From Neighborhood Antiques to Global Home Furnishings: The Early Experiences Behind an Industry Icon
Before Currey & Company became a leading name in luxury lighting and home décor, Robert Currey was a curious child growing up in the South in the 1950s. He wandered through neighbors’ homes viewing beautiful artwork, antiques, and historic artifacts, drawn to objects he didn’t yet understand, but instinctively appreciated.
Origins of Currey & Company’s Luxury Lighting Designs
As a young boy, Robert recalls knowing not just the people in his neighborhood, but what they collected. Paintings, antique rugs, Murano glass, and silver walking canes all left an impression. He found himself studying these pieces up close, long before he had the language to describe why they mattered. Those early exposures to fine craftsmanship and collected treasures quietly shaped his design sensibility.
How Childhood Curiosity Shaped the Brand’s Design Vision
Robert credits these early experiences along with the people who surrounded him as foundational to his creative path. His Quaker godfather’s art collection, a neighbor’s heirloom rugs, and the layered interiors he explored became an informal education in design, one rooted in curiosity and observation rather than formal training.
The Garden Roots Behind Currey & Company’s Natural Aesthetic
Nature definitely played a defining role. Raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Robert spent time with his mother in their gardens and in greenhouses filled with pansies and marigolds, drawn to their color, texture, and scent. Gardening wasn’t just a pastime; it was an immersive sensory experience.
From victory gardens in the 1940s to cultivating his own landscapes later in life, this connection to nature would later influence the organic materials and nature-inspired designs seen throughout Currey & Company’s lighting and home furnishings collections.
The Man, Mindset, and Partner Behind a Design Industry Icon
Equally defining is Robert’s personality: direct, intuitive, and unapologetically himself. He speaks his mind. He doesn’t dwell on what could have been. Instead, he embraces what is.
Robert is quick to credit his success not to his own vision, but to the people who stood beside him, especially his best supporter, his “loud and quiet” wife and business partner, Suzy. She passed away from cancer in 2025, but her passion and her partnership shaped both the company and the life they built together.
Currey & Company Today: A Global Leader in Luxury Lighting and Home Furnishings
Today, his son Brownlee Currey leads the company, while Robert continues as Chairman of the Board. With more than 120 employees across the southeastern U.S. and facilities in the Philippines, China, and India, the brand has grown into a global presence.
Through it all, Robert remains grounded in gratitude, never forgetting the people, partnerships, and experiences, both good and challenging, that shaped his journey.
Currey & Company is highly respected among designers and homeowners for its artisan craftsmanship, globally inspired lighting, and beautiful home furnishings.
But at the heart of it all is a simple truth: great design doesn’t begin in a showroom. It begins with an open mind that is curious, shaped by time spent around nature, beauty, and materials that inspire us to see what’s possible.
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