Yip,Yip,
BY DIANNA SMITH
Hooray! CELEBRATED HGTV STAR, ENTREPRENEUR AND FAMILY MAN VERN YIP DOES IT ALL (AND WITH STYLE)
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fter being in the public spotlight for more than 13 years, Vern Yip has a little confession to make. He never really wanted to be on TV. This humble leading interior designer and architect who’s known
for his work on popular do-it-yourself and design shows on Home and Garden Television (HGTV) and The Learning Channel (TLC) was quite content with his private, busy life in Atlanta, Ga. He worked 80 hours a week as an intern for an architectural company and finally opened his own firm in 1999. Just one short year later, TV producers came courting and while most stars with his noteworthy stature admit their fame was something they had always wanted, Yip approaches it with a ho-hum attitude because those things weren’t even on his radar.
And now, thanks to TV, he’s able to do that with people all over the world. Throughout the years he’s been a friendly, familiar face on HGTV shows like “Design Star,” “Deserving Design,” and “Bang For Your Buck,” and he’s a regular on the Home Shopping Network, where he promotes his home line. Yip, 45, is also now a part-time Florida resident, as he just finished construction of a vacation home on Florida’s gulf coast in Rosemary Beach. The timing suits him well because Yip plans to visit the Sunshine State this month, when he’ll headline the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival in Orlando. But way before all his success, Yip was fortunate enough to be the original designer of the hit TLC show “Trading Spaces,” 62
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one of the very first do-it-yourself programs on national TV that Yip says paved the way for similar shows today. A producer wanted Yip to audition after learning he had won a coveted Southeast Designer of the Year award in 2000, but Yip graciously declined. The premise of “Trading Spaces” was to redesign a room in someone’s house with a budget of only $1,000 and Yip recalls thinking the show would kill his career. “My clients were very happy to spend $1,000 on a lamp shade,” he says. He turned down the request three more times before finally agreeing to do it. And he’s certainly glad he did. “It was like hopping on a rocket ship. None of us ever expected the show to take off like it did,” Yip recalls. “One
Photo courtesy of HSN
All Yip wanted to do was work hard to share his love of design.