Queen b

Ebony, May, 2007 by Nicole Blades

Walking into B. Smith's Manhattan apartment feels like stepping into the ultimate "AFTER" photo of a sky's-the-limit makeover. The elegance of the 2,500-square-foot, two-bedroom spread is magnified by the thrilling, unobstructed views of Central Park from the living room and, from their master suite, the everbustling Times Square. From the 35th-floor perch, even the dense clouds and blowing flurries of this cold late-winter day seem beautiful.

Dan Gasby, Smith's husband of 14 years and business partner, welcomes you warmly to the home and, reading your amazement, smoothly launches into a tour of their living space. (To call it just a "room" does it no justice.)

"On a clearer day" he says, pointing north to Harlem, "you can see that building fight over there. That's where [Bill] Clinton has his office." He ushers you to the dining room and pulls out a pair of high-focus binoculars. "I like to watch for my friend the hawk," Gasby says, pointing now to a nest in the molding of a building across the avenue. "I base my business deals on seeing that hawk; it's a good omen."

Just as you pause to take it all in, B (Barbara) Smith quietly steps into the dining room. She's dressed in royal blue workout leggings and a blue-and-white striped dress shirt over a Nike fitness tank. Wearing no makeup, her beauty, like her overall comportment, shines through naturally, easily.

Smith, 57, is remarkably at ease for someone who has a deliciously full plate. The model-turned-restaurateur-turned-lifestyle-maven is the namesake of an expanding multimillion-dollar brand that includes three restaurants, books, a television show, a home decor collection, and, this spring, a new furniture collection.

But working hard has been a part of Smith's style from back in the truly early days, growing up in western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Her father was a steelworker, her mother was a maid; from them Smith learned not only about hard work but also ingenuity. She often refers to them as the original Bob Villa and Martha Stewart.

"My dad did a lot of the built-ins in our house" she says with a smile before taking a sip of tea. "He made the patio, the stone fireplace, the picnic table; he could do anything. He made homemade wine and root beer. That's the environment I grew up in."

Smith beams when she talks about her mother's expert cooking skills, her knack for entertaining matched only by her attention to detail. For Smith, growing up in a working-class home was an abundant life, a childhood, she says, filled with "lots of family, food and fashion." Still, as a teenager--like any teenager--Smith was searching for her creative outlet, her own path.

Flipping through the pages of her parents' EBONY and Jet magazines, Smith was enticed by the glossy advertisements for the prestigious traveling show, the Ebony Fashion Fair. Then in junior high she spotted an ad in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette: "Be a model" it said simply. Smith's father, a "very religious man" rejected her pleas to apply to the modeling school. She gave it a week before going to her father again, this time with a sharpened approach. "I had three brothers, [so] I told him it was also a finishing school," Smith says with a grin. "He said, 'OK, but this is all the money I have for you for any education.' And I told him, 'If you do this for me, I'll take care of the rest."

After graduating from school, she landed her first job in the late '60s--at an airport. It wasn't exactly the runway most aspiring models dream of--TWA hired her as its first African-American ground hostess--but she made time to also teach modeling at school while modeling herself part-time. "I've always had, at a minimum, three jobs," she says, laughing. "Now I have about five or six!"

After two years--and two failed tryouts for the Ebony Fashion Fair--Smith moved to New York City to pursue her modeling dream on the large stage. In 1969, she went out for the Fashion Fair a third time. After being told initially that she was, once again, not accepted, Smith received a telegram that told her to report to Chicago for a show. She was in. "I really like to tell that story because it's about being persistent," she says.

In 1971, Smith signed with the preeminent agency Wilhelmina Models and embarked on a successful modeling career, booking numerous commercial ads and catalogue jobs as well as working the runway. She was featured on 15 magazines covers--five for Essence alone--and was the first African-American woman to grace the cover of Mademoiselle.

Still, she wanted more. She had always been interested in acting, and, with Wilhelmina Cooper's encouragement, even took acting and dance classes. But she was not inspired by the television and movie roles available at the time. "Aesthetically, the [actor's] life wasn't what I wanted" she says, "but I liked the restaurant business."

And so Smith did her local homework researching neighborhoods in Manhattan, went to seminars and shows, networked, and absorbed education from whatever source she could. "From deconstructing floral arrangements, I learned how to make them" she says. "If you're interested in some- thing, explore it!" In 1986, she opened the first B. Smith's restaurant in Manhattan's Theatre District, thriving there for 13 years before relocating to the city's famous Restaurant Row. Two other B. Smith's soon followed: one in Washington, D.C.'s Historic Union Station, and the other a seasonal location in the scenic village of Sag Harbor, N.Y.