Thirty Under 30: Noelle Johnson

By Donna Heiderstadt

Noelle Johnson knows the beauty of building a business from the ground up. “You get to learn every side of it and stay hands-on with all of it,” says the Co-Owner of The Lifestyle Lab in Phoenix, who without any formal design training worked her way up as she helped grow the design showroom founded by her mother, Sandra, into a multimillion-dollar company over the past five years. “Titles don’t really capture what I do,” adds 28-year-old Noelle. “I wear a lot of hats — overseeing both our design and showroom teams, managing store operations, procurement, and e-commerce, sourcing new materials for the showroom, and driving business development and brand partnerships. I’m involved in every corner of the company, from creative direction to operations.”

If being in the trenches with her team sounds exhausting, it can be — but Noelle, who describes herself as “relentless,” wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s hands-on with every detail, from curating unique, high-quality materials sourced from all over the world to ensuring her team provides top-notch service to every client. “My days are long and fast, but I love that,” she says. “My favorite part is hearing how much people love what we’ve built — when someone says our showroom changed how they approach design or how inspired they feel when they are in our space, that makes every late night worth it.”

In fact, Noelle says her most memorable moment was when The Design Lab moved from a 900-square-foot space that “felt like a storage room” into their 6,000-square-foot flagship that is an elevated, fully curated material house. “Walking into that new space for the first time knowing that we built it with no investors, just hard work, was surreal,” she recalls.

While Noelle loves design that is layered and textural — moody yet refined with a European edge — she also appreciates mid-century modern, especially the Arizona version. “My grandma actually lived in an Al Beadle home, and I was obsessed with it growing up, the way the light came through, the furniture, how simple but thoughtful everything felt,” she says. That 1950s–60s desert-modern era has always stayed with me.”

It makes sense that this design entrepreneur would be in a relationship with another entrepreneur — “He understands the pace and has been one of my biggest supporters,” she says of her boyfriend, Gavin — with whom she loves to recharge while outside camping, paddle-boarding, and enjoying trips north to Sedona and Flagstaff. Her other companion — both at home and in the showroom, where he supplies comic relief — is her pug, Fish Stick.

On the horizon: Scaling The Lifestyle Lab into a national brand via a “network of curated material houses where homeowners and designers can experience beautiful, thoughtful products without the overwhelm.” She also wants to bring more women into the male-dominated flooring, cabinetry, and construction world. “There’s so much opportunity for women to lead here,” she says, “and if I can help pave the way for the next generation coming up behind me, that’s something I’d be really proud of.”