Ever since designer Barry Goralnick began watching I Love Lucy at just four years old, the set design of the iconic show has had immeasurable influence on his personal style—and later his professional business. Goralnick identified with Lucy’s own obsession with decorating (and show business) from a young age: “Even as a kid, those were two things I was interested in,” the designer says. “And it was just funny!”
Of course, the iconic show—which will see a behind-the-scenes movie treatment, Being the Ricardos come to Amazon Prime Video this month—is well known for its comedy. But as Goralnick sees it, it’s also, in some ways, a design series. The designer says one of his favorite decor moments from I Love Lucy is the episode in which Lucy lived in a Los Angeles hotel while redecorating her apartment—both spaces were chock-full of mid-century furniture. “Once this style came back into vogue, I have used several pieces that were reminiscent of the original sets,” the designer says.
Over the years, the designer has realized just how much the series has influenced both his life and his design career, by inspiring viewers alike that anything is possible. “Like many of my clients, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s story is that of the American Dream,” he says. “Yes, Lucy always wanted to get into show business and become a star, but as the show went on, the Ricardos became parents and began to move upward economically. Their homes grew and became more refined as the couple achieved greater success.”
“Lucy was always interested in having the most beautiful home possible,” says the designer—and the ever-evolving Ricardo residence is proof of that. In the show’s first season, from 1951-52, the Ricardos lived in a rented apartment in Manhattan. “Fred and Ethel Mertz are their landlords, neighbors, and best friends,” Goralnick reminds us. “Both couples live in downscale apartments, design-wise.”
In the second season, “Lucy enters the ‘Home Show,’ and mistakenly thinks she’s won a whole apartment of new furniture. She sells all their old furniture, and she and Ethel re-wallpaper the bedroom with disastrous results,” Goralnick says. “This may have been the first example of DIY on a sitcom.”
One of Goralnick’s favorite parts of the series is when Lucy “cons Ricky into buying all new furniture for the living rom, including a one-armed midcentury sofa. They give the Mertzes their old furniture and help them redo their place.” And in true I Love Lucy fashion, “this results in another fiasco as Fred unwittingly switches on the fan, while they are reupholstering a chair, blowing feathers everywhere onto freshly painted walls.”
