Cottage Living opens a door on comfort, style and simplicity

Eleanor Griffin knew in her gut that there was magic in the word "cottage." Whenever "cottage" was used in the title of an article, readership soared. But what did cottage mean to female readers? And could the right cottage concept work for a new magazine?

Griffin, then editorial director for corporate management for Time Inc.'s Southern Progress subsidiary, collected notes and tearsheets, lugging them in a milk crate to meetings with her development team. Soon, those random ideas were transformed into foam-core boards speckled with Post-it notes.

Once the team members had a vision, they spent a year traveling around the country to explore what triggered female readers. They met with women in private dining rooms of restaurants to share dinner, wine and ideas. The women said many design magazines were out of touch. They wanted a "house with a soul." They didn't want magazines that told them everything in the house had to be perfect. They didn't like seeing furnishings that were expensive and hard to get.

The result was Cottage Living, a magazine more about feeling comfortable than looking fashionable. It focuses on a trio of needs: comfort, simplicity and personal style. Griffin, the magazine's editor in chief, recognizes that the name may be a misnomer, evoking images of kitschy country decor or a lakeside second home.

But "cottage" is not a decorating look. It's a lifestyle. Think bare feet, convertibles, furniture with slipcovers or upholstery in worry-free performance fabrics. And cottages can be any size -- a 4,000-square-foot, $1 million home as well as a simple $150,000 bungalow.

"The power of the word 'cottage' is one of the real indicators of how people live," she said recently during Wintermarket at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach.

"It's not about money. It's about how they choose to live. Readers want to be recognized as individuals, and they want their homes to reflect themselves and their families. Cottage Living is not duck, geese, little old ladies, tea cups, Goldilocks and the three bears. It's about escapism."

And that sense of escapism may differ depending on where the folks live, according to Griffin. Los Angeles cottages are sleeker and well-edited. East Coast cottages have more quilts and family pictures. Key West cottages are funky.

"Readers say they have more enthusiasm than confidence," she says. "They say, 'Show me how to put it all together.'

"This magazine has no velvet ropes, no decorator du jour. We are living more informally, and cottage is synonymous with informality."

The personification of the "no velvet ropes" is illustrated in the magazine's photography of real people in real-life situations. They're lying down on a sofa with their feet in the air or jumping on a bed. Pets are everywhere.

"Our stylists get paid to put back imperfection," Griffin says. "We put back the house keys and the remote. . . . We photograph what we see. We want the reader to say, 'She's like me,' not that 'she spent $40,000 and is up to her eyeballs in debt.' "

Everything that is featured is available to the public without going to a designer. The magazine names the flea market, Web site, toll-free number or retail store.

Some magazines preach style from faceless editors. In Cottage Living, the staff is shown with their projects. You'll see production manager Amy Lowe Mitchell sitting on the arm of a hand-me-down chair she updated and recovered, and style editor Heather Chadduck explaining that applying the gimp and nailheads to her chair saved $100.

Griffin says one of the problems with many magazines is they are trying so hard to teach that readers feel uncomfortable. "The magazine isn't preachy and has a relaxed voice," she says.

Cottage Living is 1 1/2 years old, and the editors are still learning. "Fill in the Blank," a feature that used yellow crime-scene tape to illustrate what needed to be done in a room, was dropped because Griffin says it didn't resonate well with readers. She gave the space to "The New Old House," the most-read column.

Griffin has decided the magazine's success reflects two trends: Readers connect cottages with good times and coziness -- she calls this choosing "happiness over hugeness" -- and they want a home that tells a story and reflects who they are.

"Cottages have character in their DNA -- much more so than many cookie-cutter homes that look like the one that's three doors down the street," she says.