An Inside Look at RH’s First Private Charter Jet
With the debut of its first charter jet and a global expansion under way, the home company embarks on a new journey.
It’s hard to imagine something you haven’t seen before,” says Gary Friedman, the chairman and CEO of RH, speaking via Zoom this past July. “We’re inspired to find out what could be—you don’t know until you push the boundaries.” These days, the intrepid entrepreneur isn’t holding back as he endeavors to reposition the company as a global thought leader and tastemaker, all the while scaling what he calls “the luxury mountain.”
That ascent begins soon with the launch of RH One, the brand’s first fully designed private jet. Available for charter, the 12-passenger Gulfstream G650 is at once a radical departure for the company and a natural extension of its core design ethos, which is rooted in the Vitruvian principles of balance, symmetry, and proportion. The one-of-a-kind cabin is clad entirely in brushed European pale white oak, a look more in keeping with Art Deco ocean liners than contemporary planes—and an engineering feat reportedly never before attempted. Enriching that quiet timber cocoon are stainless-steel details and a dozen streamlined lounge chairs, each upholstered in fine charcoal linen that complements the hand-tufted floor covering and echoes the exterior’s metallic paint. Outside, a champagne-hued undercarriage accentuates the aeronautical form.
“Aesthetically, the most important thing was to eliminate as many visually distracting elements as possible,” Friedman reflects. “How do we make a cabin that is beautiful and simple, that is quiet, that enables us to relax?” The plane will double as the company’s own innovation center in the sky—a place to collaborate, uninterrupted, for hours otherwise lost to transit and isolation. And heaven only knows how busy Friedman and his team will be as they tackle count-less projects to come, including a private yacht, the new RH Guesthouse concept, an entire Aspen enclave, and an ambitious expansion to Europe, with galleries planned for Paris, London, and—perhaps most boldly—the English countryside. All will eventually live on World of RH, the brand’s new digital platform, launching in the months ahead.
Even ardent aficionados of the brand may be surprised. Friedman hints that the eagerly anticipated RH Guesthouse New York in the Meatpacking District will defy all expectations. Counterintuitively, the brand’s forthcoming Champs-Élysées location eschews a streetside entrance in favor of historic iron gates that will lead visitors down a hedge-lined path to a rear courtyard with 18-foot doors. And in Oxfordshire, RH is transforming a Grade I 1615 estate by architect Sir John Soane into a destination gallery, complete with an architecture and design library and a restaurant inside what was the orangerie.
“What if nobody comes?” Friedman muses of that remote outpost. “In some way, I’m always uncomfortable with what we are doing, but that’s the only way to innovate.” The emotional impact of a space, he stresses, outweighs financial risk. “Whenever you do the obvious, you’re never gonna surprise and delight.
At a moment in which time and privacy are the most precious commodities, RH hopes to deliver a completely realized idea—an ecosystem of products, places, services, and spaces, rather than just an inventory of furnishings and fixtures. “Nobody has ever tried to make the climb that we are trying to make,” Friedman notes of the push ahead. “A lot of times people ask if we do research. We really don’t. We do what we love with people we love for people who love what we do.” In other words, the sky’s the limit. rh.com —Sam Cochran
