How Jeffrey Dungan finds the soul of a home

Business of Home Podcast

Architect Jeffrey Dungan joins the Business of Home podcast to trace his unconventional journey from a rural Alabama farm to founding a highly successful Birmingham-based

Key takeaways

• Dungan credits a high school guidance counselor for steering him toward architecture after he initially wanted to play professional football.
• He studied at Auburn University alongside future notable architects Ray Booth and Gray Davis under rigorous professors like Bill Gwynn and Bobby McAlpin.

Main topics

• Early life and accidental path to architecture
• Auburn University education and mentorship

Notable quotes

Speed is a disease. Efficiency is what you want.

Conclusion

Dungan's reflections on business resilience, team empowerment, and design

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:03) This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week, I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is architect Jeffrey Dungan. Raised on a farm in rural Alabama, Jeff found architecture almost by accident when a guidance counselor suggested it might suit his love of drawing. After studying at Auburn, he went on to build a Birmingham-based practice known for deeply rooted, highly personal houses. His work has appeared in Architectural Digest, Veranda, and the New York Times, and his new book, The Soulful House, was just published by Rizzoli. I spoke with Jeff about how growing up on his family farm shaped his love of the land. why he rewards his team for working efficiently, and how he's structured his firm for the future. Speaker 2 (1:08) This podcast is sponsored by Lalloy. This October, Lalloy is bringing best in design live to High Point Market, a celebration of standout interiors and the creative thinking behind them. On October 18th at the High Point Market Theater, four finalist designers will take the stage to present a completed project before acclaimed designers Amber Lewis, Jeremiah Brent, and Gene Stouffer, with yours truly, moderating the conversation. Together, we'll dig into the ideas, decisions, and details that turn a beautiful space into a truly memorable design. If you're headed to market, join Lalloy for best in design live at High Point Market. And make an appointment to visit the Lalloy showroom to see the latest rugs, pillows, and new introductions for the season. Visit lalloyrugs.com to learn more and plan your visit. Speaker 2 (2:06) This podcast is sponsored by Krypton Performance Fabric and Rowe Furniture. For 80 years, Rowe has been crafting custom upholstered furniture to help bring designers' visions to life. This high-point market, discover Rowe's newest exclusive Krypton Performance Fabric collection, inspired by archival textiles and Western heritage. The distinctive designs pair beautifully with the performance Krypton is known for. Rowe's trade program also makes custom upholstery feel more personal and less complicated. With dedicated project support, complementary fabric samples, careful hand inspection, and visibility into your order before it leaves the factory. Visit the Rowe showroom at High Point Market to experience the collection and learn more about the Rowe trade program at rowefurniture.com slash join. Speaker 1 (3:02) And now, on with the show. Speaker 2 (3:05) Before we talk about your book and before we talk about some of the things that you've implemented in your practice that I also want to talk about, I want to understand. the early days for you and growing up on the farm and the country and, you know, and your book is dedicated to your dad. Yeah. Speaker 1 (3:29) Yeah. Speaker 2 (3:30) And I mean, it sounds like his spirit and energy has stayed with you. So tell me about him and all that. Speaker 1 (3:38) Looking back on it, it was a great way to spend the early years. I was basically surrounded by family that tolerated me. And as soon as you could carry a rock, they put your butt to work. And there was cows and horses and hay and barbed wire fences and a lot of what I'll just... in a genteel way called animal husbandry that was disguised as hard work. And so, you know, at some point I started looking for or considering searching for another career. Speaker 2 (4:35) So that wasn't calling to you? Speaker 1 (4:38) The farm life? Not really, but I found that to be a beautiful thing, actually, that I was running away from maybe there for a little while. Speaker 2 (4:48) When you have to leave where you grew up, when you tell the family that this isn't for you and that you want to go off, did you have a sense of even what architecture was all about or what that would Speaker 1 (5:01) look like? No, Speaker 2 (5:03) actually, Speaker 1 (5:03) not at all. I was not. That boy at, you know, 10 years old, I love these stories and I hear them all the time. You know, when they were 10 years old, they were drawing houses. They were, you know, they were drawing floor plans and stuff. I had absolutely no idea that anybody even ever designed a house. I didn't, I had never even thought about how houses happened or how architecture existed. What I did find that I love to do was, was drawing. I loved to draw. And my mom encouraged me to take some art lessons. And where I come from, they'd beat you up for that. They were like, why weren't you at football practice? Oh, I was at art lessons. Speaker 2 (5:55) Oh, so that seemed too soft. Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:57) that was definitely in the softer category where I grew up. And so I was like, I don't want to take art lessons. But my mom is one of those people that you really don't get to say no to. And so I took art lessons and it turned out that I really liked it. The more I got into it, the more I really enjoyed it. And so at some point, as I neared the end of my... sort of high school career, I had to go talk to the school counselor about what I was going to do with my life. And she asked me what I was going to do. And I said, well, I really want to play professional football, but I don't think it's going to work out for me. She didn't even get the joke or laugh. She said, well, you're really good at art and you're on the math scholar bowl. So she said, have you ever thought about being an architect. And I just looked at her like she had her head on backwards and said, absolutely not. Like, I mean, I don't even know what they do. What is that? And she said, well, you know, they design buildings. Like that sounded exciting. You know, to my 17-year-old mind, that did not sound exciting. She said, well, she was getting frustrated with me at this point. And she said, well, you're, you know, you're in your study hall. So when you go back to the library, why don't you just check out some books on architecture and see what you think? And I said, okay. And so I went and checked out these books and there was like glass houses and Mies van der Rohe and falling water. And I could not believe it. I was like, who does this stuff? This is crazy. I've never, I've never, I just was blown away. And so a few weeks later, I had to go take my college entrance exam. And, you know. Nobody from my family had really been to college, so they couldn't give me any hints about how to do that. And the first little parts of it that you're filling out before you even take the test, it said, well, where do you want to go to college? And we were big Auburn fans, so I put Auburn. I put a few other schools that I found out later don't even have architecture programs. And then on the part where it said, what's your major? Where are you going to study? So I just wrote architecture. And I thought, you know, I'll figure it out if I can even get into school. And then, I don't know, maybe a month later, I got a letter that said, congratulations, you've been accepted to the architecture program at Auburn University, which I absolutely had no business being in. And I was absolutely surrounded by 350 of the smartest people I'd ever been around. And they all had. taking all kinds of AP courses in their high schools. And they had been wanting to be an architect their whole entire life. And here I was. And somehow or another, I made it through those five years sitting next to some really talented people whose names you would know. My whole last year, I sat right next to Ray Booth. I sat between Ray Booth and Gray Davis. Oh, Speaker 2 (9:16) my goodness. Two of the best people Speaker 1 (9:16) who could ever be around. And I was like, man, I really got to pick up the pace here. Speaker 2 (9:23) Well, that's a, that's very esteemed company to be, to be in. And so here you are not even fully understanding what architecture is all about and what the heck that you've just signed yourself up for. When did it click in for you? When did you, when did it start to speak to you? I Speaker 1 (9:41) think I sort of stumbled through the first year, but somewhere, I think in the second year and the third year, I really did. Something happened and I really fell in love with it. And it wasn't just an excuse to be in college. It started really. speaking to me and and i started to i wouldn't say i found my style i definitely had not done that but i think architecture it not even architecture really but design as a thing the creative art of thinking and having a thought and then communicating that through your design and through not only what you're designing but what you're drawing That whole system, I just loved it and formed some really great lifelong friendships with people I'm still in touch with, Gray and Ray and Mike Gamble, who's a wonderful professor at Georgia Tech and has led that program for many years. My old professors, Bill Gwynn and Bobby McAlpin. Lots of other people that were there at that time. Greg Tankersley. What Speaker 2 (11:08) an incredible array of talent. Unbelievable. Speaker 1 (11:11) I mean, really and truly just, it was fun. We were a fraternity in a way. And, you know, it was competitive, but I think that was when something really clicked. And I really, and I started doing it for the love of it, you know. And that has never left. I still hear them in the back of my mind. I still hear things. I still say things that we said that I really found were true. Things like really good design provides for opportunities and does not limit. you know, the principles of simplicity, you know, that all things considered the simplest answer is the best answer. And Bill Gwynn would say, when you can create a simple design, it proves that you actually understood the question. Speaker 1 (12:11) you know, he was really hard to, he was hard to please. He was a, he was a tough professor, but you know, we need those, we need those tough professors sometimes. Speaker 2 (12:27) Well, and, and how were some of those presentations that you no doubt had to make to, to him? How did those go? Speaker 1 (12:33) They were like hand-to-hand combat. Frankly, when you went into, Those presentations, I mean, it was verbal jousting, and it was arduous, and they wanted discipline, and they absolutely were going to beat it into you and the softness out of you. It really was. I played sports all growing up. I mean, basketball, football, track, baseball, everything that they would let me play that I could make the team, and it was like. that, but on a mental level. I mean, some of it sometimes might have been a little bit mean-spirited, but I think it was really the idea that this is serious stuff, and