RareField Dream Team Partners Announced!

When I started this business, over thirty years ago, it’s fair to say I had no idea how long it would last nor what it would become. I was still tending bar to make ends meet, which, in fact, went on for the first 14 years of both the store (Paxton Gate) and the Design-Build firm, originally under the same name.

While the store seemed to grab a particular audience with its strong point of view, accessible Valencia Street location, and unique merchandise, the Design-Build wing grew more slowly, mostly by way of private commissions in backyards, and then spaces connected to backyards, and then restaurants, hospitality, interiors, and many, many more backyards, and eventually some public projects as well. As the brand grew, it developed on the strength of our word, our work, and our reputation, but also by way of the people it attracted, both the clients and the crew. Many people have brought their passion, skill, and creative vision to the collective fold of RareField over the years. Our scope of services has grown to reflect that which we could do and do well.

It probably goes without saying that many things have changed in San Francisco since 1992. It’s also fair to say that I probably didn’t know exactly why I started either business, what was ultimately important to me, why I felt they needed to exist, or what hole in the market they were filling. There were many holes!

What has become clear to me over the years is that everyone deserves a chance to be themselves and to pursue their dreams. At first, that person was pretty much just me, striving and working hard to carve out a space and a living for myself. As the business has grown into a brand, it has become a place where several individuals can be themselves, pursue their dreams, and make a living for themselves and their families as well. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the dreams of these individuals have become the reason for the company, they have become the brand. I don’t know if I realized this was happening and I certainly can’t take all the credit for facilitating it, but it has happened. I have borne witness to it. Perhaps more than any single project, any particular style or vision, this is what RareField Design/Build was always meant to be—a place where individuality and belonging are synthesized into a greater whole, where the passion of many becomes the work, and fused with purpose, the brand.

In this synthesis I include first and foremost the incredibly dedicated individual contributors on our team, but also all of our clients. Our projects are, ultimately, theirs. It is the backdrop for their lives and the uplifted experience of their day-to-day activities in a space that artfully, skillfully, meets their needs and in which they have perhaps the largest single influence in terms of style and programming. In this way too, many individuals, their identities, and their dreams have been joined through RareField and the authenticity of our Design/Build process.

Before I go off the rails here and start sounding like any other Bay Area company that’s going to change the world, I’d like to get to the point of this whole thing.

After more than thirty years, the scope and the brand are bigger than anything I could carry alone. And it is that success and its future that I wish to share with all of you, our clients, supporters, and fans of the brand. It is with great honor, and a touch of humility, that I look to a future business of which I am no longer the sole proprietor, but a founder and a partner with—as of 2024—three additional employee-owners who bring so much to the firm that, at this juncture, I couldn’t do it without them.

I’m still here; I’m not going anywhere just yet. But the team will now tell you their story, in the form of many passionate little stories, photographs, vignettes, and personal details. And, because I can’t resist, I’ll be chiming in every now and then. I hope you enjoy following along as much as I will.

Sincerely,

Sean Quigley
Founder | Principal