By Donna Heiderstadt

The San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state may be a small corner of the world, but for Victoria Thayer childhood summers spent there with her grandparents opened her eyes to a big connection between people and the way they choose to live. “From modern cliffside palaces to geodesic domes, cabins in the woods, beach houses, and a house that could only be described in a J.R.R Tolkien fantasy novel, I was exposed to many people’s dream homes and who they were that led them to the environment they had built,” she explains. This, in turn, led Victoria to believe that the union of home, environment, and self is “undeniably instinctive.”

As Showroom Manager & Designer at Pedini NW in Seattle for the past year, Victoria is in the very unique position of being the sole Seattle employee for the Portland, OR-based business the specializes luxury Italian cabinetry. An architecture major in college — who also happened to feel compelled to design and open her own restaurant in Germany at age 21 — she was hired for the progressive and multi-faceted position to remodel the newly acquired Seattle showroom and facilitate local design services with input from the team in the Portland headquarters. She will also serve as treasurer of the Puget Sound Chapter of the NKBA for the 2025-2026 term.

Now 29, Victoria says the word “resolute” best describes her and that her own personal design preferences lean towards a modern adaptation of neoclassical design — although, interestingly, her house reflects more of a moody wabi-sabi style. “I suppose both design styles hold prominent homes in my heart and this house decided which one it would adopt,” she says.

Married to her “incredibly supportive” husband, Charles, since June 2023, Victoria says that with their equally busy careers they are still navigating the work-life balance. “Our friends will joke with us that they ‘don’t move at Thayer speed,’ which is smart!” she explains. “We sometimes think we shouldn’t either! We purchased a house, ripped the interior apart and renovated it, then planned a wedding and got married all within one year.”

As for hobbies, she and Charles are pup parents to a Havanese named Roux as well as Halloween and Christmas fanatics who gleefully indulge their shared passion. “Last Halloween we had a Harry Potter theme and set up our exterior walkway so that trick-or-treaters would walk through platform 9 ¾ into the great hall of Hogwarts, then have to knock on the portrait guarding Gryffindor quarters (our front door) for us to open it to reveal our entryway decorated as the student communal room,” she says.

In the real world, the duo dream of equally ambitious future endeavors. “My husband and I are huge history buffs,” she says, “and as we learn more about specific times and events in history, it becomes more and more clear that at the top of our must do list is more travel.”