Lance Cheney always knew he wanted to be an interior designer. After attending his first class toward the degree at The University of Oklahoma, however, he found himself to be the only man in a class of 200 and got cold feet.
“It was just more than I could handle in my life at the time, so I switched to political science,” Cheney says.
He later transferred to The University of Tulsa and by chance met the late Charles Faudree who recognized Cheney’s talent and mentored the young designer.
Two days after graduation, however, Cheney moved to Washington D.C. where his mother lived.
While working for the National Endowment for the Arts he was given the opportunity to design a house on the Capitol Hill home tour.
“After that I quit my job and jumped off the cliff and decided I was going to be who I wanted to be,” he says. “It reaffirmed that I could do it and I wanted to do it.”
After 20 years in D.C. Cheney moved back to Tulsa in 2007 and started his own accessory line, Man’s Best Friend, a collection of antique dog items including dog food bowls from the 1930s and ’40s, dog paintings, statues, pillows and more, which he sold through a booth at Windsor Market.
One day he approached interior designer Richard Neel and pitched the line for Neel’s shop. “He immediately took it on consignment and in two weeks he sold out of the 20 pieces I’d given him, so he did it again and again,” Cheney says.
Cheney began working for Neel in 2013, and when Neel retired in 2016, Cheney purchased Richard Neel Home from him and continues to run the business as a full-service interior design firm and retail showroom. Cheney says clients often come in and say they need their whole house or a room done in the next three weeks. “We have enough merchandise and inventory to do a couple jobs like that at once,” he says.
Cheney says he could not run the business without Ali McFarlane, an ASID designer who keeps him organized. “She takes off the rough edges that I have, she’s far more patient than I am,” he jokes. Cheney says he and McFarlane try to set the store up as if someone lives there. “That’s how things sell. People come in and see how we’ve done it and that’s how they want it for their home.”
Cheney recently started rebranding the shop as Lance Cheney at Richard Neel Home.
“I didn’t want anything to change right away,” he says. “This was a 40-year-old business and I needed Richard to be a part of it for a while, but I’m ready.”
Shop Favorites
Cynara chandelier, $2,705.
Flocked stag head, $147.
Sculptures, $365-$597.