Interior Design Archives

Kitchen and Bathroom Designs Reflect How People Live Today

By Contributor May 26, 2021

Home Improvement Special Coverage

Upscale but Simple

While interior-design trends in homes can be slow to change — and, in many ways, have been, as evidenced by the white and grey colors that still dominate — the way people are using their homes did change somewhat over the past year. That, and a growing desire among older homeowners to age in place, has influenced what people are looking for in kitchens and bathrooms — and they have no shortage of options to achieve their vision.

By Mark Morris

With a wave of her hand, Lori Loughlin makes the water flow from a touchless kitchen faucet.

While homebuyers want to put their own stamp on a new house, Scott Keiter said, when it comes to kitchens, they tend to think alike.

In fact, the owner of Keiter Builders currently has six new homes under construction, and for every one, the owners want kitchens that provide plenty of light, an airy feeling, and enough room for people to gather.

“We’re seeing less of a distinction between the kitchen and living area and more of a merger as the two morph into one space,” he said.

In many cases, the anchor to this space is the kitchen island. While islands have been popular for years as a way to provide more counter and cabinet space, during the pandemic, they saw increased use for food preparation as people ate more meals at home. The island also served as a desk for many who suddenly found themselves working from home. As a result, Keiter said, islands have become more multi-purpose, and the kitchen is now seen as a multi-use space.

“On top of the normal cooking and food prep, we’re seeing a movement to make the kitchen a more communal room. It’s becoming a place to work from home, as well as a place for guests and friends to congregate.”

While the kitchen is becoming more of a gathering place and its form and function are changing, Dave Lloyd, manager of Budget Cabinet, said every customer looking to remodel that space shares one objective: convenience.

“While new houses allow for bigger islands, we do a lot of remodeling projects where people are limited by the footprint of their house,” he said.

Whether incorporating an island or not, one trend that addresses convenience and improved function is what Lloyd called “drawers over doors.” Many cabinet designs offer wide and deep drawers to store bulky or heavy items. That way, instead of making someone reach overhead for heavy dishes in a cabinet, a waist-high drawer allows for easier access — which becomes more important as people age.

“We’re seeing less of a distinction between the kitchen and living area and more of a merger as the two morph into one space.”

Aging in place also comes into play in bathroom design, said Lori Loughlin, manager at Frank Webb Home. These days, she noted, handheld shower heads are the choice of nearly every bathroom renovation. Also popular are shower fixtures that combine a handheld with a rainfall feature.

“We work with many people who want to age in place, so we stress that a handheld shower is more convenient to use and clean the shower stall,” she explained.

Converting old bathrooms to accommodate a lower-threshold shower for the aging or physically challenged isn’t new, she added, but the styles are changing. “There are things we can do to make a shower safe and functional without it looking institutional. For example, there will be a seat and grab bars, but they are done with more style, so the result looks more like a spa.”

Colors such as gray translucent stain are appearing in more kitchens.

Aging in place also affects kitchen design, where islands are available in multiple levels, with a lower level constructed to accommodate seniors or people in a wheelchair.

Because everyone is more aware of touching surfaces, touchless bathroom faucets and a toilet that flushes by waving one’s hand over a sensor are available as well. While once considered gimmicky, sophisticated toilet seats that have a warmer built in, along with a bidet, are growing in interest. Loughlin noted that these more premium seats also contribute to aging-in-place considerations by allowing people who might otherwise need assistance to take care of themselves.

Such bathroom renovations might seem like an indulgence, Lloyd said, but the result is a space that provides easier access and convenience, again, allowing people to live in their homes longer.

During this boom time in home building and renovations, BusinessWest caught up with several professionals who shared what their customers are looking for in their kitchens and bathrooms — for both their present and future needs.

Form and Function

Lloyd noted that today’s kitchens emphasize designs that are high-functioning and less ornate, and tastes are trending toward cabinet designs with clean lines such as the Shaker look, as well as simpler cabinet hardware.

While the overall trends haven’t changed much over the years, he added, colors have seen some changes. “Translucent cabinet stains are becoming popular because it gives you some color, but you can still see the grain of the wood. Whites and grays — both light and dark — are still very popular color choices.”

Lloyd said his customers want interesting but not ornate designs in kitchen backsplashes, while upscale appliances remain very popular in kitchen remodels, with stainless steel a popular option and black stainless on the rise as a trend.

Black may become the new neutral, Loughlin said, noting that touchless and black faucets are currently big sellers in kitchens. “For the next couple of years, I think we will be seeing a trend of faucets with mixed metals, such as black and gold,” she noted, while faucets with a black finish are trending in the bathroom as well.

Dave Lloyd demonstrates a two-level silverware drawer.

Deep drawers provide easier access for larger items.

While white farmhouse sinks remain popular, she said they are now available in black and other colors to better match darker shades of quartz and granite countertops. Speaking of which, quartz has passed granite as the most popular stone countertop material.

“People are spending more time in their kitchens, so they are getting what they want,” she explained. The styles that resonate most with her customers include the contemporary farmhouse look and industrial chic, where faucets and lighting have a stylish but industrial look to them.

Lighting also reflects black and gold color schemes, with open fixtures creating an airy look. Pendant lighting, which once featured small pendants suspended from the ceiling, have grown into larger pendants that fill more space and provide more light.

Kitchen floor upgrades were once limited to hardwoods or tile floors made of ceramic or porcelain. Eclipsing both of those choices, the current most popular trend in flooring is LVT, or luxury vinyl tile. Resembling wood planks, LVT floors click into place and are known in the industry as ‘floating’ floors, so named because they are not glued down. Jake Levine, manager of Advanced Rug and Flooring Center, said the waterproof properties of LVT make it a best seller in his store.

“Because LVT handles water so well, it is replacing other more expensive alternatives,” he said. “LVT is also 40% warmer to the touch than a tile floor, and it’s not prone to chipping, also an issue with tile floors.”

Installing a hardwood or tile floor takes real expertise, Levine explained, noting that LVT floors can be a do-it-yourself project because they allow more room for error.

“If you don’t like the direction of the planks, you can unclick them and reinstall,” he said. “I’m not saying everyone will get the same results as a professional, but a capable DIY-er can do it.”

For customers who prefer a tile look, LVT is available in 24-by-12-inch pieces featuring stone patterns that click in place similar to the planks. This style and its waterproof properties make it a good choice for a bathroom, but Levine said most people still prefer porcelain or ceramic tile.

“For many people, the word ‘vinyl’ suffers from an old stigma of linoleum floors that discolored and peeled,” he said. “The click floors are very good for bathrooms because they are designed for areas that get water.”

As Western Mass. is known for its many older homes, a bathroom renovation can often involve converting a spare bedroom into a larger, more modern bathroom, usually adjacent to the master bedroom. Lloyd said this is a popular renovation among empty-nest couples.

Mixed metals are an increasingly popular option for kitchen faucets.

“People who want to stay in their home are figuring out how to use the same square footage, but improve it,” he explained. “The idea of living space is changing, where people will give up a bedroom for a luxury bathroom with better lighting, better shower, and more storage in the cabinetry.”

While many bathroom renovations replace the tub with a more upscale shower, Loughlin said that decision is usually driven by personal preference.

“There are bath people, and there are shower people,” she noted. “People who like to take baths will spend whatever they want for a bathtub, while those who only want a shower won’t even install a bathtub in their master bathroom.”

As Seen on TV

For those considering upgrading a kitchen or bathroom, popular media such as the HGTV cable network and social-media sites Pintrest, Instagram, and others offer endless examples of what’s new in design and accessories.

“Every customer who comes in has at least one Pinterest photo on their phone, or they reference something they saw on HGTV,” Lloyd said, adding that houzz.com is another influencer.

Meanwhile, Levine credits HGTV shows with increasing the awareness of LVT flooring. “The vinyl plank is now common knowledge thanks to them.”

Loughlin said the Frank Webb showroom carries several kitchen sink styles that appear on HGTV because customers often have a vision that is influenced by the network. While helpful most of the time, however, these shows can also contribute to outlandish and unrealistic expectations.

“Some people think they can redo their house in 30 minutes; it just doesn’t work that way,” she said. “It’s not unusual for the timeframe to surprise people, especially now, when hiring a contractors is more difficult because they are all so busy.”

While new trends emerge in kitchens and bathrooms, older ones are meeting their demise. In new homes, Keiter noted, people still want bathrooms that are upscale and functional, but use less space.

“Real estate is so expensive now, some people are reassessing where they want to spend their money,” he said. “Instead of a 250 square-foot bathroom with a whirlpool tub, they are opting to lose the whirlpool and reduce the overall size of the bathroom.”

Instead, he said, customers are spending their money in the kitchen or a sunroom, where they spend far more of their time.

In the spirit of simplicity and a clean look, Lloyd said the recent trend of glass cabinet doors is on its way out because “people like to put things away and not have to keep looking at them.”

He also noted that counter space for wine bars is starting to give way to dedicated cabinetry to house an emerging trend: coffee bars. “Wine was big for a while, but coffee has become bigger of late.”

Though tastes may differ, kitchen and bath professionals all agree that customers these days have plenty of options.

“Manufacturers are expanding their product lines to accommodate many different tastes and needs,” said Loughlin, giving people the opportunity to follow their vision or create their own style.

Today’s Kitchens Eschew Color, but Trends Are Always Evolving

By Joseph Bednar October 2, 2018

Home Improvement

Serving Up Style

Karen Belezarian-Tesini (left) and Sarah Rietberg are selling plenty of white and gray tiles these days.

Professional designers can often walk into a house and tell what decade it was built in by the styles of certain rooms, and the kitchen is definitely high on that list. From the high-gloss look of the ’80s to the more neutral ’90s; from a shift back to color at the turn of the Millennium to the current embrace of whites and grays, kitchens do seem to reflect their time. But one trend of the past generation isn’t likely to change — the increased perception of the kitchen as a home’s main hub of activity.

The economy wasn’t the only thing that went flat a decade ago. So did kitchen colors.

“When the economy tanked in 2007, 2008, everything became very flat. Color was gone, along with texture, pattern, flowers. Everything became industrial and cold — no frills. And that’s how the economy was, too,” said Karen Belezarian-Tesini, manager of Best Tile in Springfield. And she’s not the only one who noticed the coinciding trends.

“It’s funny how the economy dictates the colors,” said Frank Nataloni, co-owner of Kitchens & Baths by Curio in Springfield, recalling how many kitchens of the late ’80s featured high-gloss surfaces and plenty of black and red, but when the recession of the early ’90s hit, it was all earth tones. By 2000, color had come back, but around 2008, neutrals took over again. “I don’t know what that means, but when you look back, you can clearly see it.” That decade-ago shift has stuck, however, and even intensified, he added. “Everything now is white and gray.”

While taupe is making a comeback, said Belezarian-Tesini — “I love that more than gray because it gives you an option to go either way, warm or cool” — she’s seen the white-and-gray trend intensify over the years. But better financial times might be causing a subtle style shift.

“Now that the economy is picking back up, it’s getting a little warmer — softer edges, a little more color in glass mosaic or patterns,” she said.

That would be just fine by Lisa Lindgren, designer with Kitchens by Chapdelaine in East Longmeadow.

“The most popular kitchen is white — white on white. So whenever I get a client who wants some color and wants to do something a little different, I get excited,” she told BusinessWest. “People tend to be so scared of color. A lot of it is about sellability, but we tend to encourage people to go for what you like. It’s your house.”

Frank Nataloni says styles shifted away from bold colors when the economy tanked, and have largely remained muted since.

R.J. Chapdelaine, owner of the company, an offshoot of builder and remodeling firm Joseph Chapdelaine & Sons, agreed.

“Whenever you have someone who comes in with a little imagination, wants to have a little fun, it gets exciting,” he said. “And why not? That’s where people want to spend their time. Kitchens are getting bigger, and other living spaces are getting a little bit smaller.”

For this issue’s focus on home improvement, BusinessWest visited a few companies that deal in kitchen design to get a read on some of the hot styles — only to find that the hottest is a decidedly cool white. But they offered plenty of other food for thought as well.

What’s Your Style?

Take countertops, for instance, where white- and gray-colored quartz surfaces are in, both Lindgren and Nataloni said.

But they’ll find contrast in other places, Lindgren noted, like weathered driftwood for accent pieces or a dark wood floor — or, more commonly these days, porcelain planks designed to look exactly like wood. “That’s the most popular floor. You can’t even tell it’s not wood. It’s pretty fascinating.”

“That seems to be what everyone’s looking for right now,” Nataloni added. “With some of them, it’s amazing how much it actually looks like real wood. You can even feel the texture. That’s what people are looking for.”

And homeowners aren’t stopping in the kitchen, Belezarian-Tesini said. “When I sell those planks, I might sell 2,000-3,000 square feet at a time. They’re doing their bedrooms, they’re doing the whole house. It’s just incredible. People say, ‘oh my gosh, I love that,’ and when we tell them that it’s porcelain, they look again and say, ‘are you sure? Really?’ ‘Yeah, really.’”

In addition to the move away from tile floors into wood and wood-like porcelain, Chapdelaine noted that shiplap walls — in both vertical and horizontal patterns — are popular as well, perhaps driven by their ubiquitousness on HGTV.

As for cabinetry, while painted white tops the list right now, Nataloni said, he was working with someone recently who wants a black cabinet with a rubbed-off type of finish so there’s some wood coming through. Still, those neutral shades provide plenty of flexibility.

R.J. Chapdelaine and Lisa Lindgren say it’s fun to work with customers who have a design vision not necessarily bound by what’s currently fashionable.

“With a white or gray cabinet, we can make it look very formal or casual in the scheme of things,” he said. “I haven’t sold a cherry kitchen in over a year, but at one time, that was probably 60% of our business. Some woods remain relatively popular, though, including walnut. “That’s the fashion part of the business, and it changes depending on who walks through the door.”

Sarah Rietberg, showroom manager at Best Tile, said all these trends amount to people seeking a clean, uncluttered look in their kitchens, which is why subway-style tile backsplashes are still common, but with a twist — different sizes, something with a little texture to it, or even lines that aren’t perfectly straight.

“Those things can add some oomph to subway tile,” she said. “People want a little movement, but nothing too crazy. They don’t want to take away from the other things going on.”

In addition, a well-placed accent color can be striking amid a sea of white, Chapdelaine said. “We just did one all-white kitchen with a hale navy blue island, and it’s a striking look.”

Indeed, Belezarian-Tesini said, many customers complement the dominance of white and gray with mosaic tile backsplashes; where once a mosaic pattern broke up the solid color of the rest of the backsplash, now it’s being used across the entire backsplash to break up the white of the kitchen.

Sometimes it’s hard to predict the next trend, she added. “If you asked me 10 years ago if glass would still be here, I’d have said no, but glass is hotter than it’s ever been. It’s the medium of choice now. People still use ceramic, and porcelain has really come up the ladder. But glass has become the decorative. It’s a 10-year trend for sure, and it’s probably going to last longer than that.”

Meanwhile, she sees metallic tile coming into its own. “As technology gets better, you’re going to see more things within the glazing. You’re even seeing crystals in the glazing, little pieces of metal, to create a true, realistic metallic. So technology advances, and the tile changes.”

Good, Better, Best

The upside of so many options in kitchen surfaces is that there’s typically something for every budget, Nataloni said.

“We have to have a good, better, and best product selection,” he told BusinessWest. “We have a product for people flipping homes that’s very current with the trends, reasonably priced, good quality, with a quick turnaround time. Then we have a semi-custom type of product that offers a lot of selection and is a little quicker than the higher-end product. That means a lot if someone is doing a home renovation, because a kitchen is not an inexpensive proposition. If you know where to save money, you can get more bang for your buck, and that’s our skill.”

Some customers arrived with a vision in mind for their kitchen, he explained, and his job is to refine it. “Then there are other people who come in and don’t have a vision, and they’re looking for me to help them create the vision. That’s why we have to be flexible in meeting the need of whoever is coming to us.”

To help people envision the end product — quite literally — Nataloni uses a virtual-reality device called ProKitchen Oculus, which uses Oculus VR goggles to allow people to walk around in the environment Nataloni has programmed into the computer.

“For people who have a hard time visualizing, it really solves that problem for them,” he said. “We create a basic floor plan in 3D, and you’re actually in the room, so you can look and walk around. They literally see what they’re going to buy, or as close as possible to what it’s going to be like.”

For example, one customer was having trouble envisioning the soffit Nataloni suggested for the top of their cabinets. “Then I showed it to them on the Oculus, and their response was, ‘oh, now I understand what you were talking about.’ For those type of people, it really helps tremendously.”

Chapdelaine also sees a healthy mix — about 50-50 — of people who know exactly what they want and customers who need a little more guidance. “And that guidance can occur through Lisa, or through decorators. We see clients occasionally bring in a decorator to help them make decisions on color, cabinetry, and tile.

Most of those are typically renovating their whole house, Lindgren added. “It doesn’t tend to happen just with a kitchen, but with a broader scope.”

Whole-home renovations are common these days, said Chapdelaine, who noted that the remodeling business has been outpacing new home building for some time. His grandfather, who first hung out a shingle in 1925, saw the value of remodeling work early on, and evolved the firm in that direction after originally focusing on new construction.

“That became an integral part of our business,” he said. “You have to evolve. I see people who just build houses or just remodel, and I’d find that difficult. You can go from building three, four, five houses at a time to building one or maybe none, and doing all remodeling.”

Open Wide

He and Chapdelaine’s father also recognized perhaps the most prominent shift in kitchen design, and one that remains dominant today — the open floor plan.

“They were building compartmentalized houses, but they rolled into a more open floor plan on the single-story executive ranches,” he recalled. “Now, there’s very little compartmentalized building. Everything is wide open, with less formal living spaces.”

Nataloni said homeowners prefer a free flow of traffic through the kitchen, and islands are desirable if they can be put in. “Gone are the days of the U-shaped kitchen or a peninsula only, unless it’s necessary. Everyone is looking to have cabinetry that creates the outside shell of the kitchen and then some kind of an island in the middle, whether it’s with seating or without.”

That’s also the style potential homebuyers prefer when they’re visiting open houses, which is one reason why hot trends — like that white and gray — remain so dominant once they take hold; people design the room not only for their own comfort, but with resale in mind.

“For many people, this is where they’re staying, but we do have a lot of people coming in saying, ‘look, I want to fix up the kitchen, and we’re not going to be here forever, so I want it saleable,’” he noted. “We get probably more of the people who are staying for the foreseeable future, and they want to enjoy it. That’s the majority of our business.

Belezarian-Tesini said most of her business at Best Tile contractor-driven — either builders putting up or remodeling houses, or homeowners shopping for product, then hiring a professional to do the work. The do-it-yourself crowd is much smaller — perhaps because the kitchen is such a critical part of 21st-century home life that people don’t want to get it wrong.

That said, “business has been fantastic,” she noted. “I’ve seen a lot of new construction over the last few years. When I started here 23 years ago, it was all new building. Then it went to remodeling, and now it’s coming back again to new construction, which is nice to see.”

So, for the foreseeable future, she’ll continue to track the design trends and help customers design the kitchen of their dreams — usually with an open concept.

“It makes for easy living, and really great entertaining,” she said. “After all, the kitchen is the heart of the home.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Country Bank Aims for a Google Feel in Its Headquarters

By Joseph Bednar September 3, 2018

Banking and Financial Services

Collaborative Culture

President Paul Scully

When Country Bank sought to overhaul its space on South Street in Ware a few years ago — a former mill building that houses about 110 employees — its leaders banked on what they call a collaborative culture, where low cubicles, glass walls, and comfortable, casual meeting spaces all aim to promote better communication and interaction, and a work environment that appeals to the young professionals that comprise the bank’s future.

Walking down the wide main hallway of Country Bank’s headquarters in Ware, you notice certain things. The central, glass-walled café. Conference spaces with names like ‘Integrity Room’ and ‘Prosperity Room,’ reflecting the bank’s values. The occasional beach ball.

Wait, what?

“Someone said to me, ‘what’s the deal with the beach balls?’” bank President Paul Scully said. “Well, we had them at a company event, and they ended up in the hallway. And when you’re walking down the hall and someone’s coming toward you and there’s a beach ball there, what do you do? You kick it.”

It can be an icebreaker of sorts, he went on, as the roughly 110 employees who work in the former mill building on South Street — almost half of the entire Country Bank organization — don’t necessarily all know each other. But it’s also, well, kind of fun.

“For people who visit, it’s unexpected,” said Shelley Regin, the bank’s senior vice president of Marketing, who estimated about 40 such balls reside somewhere in the building. “Normally, the hallway’s full of beach balls, but they make their ways into the offices, too.”

While fun to kick around, Scully said, the balls also promote interaction, a concept which was, frankly, the driving force in a recent, multi-year renovation of Country Bank’s main office. It’s the reason cubicles were lowered, solid walls were replaced by glass, and some of the gathering spaces feature couches rather than traditional chairs.

“When we moved in here 13 years ago, everyone had a cubicle as tall as me, and you couldn’t see one another,” he told BusinessWest. “That didn’t foster good collaboration. And there was no daylight because the work stations were so tall, they blocked the daylight.”

Scully had a catchy description of what the renovation aimed to reflect — “Google comes to Ware” — and explained why that type of culture is important.

One of the casual meeting spaces at Country Bank, is meant to spur creative thinking in an informal setting.

“We love the fact that we are in a mill town and that we’re a flourishing business here. But how can we attract the talent we need? We’re a $1.6 billion bank with 14 locations and growing — and we need to have Millennial talent to help move it forward. And they’re not going to want to hide in a cubicle and come out twice a day, for lunch and to leave. We said, ‘let’s really look at what is happening in workspaces that’s breeding collaboration and fun, and people just working together as a whole unit.’”

Like the low cubicles, the glass promotes more openness as well, Regin said.

“They put me behind glass walls so they can keep an eye on me,” Scully joked, before noting that his office used to be tucked away in a corner, as opposed to its current spot at the end of that main hallway. “You never went there unless you had to. It didn’t do anything for collaboration, nor did it allow me really to be a part of things. Now, right here, at my desk, this is the hub.

“We’re a $1.6 billion bank with 14 locations and growing — and we need to have Millennial talent to help move it forward. And they’re not going to want to hide in a cubicle and come out twice a day, for lunch and to leave.”

“The glass just opens everything up,” he went on, “and it supports the philosophy that we’re all equal components of the organization, and it’s not like you have to be behind a closed wall to do important things. We do have shades that come down. But if you put the shades down, everyone’s going to want to know what’s going on in Paul’s office, so you might as well just have them up and let them see.”

For this issue’s focus on banking and finance, BusinessWest paid a visit to Ware to learn how Country Bank is using its thoroughly 21st-century space — and several touches of fun that go well beyond the stray beach ball — to better position itself as an employer of choice at a time when competition is high for young talent.

Milling About

When Country Bank moved its headquarters in 2005 from Main Street to 44,000 square feet of former mill space on nearby South Street, it had options to relocate in another town, but the bank’s leaders felt it important to remain an economic engine in the community it had called home for more than 150 years.

“We looked at adding onto the main office, which was a Band-Aid approach, and then this fell in our lap,” Scully said of the former American Athletic Shoe plant, famous for its ice skates. “It was a very large employer, and had maintained the building meticulously. We have a lot of space here. You could easily say we could use half of it, but it works well for us; it allows us to have a big area for innovation and technology, and we have a whole education facility as well.”

The first renovation, to make the space suitable for bank operations, took place 13 years ago, and included those high cubicles and some decidedly unattractive color schemes and décor.

“Everything was kind of a pale yellow,” Scully said. “I started to walk around one Saturday and said, ‘this is awful. The color tones aren’t energizing. You can’t see anything. Let’s bulldoze it down and make it something where people are going to come in and say it’s is a really cool space.’

“It’s a great company, too, which is more important than being a cool space,” he was quick to add. “But you have to have those two together in order to really have it become a destination.”

As opposed to 2005, however, the latest renovation, which began around 2015, took place while people were working in the building — and often shifting around to accommodate the changes. “I moved five times in a year,” Regin said.

One of the casual meeting spaces at Country Bank, is meant to spur creative thinking in an informal setting.

“Really, the key piece was that group that moved into the first section that was done,” Scully recalled. “They were going to make it or break it for us, because if they said, ‘oh, it’s awful,’ we were doomed. Like anything else, when you say you’re going to change something, people immediately think of 1,000 reasons why it’s not going to work. It’s like Who Moved My Cheese? — ‘you’re throwing me off, you didn’t ask my input.’

But when that first group of employees settled in, they were more than satisfied. “Within the first week, they invited everybody in the building for brunch on a Friday because they were so excited about their space. We didn’t pay them for that. I think it spoke to just how much they loved it.”

The renovation stretched over two years because of the need to work around each department. In addition to the collaborative elements, the building also features a conference center with state-of-the-art multi-media equipment, an expansive IT space, and a number of small activity rooms. A gym was considered at one point, but Scully worried that it might turn into wasted space if interest waned, and besides, there’s a gym around the corner that Country didn’t want to siphon business from.

He had reservations about the central café as well, but that has proven to be a big hit. The fridge is stocked with fresh fruit all week, and Fridays feature a brunch with pastries or a yogurt bar. Then there are the Friday-morning games, like Hangman or Pictionary, that began with a few employees sneaking away from the brunch.

“We would all be hanging in the café, and one of the departments would go in a conference room and close the doors every Friday, and that wasn’t really working with me,” Scully recalled. When he found out they were using the short morning break to play games, however, “I said, ‘how about if you do that for everybody?’ They said, ‘really? We can do that?’”

Paul Scully says visitors are often surprised to see a bank based in an old mill building.

So now, employees get an e-mail telling them what that Friday’s game is, and anyone is welcome to join in. It’s as much a way to get people talking and collaborating as are the small meeting spaces decked out with couches.

“When you go into a conference room, so often people think there’s a protocol of behavior, in the way you interact with one another,” Scully said. “It’s different when you’re sitting on a couch, bouncing ideas around. That’s what we really wanted to do — have it so people can think in an innovative fashion and look at things totally differently.”

Have a Ball

If visitors and new employees are surprised by the culture being fostered inside the building, he added, the exterior can be unexpected, too.

“I had a gentleman come in last week, and I explained, ‘OK, we’re in a mill building. And you’re going to think, this can’t be it. But you’re in the right place.’ And he said to me, ‘Scully, you’ve explained to us your building before, but this is not the typical bank,’ and I said, ‘at many levels, we’re not the typical bank.’ And that’s fine with us.”

He recalled speaking with someone who had also renovated a mill some years ago. “When I explained about the beach balls, he said, ‘beach balls?’ I couldn’t decide at that time whether we had just lost his confidence in us as a bank or not. But that wasn’t the case at all. The next day, I Federal Expressed him a bunch of beach balls and got a text from him the following day saying, ‘where’s the pump?’ I have every reason to believe those beach balls are flying through the air at his office as well.”

Banking, admittedly, has a staid reputation, and it’s not necessarily a field young people get excited about, he noted. But it is an industry where the culture is changing, and banks with an ear toward what Millennials prefer — when it comes to collaboration, flexibility, and even fun — will have an edge in attracting them.

“We would all be hanging in the café, and one of the departments would go in a conference room and close the doors every Friday, and that wasn’t really working with me.”

“This isn’t about a space,” he said. “It’s about the present and the future. Clearly, my generation is the minority this building, which is great. The Scully generation can’t be the generation that dictates how we’re going to do business. We want to be able to attract young talent and then unleash them, and let them think about how to do things differently.”

In that sense, the physical space is critical, Regin said. And it’s working. “A few years ago, most of our people who worked here were very local — 20 minutes to a half-hour away — and now they’re coming an hour. When they come to this space and realize what Country Bank has to offer, they’re willing to travel that hour, or even longer.”

In a job market where banks have to compete for talent, she added, Country Bank has plenty to offer when it comes to culture. “When people walk in here and see there’s a collaborative atmosphere, that’s important. That’s what people are looking for, especially the Millennial segment — they want to be at a place where they feel valued and there’s room for growth. It’s a destination, not just a job, where they sit in their cube all day and don’t see anyone.”

Scully agreed. “It’s important to have a place where, if someone is comparing their options, hopefully they say, ‘hey we like the option of coming here.’”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

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