into our designs, from plants to the incorporation of simple and organic textures that aren’t overly designed, especially at the beach. I love well-proportioned, classic architecture and bring a bit of New England flair to the Shore area, which has so much natural beauty and history.”
In terms of trends, “we’re seeing a shift towards warmer color tones since the pandemic, as well as more pieces that cater to the homeowners’ lifestyle and reflect their personality, such as custom-made furniture and art, so that their house doesn’t look like every other one,” Brady said. “Simplicity and the visuals of cleanliness and organization are also very popular, especially in a second home, so we work with closet and cabinetry organizers and specialists to determine where everything goes.”
Because Brady and her team are so attuned to their clients’ needs, she said, “we have lots of repeat customers and have worked on their projects in other states.”
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Though meeting tight deadlines and managing clients’ expectations on complex projects can be challenging, “we have eight designers, including myself, and three operations specialists and the size of our team is big enough to handle all of our extensive activity but not too big that I can’t be heavily involved,” Brady said. “I love leading a team of all great women — we work hard but have fun in a casual environment — and they’re the reason we’re able to achieve so much for our clients.”
“We service clients with a personal touch, and I love being involved in the day-to-day design process,” Brady said. “We deliver beautiful finished products with as few loose ends as possible and clients appreciate that we hold their hand through an often-complex process, advocate for them and make their experience as positive and efficient as possible.”
Among her favorite parts of her job, “seeing clients thrilled with the outcome and loving their space is the greatest reward,” said Brady, whose award-winning designs have been featured in such magazines as Architectural Digest, Real Simple and Design NJ. “It’s exciting to see our clients’ projects come to fruition and help them get to a place where they’re so happy and proud of their home.”
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Salt Design Co.
Location: 200 Monmouth St., #275, Red Bank
Phone: 732-268-7073
Founded: 2014
Owner: Sarah Brady
Website: www.saltdesigncompany.com
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Salt Design Co. in Red Bank offers stylish timeless interior design
