Meet Susan McGrady | Interior Designer, Collector, Traveler

We had the good fortune of connecting with Susan McGrady and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Risk taking has fed my constant curiosity. For me, each time I take a risk in business it ignites and inspires learning, adapting, problem solving, and yes, always creating. Creation in the past has been in two forms in regards to business-accounting and art. I have a degree in accounting and a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Upfront they may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but both have been equally useful in business ventures. From buying and selling businesses, or consulting with other business to solve accounting and inventory issues, number crunching has been extremely useful. But art teaches creative solutions for business. Art helps inform the intangibles of business. I had a period in my career where I bought and sold apartment buildings and homes. Apartment buildings were more of an accounting function, running the numbers, calculating return on investment. Home flipping was more about the intangibles. Does the home have “good bones”, a potential for a wonderful outdoor space, Of course there is the same analysis, but there is also the thrill of creation. I really enjoyed redesigning, constructing, and decorating a home to prepare it for sale or rent. When selling a home, I have the short term fix of staging/decorating it to sell. When renting homes (VRBO, Airbnb) it is about creating a feeling of home away from home for guests. So…I am always interested in risk taking as a form of learning, evolving, and creating.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I think what is perhaps different from other career paths is how mine has been a crooked road. I would say I am a jack of all trades…..master of a few. And I am not ashamed of this, I am proud of it. While I have immense respect for those who have a lifetime of achievement in the practice of medicine, or law, for example….I feel so enriched to have done many things, and I continue to use the past to inform the present, to dream about the future. I worked for a company, Central States Wiping Materials. The owner, Tom Clark, was a multi-business owner and senior partner in a large accounting firm in Omaha, NE. I started in sales there at the age of 26, and wasn’t a great salesperson, but, I was a hard worker and had the accounting background. Tom was an amazing mentor and I am so grateful that he saw a work ethic in me, and gave me a chance to be the plant manger for the company, then the CFO, then he sold me the company. I was happy owning it for a few years, but then sold it so I could go back to my roots….or what I believed to my roots….creating. While doing that, I had an opportunity to buy with a partner, a very run down storage facility with a manger who had run amuck. It represented many challenges for me…the animal hoarder manger (yup, a herd of unfed horses stashed behind the storage facility, a storage unit full of cats, some hamsters in another storage unit (rejects from Pets Mart), and the dead cat in the freezer that she didn’t want to bury quite yet..lots o’ stories and challenges in that venture. But we turned it around, created a clean storage facility with a still colorful cast of characters. It was fun! Weird, but fun! I would want to convey that Low Rider as a brand is about evolution, community, taking the endless roads of possibility. I never grow tired of the journey. What is around the corner? Well, around my corner after the storage facility venture was Rider for Life, a similar concept store to Low Rider, started with my daughter Lauren in Chicago, under the EL, in West Loop. People loved the look and feel of the store so much that they asked about interior design….something that wasn’t really on our radar. Lauren now has a full on interior design studio in Chicago, RFLStudio. But we always wanted to get back to retail and buying this abandoned gas station in Hygiene, CO was the perfect spot for Rider for Life, part 2. Low Rider was born. Low Rider, as a business is about creating spaces that feel like home, not our idea of home, we want to help you discover what home means to you. Our brand and story is about the crooked road of self discovery. It is about enjoying the dichotomy in life. We love grit and elegance, being serious and irreverent, the push/pull of masculine and feminine. I encourage anyone to ride the possibilities in life, ride enjoying the wonder and possibilities of all thing big and small. Ride life to the limit!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
When my best friends comes for a visit I typically pick them up at the airport and we immediately head to Denver for a day of exploring. It always has to begin with Voodoo Donuts. From there, we go for a great walk and see at the Denver Botanical Gardens (also need to walk off the donuts). Always a collector, I then make it about me and they have to explore south Broadway Antique district. A few blocks from there is Common Threads on Pearl St. After that, we are off to Homebody in Cherry Creek, with a late lunch at Quality Italian. After that, I love to stop by the Rino district and see what is new in Men’s and Women’s fashion at Steadbrook and Recital respectively. Hopefully this is on a day where we catch a concert at Red Rocks Ampitheater, one of the very best concert venues in the country. We hop in the car and drive to Boulder where we stop off for a cocktail on the rooftop at Avanti, and enjoy the sunset setting over the Flatirons. Day 2 picks up where we left off in Boulder. We start with a hike up Sanitas where at the top, you have the most amazing views of Boulder and the East at large. Breakfast is always in order after that and Snooze is the spot. I suggest a benedict trio and a mimosa (or two). We move on to explore Pearl St., especially Canoe Club, Cedar & Hyde, Classic Facets, Island Farm, and LoveSaro, the New Local, and maybe Common Threads again (Boulder location). A drive north to Lyons is a must for the most amazing dinner at Marigold. Their food is second to none!! If we are lucky, Oscar Blues is having impromptu folk music practice night. We can slip in quietly and listen to amazing musicians jam.
Day 3 it’s off to Estes Park for breakfast at The Stanley while reminiscing about the Shining. Then we head into Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike to Emerald Lake. On the way back we stop by this really cool shop in Hygiene called Low Rider LOL!. I hopefully get some really honest commentary that only best friends can give. Day 4 starts with hiking Rabbit Mountain, then its home for a hang out day which may include helping with the gardening, or hanging wallpaper, or tie dying just because we want to. We feed Stella the turkey, drink cocktails maybe, float the stream by the house maybe, then call it a day by grilling. You get the idea…..in Colorado there are so many great places to hike, eat, shop, and drink!!!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Wow, such a tough question as my shout out starts at age 5 with my kindergarten teacher, Miss Gardner letting me paint classroom window for Halloween. Or a shout out to my Great Grandmother weaving rag rugs on the loom she brought to Pennsylvania from the old country, I would sit and watch her for hours. Another shoutout would be to Mrs. Dufner, my high school art teacher preaching that art is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. And to Pete Slavich, and Mitch Clark, my college Art Professors encouraging art as a career….and to Professor Andy Rudy, my accounting professor trying to prove with math that art as a career is a rotten idea! And very recently with the opening and growing of Low Rider, a giant shout out to the wonderful Emily Canova of House of Esc. who takes my crazy ideas and turns them into events, and relevant social media stories so that people even know that Low Rider exists! And to Kenji Nakagawa whom I met in a completely random way. Kenji has been part of Low Rider from the beginning. Kenji is a creative force and amazing artist. I am not sure he would like to be described as such because sometimes he wears this really cool T-shirt he made that says “Art Isn’t Real” . There are teachers all around us, with great life stories and wisdom if we open to accepting it. You can meet amazing talent just walking to your car (how I met Kenji). I am always interested in learning and benefiting from someone’s journey.

Website: www.lowrider.store

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