by Newest stores opening this week include RH Newport Beach and RH Montecito, California
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Luxury lifestyle home furnishings retailer RH unveiled an aggressive store expansion and development plan on Thursday that includes two new stores opening this week, seven new stores in North America next year and two opening next year in Europe, including RH Paris and RH London.
Opening today is its newest store in Newport Beach, the 90,000-square-foot RH, Newport Beach, the Gallery at Fashion Island. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it has four floors of indoor and outdoor space that the company described as one of its “most dramatic, immersive and brand-defining physical experiences to date.”
Replacing three Galleries in the region, it features the RH Ocean Grill, a 270-seat indoor-outdoor rooftop restaurant and two Wine & Barista bars. It also includes the lifestyle retailer’s first Waterworks showroom, an Interior Design Atelier and what company Chairman and CEO Gary Friedman describes as “the most expansive luxury outdoor furniture assortment in our industry. We believe RH Newport Beach will be an inspiring destination in the Southern California market and has the potential to become our second $100M-plus Gallery.”
In his letter to employees and shareholders released with its third fiscal quarter earnings statement, Friedman noted that Waterworks, a luxury bath and kitchen brand RH acquired in 2016, generates “the vast majority of its revenues from the trade market, selling to architects, designers, developers and builders. While RH has a meaningful trade business, the vast majority of our revenue is generated by consumers. We believe there is a significant opportunity to amplify the Waterworks business on the RH platform by exposing the brand to a much larger audience, similar to how we have expanded other trade-focused businesses and brands over the years.”
This week, he noted the company will begin to introduce the Waterworks brand across the RH platform starting with a 3,000-square-foot space in the Newport Beach store.
“Our interior designers around the world will now be able to specify Waterworks in their design projects, and customers will be able to view and purchase Waterworks on RH.com in the next few weeks,” he said. “We also plan to test a Waterworks Sourcebook in the second half of 2025.”
He added that today Waterworks is “just shy of a $200 million business with mid-to-high teens EBITDA margin that we believe has the potential to become a billion-dollar global brand on our platform.”
The company is also opening another Gallery location in Montecito, California, this week in the Historic Firehouse building on East Valley Road. Formerly occupied by Lucca Antiques, the estimated 7,000-square-foot space will feature an indoor-outdoor courtyard restaurant with fireplaces and fountains, a Wine & Barista Bar and an Interior Design Atelier.
These store openings follow the opening of its latest store in Raleigh, North Carolina, earlier this fall.
Friedman noted the company also is opening its first RH Interior Design Studio this week in Palm Desert, California.
“Our goal is to establish RH as the leading interior design firm in the world, as we’ve moved the brand from simply curating and selling product to conceptualizing and selling spaces,” he said. “The Palm Desert location is a unique test of a consumer-facing interior design firm, not a Gallery. Our theory is, by presenting RH Interior Design in a singular fashion, as a professional interior design firm, we will attract the highest caliber interior designers, and therefore the highest value consumers. We believe this might be one of the most important strategies to elevate and distinguish the RH brand as a global design authority at the highest end of the market.”
In his letter, he briefly noted the company’s expansion plans next year, which include seven North American Galleries slated for Montreal, Manhasset, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Los Gatos, Palm Desert and Aspen.
Of the company’s expansion plans in Europe, Friedman added, “We anticipate an inflection of our business in Europe as we begin to open in the important brand-building markets of Paris and London in 2025 and Milan in 2026. It is then we will gain scale to support the advertising investments necessary to build our business across Europe.”
