Meet the extraordinarily talented Karen Caldwell of Karen Caldwell Design. [0:00-5:02]

Welcome to Napa Valley Inside Out. I'm Latif Hason and I am delighted to be hosting this podcast shining a light on one of the most beautiful and coveted lifestyles in the world. If you're interested in developing a property, planting a vegetable garden, making olive oil, fashion, architecture, interior design, county rules and regulations, biking paths, art, getting into the wine business, farming practices, the tax benefits of earning a vineyard, all the ultimate private tours and tastings and all the fabulous annual cultural events we enjoy here and so much more than you won't want to miss this show. Every week I will be interviewing amazing talent, fitness, entrepreneurs, leaders, consultants, event planners and more. They will share their knowledge, experience, advice, goals, passions and their best kept secrets. Hello everybody we have Karen Colwell of Karen Colwell Designs in the house today and Karen's going to be talking to us about fashion, Hollywood and how Napa Valley inspires her designs. Karen welcome to the show and thank you for having me beautiful earrings. I think they look amazing on you by the way. I just want to let you know those look stunning. You look fabulous. Thank you. Hollywood like to match you. Tell us the road to Napa Valley. When you first came here, I know before you were here you were a stand up comedian and I believe your husband all of it was as well. So tell us about that. Well I can't say I can professionally list that as my career but I did I did some improv classes in San Francisco. We were both living in the city and I did some open mics. Let's just say I did okay but I don't have an HBO special with my name on it so obviously Jen goes for it. It didn't go as well as I had planned but my husband loves comedy and he also did some fun comedy classes and I think that's one thing that we love about our relationship as we really do love to last and I think that's an important thing in life. To have laughter and happiness as much as you can find it. Yes that reminds me of one time I was running by your house and I stopped to talk to you on Zinfandel Lane when we were neighbors. For a very long time. All friends. And I remember you telling me everybody should do something creative in their life. Absolutely. And there's so many things you can do and think outside the box as well. People often think of painting or sculpture or music. There's things you can do if they're very creative and you just have to find that little bitch for yourself. You and all of the amazing marriage of talent. Unbelievable talent from interior design, architecture, you own an art gallery, you've been in the wine business, you're a fashion designer, he's a fantastic musician and singer. How did you meet? We met at the film premiere of a film called I Married in Axe Murderer. This is the true title. And it was that's a palace to find arts in San Francisco and we are introduced through a friend of his, a beautiful lady named Linda. And we met there initially. But I was dating somebody at the time and I believe he was just busy with lots of things. So we just met, hit it off. I love speaking to him. He was so fun to converse with. Interesting. He's very interesting man. He's an art galleries and so it started off meeting and then a few months later meeting up again and running into each other. And that's where it all began. So you were both living in San Francisco? You were both living in San Francisco. And then what was the road to Nephavale? How did you make that transition? Well, when we were dating, we were actually on the weekends would often come and play golf at Chimney Rock, which was a great golf course here. It's really there. The winery is still here of course. And we would come up and stay the night and then drive back on a Sunday. And then what happened, we just thought, God, it'd be wonderful to own a piece of land here. And it was kind of ingest. And we weren't sure how committed we were yet, but we were pretty serious. And it was more in conversation. And what happened? We got married here at Meadowwood. And then Davey for our wedding, my husband was using the pool of Meadowwood and ran into a gentleman who's become a friend. And he mentioned this barn on a knoll overlooking vineyards. And my husband thought, that's kind of pretty great. So instead of leaving for a honeymoon the next day, we went and looked at real estate with his family. I love all the remembers looking at it. And he and I doing a high five and almost embarrassly so because the owner of the property was, you know, we thought this was not going to make the Jill work because she realizes we're excited about it. And we won't get a good price. But when we ended up getting a very good price, it was called IEDA, the vineyards name, after the owner. And we ended up raising our kids there for a while on weekends and living