It is just three days before the soft launch of Shea McGee’s McGee & Co. retail flagship in Salt Lake City, and the atmosphere on the expansive shop floor is remarkably serene. Every single element is precisely where it belongs: A long dining table is set meticulously as if for an intimate family gathering, adorned with a wispy, elegant arrangement of white anemones; shelving units are full, yet thoughtfully curated rather than overcrowded; throw pillows have been rigorously fluffed and plumped to absolute perfection; and cozy blankets have been draped over furniture with just a delicate touch of casual insouciance. Glass cloches contain neatly arranged candles alongside small, carefully stacked piles of matches, placed with an exacting eye for detail.
The day prior marked the store’s major commercial photo shoot ahead of its official public opening on September 25. As a result, every single vignette remains in pristine, magazine-ready condition. For Shea McGee—who serves as the chief creative officer and co-founder of both interior design firm Studio McGee and lifestyle brand McGee & Co. alongside her husband, Syd—not a single detail is out of place. She looks precisely as she has appeared to millions of viewers on television screens and digital platforms for more than a decade: possessing a sparkling white smile, wheat-blonde hair tumbling in soft waves, and dressed in a crisp, elegant white wrap top.
She flutters effortlessly around the vast shop floor, guiding store associates from one carefully designed vignette to the next. She offers hands-on advice regarding styling choices, product placement, and the finer operational details that the team will need to master come Saturday. "I have a tendency to be an advocate for the thing that I love that isn’t our top seller," she remarks, explaining her curatorial philosophy. "I want to show people how good it is, and I know I can do that if I just get it in front of them."
A camera crew follows her every movement, capturing behind-the-scenes footage for their enthusiastic digital audience. While Syd and a visitor sit nearby discussing the broader business operations, Shea pauses to instruct the retail associates on the exact styling of the very vignette where the interview is taking place. The visitor instinctively attempts to duck out of the camera’s frame and conceal empty cans of Diet Coke, but Syd remains completely unfazed. By this point in their entrepreneurial journey, operating under the watchful eye of cameras has simply become a standard fixture of their professional lives.
The couple has lived much of their professional and personal life in the public eye since the early days of Instagram, a period Shea fondly recalls as McGee 1.0, when she first documented the extensive renovation of their personal home online. Splashy media coverage followed in the subsequent years, paving the way for a hit Netflix series, three best-selling books, and an exponentially larger audience, ushering in McGee 2.0. Today, the mother of three children—ages 12, 10, and 5—commands an impressive business empire. This includes major licensing partnerships with prominent household brands such as Target, Kohler, and Ann Sacks, alongside a mammoth social media following that boasts four million followers on the primary @studiomcgee Instagram account and nearly two million followers on the @mcgeeandco profile. Furthermore, their active YouTube channel consistently racks up hundreds of thousands of views per video.
The Salt Lake City-based couple is currently managing enough professional ventures to easily fill any of the near-dozen china cabinets sold through their furniture business, which has until now operated almost exclusively in the digital realm. Their latest ambitious endeavor—bringing the physical McGee world to traditional brick-and-mortar retail—represents what Shea characterizes as the dawn of "McGee 3.0."
"We’ve been running a product business for years, and now it’s time to create the experience," she explains.
Located within Salt Lake City’s historic Trolley Square shopping district, the expansive retail space—affectionately referred to by Shea simply as "the shop"—spans an impressive 7,500 square feet. While opening a physical retail store was always a prominent fixture on the McGee vision board, the journey to realize this dream was far from a straight line.
In the late 2010s, the couple—who first met during their college years—operated a small, temporary pop-up shop in Costa Mesa, California. However, at a mere 600 square feet, the footprint was simply too small to support a robust, fully realized furniture-selling operation. They subsequently explored securing a more suitable, permanent space and were mere days away from signing a new commercial lease when the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly struck the global economy. Consequently, the plans for a major McGee retail establishment had to be shelved for the time being.
A few years later, the McGees caught wind of a massive commercial space becoming available in Salt Lake City’s iconic red-brick shopping destination, Trolley Square. Conveniently, the neighborhood was also home to a Kohler showroom, serving as one of the studio’s most significant licensing partners. The property itself, however, was in a severely rough condition. Formerly operating as a comedy club, and as a Hard Rock Cafe prior to that, the building did not immediately conjure up the gentle, refined transitional aesthetic that defines the signature McGee look.
Yet, if one was willing to squint—and Shea is exceptionally skilled at visualising potential—the architectural bones were remarkable, featuring soaring high ceilings and generous windows that flooded the interior with natural light, though the previous nightclub owners had covered them up with heavy black film. The subsequent renovation project required two full years of meticulous planning and construction, but the physical McGee retail experience is now nearly ready for primetime.
While Studio McGee has built a stellar reputation designing bespoke homes for clients across the United States since 2014—including high-profile projects featured across four seasons of their hit Netflix television show, Dream Home Makeover—this brick-and-mortar retail debut marks the very first time the general public will be able to experience the complete McGee universe in three physical dimensions. Walking into the 7,500-square-foot flagship store just three days before its official launch, visitors realize that while they may never have stepped foot inside an actual private McGee-designed home, the retail environment successfully evokes that exact feeling.
That immersive sensation is entirely by design. The store is meticulously laid out into layered, residential-style vignettes featuring furnishings and decorative accessories from the in-house McGee & Co. line. It is further enhanced by exclusive in-store-only vintage items and hand-picked specialty lines, such as Match pewter and Caroline Francis candles.
The space feels significantly "more of a home atmosphere than straight retail," notes Shea. The showroom features large anchor pieces—such as the grand Octavia upholstered U-chaise sectional that warmly greets guests upon their initial arrival—alongside smaller, grab-and-go gift items like terra-cotta flower pots, design books, and artisanal hand towels.
Syd notes that he deeply admires established retailers like Buck Mason for their market attainability, lively merchandising strategies, and attentive customer service staff. He explains that they ultimately aimed to create a shopping experience that sits comfortably somewhere between a massive big-box retailer and an intimate boutique. Despite the immense physical scale of the flagship—and the McGees’ already-active plans to open between three and six additional retail locations over the next two years—Shea continues to refer to the flagship simply as their "shop."
That level of personal intimacy remains deeply important to the couple, who readily acknowledge that they built their thriving business on their own approachable, likeable personas, alongside an innate knack for making high-end interior design accessible across a variety of budgets.
"We can design homes that are in the tens of millions of dollars, but we can apply the principles and teach people, and have a relatable, warm persona," Shea states. That philosophy remains the core of the brand.
Maintaining that high standard of quality and intimacy as they continue to scale their business will undoubtedly present their next major corporate challenge. "I have aspirations of growing nationwide, but also I don’t want to lose that personal feeling that comes from a standalone store," Shea admits.
She is acutely aware that personality-led businesses carry unique operational challenges. For instance, every single retail employee walking the sales floor will serve, to a significant extent, as a direct representative of Shea herself—a reality that makes the comprehensive training of those team members critically important.
Accordingly, the designer spent the preceding two months developing a rigorous training manual for all store associates. This document includes minute details, such as the exact number of inches Shea prefers to space an area rug away from a wall and her preferred layering techniques for luxury bedding.
Those signature design choices will also be actively distilled within the in-store design services area. Here, shoppers can receive free, personalized furniture recommendations, operating on the core concept that even if a client cannot secure a fully serviced, custom Studio McGee residential design contract, they can still effortlessly decorate their own living spaces within the broader world of Shea.
With throw pillows expertly fluffed and shelves neatly stacked, the only element missing from the showroom floor is the paying customer base. Even before the doors officially open, that enthusiasm is palpable; every few minutes, curious passersby stop outside to pull on the locked front entrance handles. Whenever this occurs, a McGee associate quickly steps forward to share the exciting news that the shop will be fully open to the public come Saturday. While September 25 marks the official grand debut, the preceding soft opening serves as a high-stakes dress rehearsal.
"I’m not sure it will be as soft as we’re hoping it will be," Shea says with a smile, watching as another prospective customer cups their hands against the expansive glass windows to peer eagerly inside.
