Rising star: tennis great Venus Williams tries her hand at interior design in a move that hints at her life after she retires from the court

South Florida CEO, Sept, 2004 by Giannina Smith

There is no doubt that tennis star Venus Williams dominates whenever she steps onto the court. But like many other athletes, she is preparing for the day when her professional sports career ends and her days as an entrepreneur begin.

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For now, Williams' post-tennis focus is on V Starr Interiors, the fledgling interior design firm the 23-year-old tennis phenom launched in April 2002. The Jupiter-based firm has 12 clients--a mix of celebrities, friends and family--that include Marlins pitcher Brad Penny and, of course, Williams' younger sister and doubles partner, Serena, whose California home she helped to decorate. Indeed, residential interiors are the firm's bread and butter.

This year, Palm Beach-based real estate developer Kenco Communities hired Williams to design a model interior for its upscale Stone Creek Ranch development in Delray Beach. The June unveiling of the model home was more a coming-out party than a moneymaker for V Starr. Kenco paid for the party and V Starr paid for furnishings to decorate four rooms in the Campobello Estate model. The payoff for Williams was the exposure to prospective homebuyers who might also want her interior design services.

So why would a tennis star, who arguably has some of the best years of her sports career ahead of her, and who together with sister Serena is worth an estimated $100 million, bother with such a small venture?

Williams puts it this way: "I loved interior design and I saw how South Florida was growing and I thought it would be a great way for me to have my own business, which has always been my dream and something that I love."

Williams began studying design in 1999 at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. She left the school in 2001 without completing her degree, and instead completed an interior design program through the London-based Rhodec International correspondence school. She launched V Starr in April 2002. Nearly a year later the company hit a rough patch. The Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design discovered V Starr had been operating without a license since its launch and issued a cease and desist order. The firm was temporarily prohibited from offering any services. By December 2003, licenses in hand, V Starr opened a 2,000-square-foot office in Jupiter.

V Starr now has four designers including Williams. Meighan Coger, V Starr's project designer, joined the firm a year and a half ago, after meeting Williams at a design exposition in Boynton Beach. She says, when the tennis star is not competing on the court she works six to eight hours a day, often taking lunch at the office and involving herself in every level of the business.

"She really enjoys meeting with the clients at the initial meeting, at first design and at installation, depending on her schedule," Coger says. "I have heard her say many times that she will not sit back and do any one particular thing. She started this business for her love of design and not so much as a money-making thing."

V Starr has designed interiors for homes as small as 2,000 square feet and as large as 10,000 square feet, at rates around $50 per square foot. "We do everything from accessorizing and picking colors to doing full-fledged design work with architects and builders," Coger says.

One collaboration last August, with Chicago-based home goods retailer Crate and Barrel, had V Starr designing the penthouse setting for New York City's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Still, most of the company's projects are with home-builders. That may be why the Kenco project appealed to the firm.

The June cocktail party and tour at Stone Creek Ranch, hosted by Kenco, drew 250 guests. Celebrities including Matchbox Twenty guitarist Adam Gaynor and former Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams were among the guests. A silent auction that night raised $10,000 for the Owl Foundation, a charity founded by Williams' mother, Oracene, to address learning disabilities.

Kenco co-founder Kenneth Endelson headed up the Stone Creek project and began negotiations with V Starr a month before the community's grand opening took place.

"We knew that Venus was, for the last several years, establishing herself in the design business and we took a look at her work, saw that it was good, and decided a person of her caliber associated with Stone Creek Ranch would be excellent," Endelson says. "She came in toward the end and did some color palettes in certain rooms, which really warmed up the house."

Stone Creek Ranch was V Starr's first collaboration with Kenco, and Endelson says he would like to explore future projects with the company. "I'm going to be meeting with Venus and her professionals and we'll see if there are some other opportunities that we can mutually work on together," he says.

While business is good--Williams would not discuss specific financial information--the tennis star is not leaving her life on the court any time soon.

Last year she ranked No. 11 in the world, down from the No. 2 spot in 2002. And this year she struggled with injuries to her left knee and right ankle. By the end of this season's singles ranking she continued to play, winning consecutive victories in Charleston, S.C. and Warsaw, Poland. In a telephone interview from California, where she advanced to the quarterfinals in the Bank of the West Classic tennis tournament, Venus explained how she is focusing on her game while also pursuing her passion for design.