The view from the Motel Deluxe offices
Illustrations from The Galapagos Collection
About Motel Deluxe
Thirteen years ago, when Michael Schultz and Doug Duncan were on the cusp of their first big stationery hit—greeting cards made entirely by hand that ultimately got picked up by Barney's, the Holy Grail taste-maker of the retail sector, they realized their business needed a name. They had ventured out to Michael's home town in Idaho in order to have some down time and reconnect with nature, an enthusiasm (in addition to furry animals) that they both share, and vowed that before they returned to San Francisco, their home at the time, they'd figure out what to call themselves. Otherwise they'd have no way of invoicing the hordes of retail customers who were burning up their phone and fax lines with orders. Plus, they needed to eat.
As they rode into the outskirts of Salmon, population 2,946, they found their answer looming above the pointy tops of the pine trees: a 60-foot neon beacon of a sign that read Motel Deluxe. The oxymoronic quality of the concept -- Super 8-styled lodging that was also luxurious - appealed to the entrepreneurial duo in two ways. First, its inherent cheekiness fit their personalities, and second, it was open-ended enough so as not to limit them to a specific product sector or business model as they went about building their empire.
Motel Deluxe, the wholesaler of a curated collection of tasteful, one-of-a-kind products, including a full range of stationery and other paper items designed and produced by U.S.-based artisans and European toys and games ideal for nostalgic Francophiles, was born.
Shortly afterward they moved their company to New York, and these days you can find Motel Deluxe's exclusive products—the Galapagos collection of journals, note pads, sticky notes, and place cards designed by Jacqueline Schmidt of Screech Owl Design; Marc Vidal's European-made and inventively packaged stationery (including colored pencils and erasers), games, and toys; and the Motel Deluxe designed “Covers” and “Nature” collections of greeting cards , to name a few - for sale nationwide in fine gift and stationery stores, garden centers and florists, and home furnishings and apparel retailers such as Anthropologie.
In the years since they spotted the sign, Michael and Doug, both retail-savvy refugees of the home furnishings and gift industries (and self-proclaimed paper nuts), have given birth to a Motel Deluxe retail sibling called Cursive. With outposts in two New York City commercial hubs—Grand Central Terminal and ABC Carpet & Home—and a new shingle in Amagansett on Long Islands tony East End, Cursive serves as a real-time retail barometer that enables the entrepreneurs to keep their fingers on the pulse of what's hot and what's not. On its shelves the store features many of the brands and products exclusively offered by the Motel Deluxe line.