Woody Allen Meets Sanford and Son

Andrew McInnis, a twenty-six-year-old MCAD grad, worked on and off for Mogol for a year and a half. He describes Mogol as a “father-figure type” with a big heart, but somebody who “can’t get his shit together.” “I never had any fights with him, but I saw a lot,” McInnis says. “And most of it is because of the stress. I would go on long rides with him, thirty-six-hour rides, to pick up or drop off furniture, and he would pack a cooler full of SoBe iced tea and like fifty pastrami sandwiches, and a half-hour out of town he would mellow out. But on the way back, as soon as we hit the city limits, his cell phone starts going off and he just gives off this energy of confusion and he starts muttering, ‘We’re screwed. We’re screwed.’ And, yeah, around the office, we would be constantly losing shit. Phone messages, mail, e-mail messages. Steve would blame people. He would think people were misplacing things. He was paranoid.”

Mogol admits he gets frustrated. “Yes, and since I don’t hear so well, my tone of voice changes and sometimes I don’t know how loud I’m talking,” he explains. “So sometimes when we’re having a conversation and I’m frustrated, it comes off like I’m yelling at somebody. Accidents happen. I’m not getting excited about accidents. I get excited about things that go on that are different than the unwritten policy—stuff that goes on the truck, putting away things, turning out lights, putting away tools, doing something that we’ve done thirty times and we’re doing it like it’s the first time. So it’s organization—the key to success is organization and follow-through. We do almost perfect work, as good as anybody can possibly do it. It takes time. Our clients sometimes get upset. It’s just that anything happens in this business.”

He tells the story about Martha Stewart Living’s art director visiting the building. “She walked through the place twenty-five times in three days,” he says. “Before [her photo] shoot, she confided in me that it was the first time in her life that she saw so much and could have gone in so many different directions that she almost decided not to do anything—it was overwhelming. And every person who has ever been in here—for movies, for design, for anything—everyone is overwhelmed because there’re too many visuals. If you have a good eye, this whole place is made up of stuff that people can be inspired by. If you have a good eye. Most people don’t.”

Not surprisingly, Mogol believes he has the best eye in the business. He believes he has a third eye or a sixth sense for finding good things. “I always find a parking spot,” he says. “It’s uncanny. I can be in downtown Manhattan looking for an ASE desk, and I’ll find a spot for my truck right in front of the building.” Beyond that, Mogol has premonitions—one time, he says, he predicted he was going to be involved in a traffic accident, which he was. Another time, when a friend called from New York, he says he was able to envision the layout of his friend’s hotel room down to the number on the door. “And I believe,” he says, “that this ability helps me in my business.”

Mogol is on a tear now, his free-associating speech overriding his stammer, his hands gesturing wildly. “And it’s not only a business, but I do this as a sport, as a hobby,” he continues. “I enjoy the hunt. I enjoy finding the rare stuff. They don’t make things like they used to. In order to purchase a really high-quality desk today, it’s $2,000 to $3,000, $5,000 for a nice executive desk. And what is it? It’s particleboard with a veneer on it. Forty years ago, it was plywoods and cross grains, hardwoods for the substructures with a thick veneer. It was built to last. Furniture today isn’t. So it has to do with that. I like to hunt. But this metal stuff—some of it was designed by some very talented people, and they never got credit for it, and they made this office furniture that’s simple and utilitarian, and it was reflective of the era in which it was designed, and it’s beautiful. But nobody wants it until I work my magic. There are some purists, but it’s difficult to find somebody perfect, and I guess what I enjoy doing is turning something that’s not beautiful into a beautiful piece.”