Jessica Romm Perez featuring the Canyon Sofa

My name is Jessica Romm Perez and I am an editor and VP of Partnerships at The Expert.

New York City and Amagansett

An apartment in New York City and a house in Amagansett.

I live with my husband Antonio and I have three kids – Emilia, who is 14, Nico, who is 10 and Theo who is 6. We have an adorable little doggie, Stevie, a Cavapoo who keeps everyone laughing.

Anywhere that I can see a lot of exciting vintage furniture and art. Whenever I can, I go to Paris and always try to hit the flea market. And any city where design is just part of the culture in a way I don’t think it is in New York, like Stockholm, Copenhagen and Milan. The first time I went to Stockholm I was really blown away. I knew there was so much design heritage and good taste and inspiring lifestyle but I was really taken by the sea and the fishermen and how that influenced so much of the design culture around Stockholm. Milan is one of those places where it’s like every font is amazing. Also…I am a New Yorker with a Los Angeles heart. I always want that indoor/outdoor lifestyle, that way of living is in my soul. I think I will move to L.A .at some point. It’s not out of my system yet.

That’s an unfair question – there are so many. I am really inspired by California architects like Neutra and Schindler. Vincent Van Duysen is insanely talented. I really do sigh over some of Royere’s lesser known, heavier rounded wood pieces. Scarpa – that Coronado Sofa. Luis Laplace, the designer of all the Hauser & Wirth galleries – his place in Menorca. I am endlessly inspired by what he does because he is such an amazing collector of things and I love the way he juxtaposes the most simple, humble materials–fishing net, rope, with stone and wood and tile. I would say that had a very big Impact on me, the way he does that and collects things.

My husband’s family is Cuban. They left in ’59 but the way that they came from Cuba was that his dad got a gig as a doctor on a cruise ship. He went via Haiti and his mother went to live with family in Venezuela, before reuniting in Miami, getting married and then moving to New York. He was a big collector of art, so we have a lot of very special art and ceramics from them that are definitely really sentimental and amazing, but not precious.

As a family we definitely do a lot of cooking, that’s very much what that house is about. Cooking, spending the time, most parts of the day are either thinking about a meal, preparing a meal, or enjoying with friends.

Reading. It’s the thing I wish I had more time to do. I’m reading A Little Life right now. I felt I was never emotionally ready, that it was too heavy. So now I’m reading that. Like everyone else I loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I love a coming of age story.

I am very much about real materials. How things feel. Natural materials. Linen, corduroy. Making things by hand takes longer and I think there is a beauty in that. I think that’s why I like vintage furniture so much. I have a lot of respect for the craft of upholstery and what it means to sew something properly. You learn a lot by seeing the insides of vintage.

As a kid I was really into fashion. I’m not a sewer or knitter but I would design collections, I would draw them. I also wrote a play in first grade – it was called The Measles–and it was about a girl who got the measles. It was written by JR, directed by JR and starring JR. And the whole class was in it. I of course gave myself a starring role. The whole play was two pages long.

Cooking. I think cooking is meditative. When I am cooking I am really thinking about how something will look. Even with my kid’s food, and maybe it’s out of my own creative exercise, I’m very much thinking about what it will look like, so it will be appealing to them to eat.

“Good things take time, like …growing a garden.”

It’s basically like a bed which is part of the reason I got it. It is massive–you can easily fit five people plus. We can all watch a movie and we can all hang. The fabric is extremely durable because it’s a really awesome wide whale navy corduroy.

It is in a barn on our property that was used as a garage, but we renovated into a hang zone. Rob McKinley, who designed the Surf Lodge and a lot of amazing houses in Montauk, helped me with the space. Rob is so talented and has incredible vision. It has raw pine walls, seagrass on the floors and the ceiling is a dark green lime wash. It’s pretty rustic. And in the middle of the room is the Canyon sofa, it’s the centerpiece of this room and floats in the space. When it’s lit up at night you see this beautiful piece of furniture in the middle of the room. It’s dreamy.

I think it has superpowers in that it can take a beating. I would say it is one of those rare pieces of furniture that is super comfy and loungy, you can sink into it, but it never looks messy.

Comfortable, resilient, durable and definitely loving. It is definitely loving.

I secretly have always wanted to live in Laurel Canyon, and I do have friends who live there. So the fact that this was called the Canyon sofa, I was like, “yes.” I don’t want to rename it. But I also think it could be called the Montauk sofa or the Stinson sofa.

I would say probably a taper candle or an elegant ceramic. One of my favorite things is when a dinner party is over, everyone has gone home and everything is cleaned up and you still have those amazing candles burning on the table. Even on a random weeknight, that is my favorite moment. Everything is peaceful and those candles are still going. I live for that.