Moya Living of North End Design – where style meets steel
By DIANNE RUSSELL
Photos by Mary Hurlbut
Moya O’Neill, CEO and founder of Moya Living and managing partner of North End Design, calls her new space in North Laguna a fantasy come true. A 30-year Laguna resident, O’Neill said, “I drove by this building every day on my way to work and thought, ‘it would be a dream to be in that window.’” Her vision came to fruition in March of this year.
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Moya O’Neill, founder and CEO of Moya Living
Previously occupied by Von Hemert Furniture – which closed in 2020 – North End Design is now a shared showroom featuring collections of Moya Living’s custom luxury, powder-coated, hand-crafted steel cabinetry for both residential and commercial spaces – and Aranelli Design which specializes in creating kitchen spaces by utilizing the latest design concepts. This showroom collaboration seems a perfect fit for the elegant North Laguna structure.
“We’re both cabinet makers, but their primary focus is kitchens,” said O’Neill. “We do powder rooms, kitchens, offices and outdoor spaces.”
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Some examples of the jewel-toned custom cabinets
Steel cabinets may bring to mind the sterile styleless boxes in 1950s kitchens or the oatmeal-colored filing cabinets one finds in offices. Wipe that picture out of your mind and instead visualize jewel-tone colors and exquisite design.
Strange as it seems, the creation of Moya Living did originate from O’Neill’s experience designing laboratory furniture for Genie Scientific (she is majority owner). “We build labs as a family business called Genie Scientific. We started selling reconditioned lab cabinets, and I worked for them for 15 years. As time went on, we couldn’t find enough cabinets, but I was in love with metal cabinets because you can repurpose them.” In addition, they are easy to clean and because the cabinets are welded, there are no harmful glues.
O’Neill spotted a gap in the market for luxury steel cabinetry and Moya Living was born. Her manufacturing facility is in Fountain Valley where she has 40 on staff.
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O’Neill welcoming visitors. She’s wearing a belt by Diana Garreau, who designed the wallpaper in the window.
How did working for Genie Scientific evolve into O’Neill founding Moya Living and her artistic nature coming into play? “I’d been in business more than 40 years, and I was dealing with scientists and engineers all day,” she said. “My friends who are artists said, ‘it’s killing you.’ This business started slowly and it’s just really blowing up.”
Moya Living cabinets feature the rare intersection of steel and style, integrating the durability of steel and robust engineering with a strong sense of design. “Our designs are custom – we work closely with architects and designers across the U.S., and we’ve done projects like The Dakota Building in NYC and Apple’s campus in Cupertino,” O’Neill said.
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One of the kitchen vignettes in North End Design
“I’m not a designer,” she said. Although she clearly is as evidenced by her design of the showroom. “I work with designers to create for their clients and oversee the manufacturing at Moya Living.”
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Raised in Montebello, O’Neill moved to Seal Beach and ultimately married her “best friend” as she describes her husband Wynn. “I met him in Seal Beach,” she said. “We were best friends for 18 years, and we always liked each other and then we started dating and got married a year later. It took a long time, but I literally married my best friend.” Evidently, marrying her best friend proved to be a good plan, they’ve been married 35 years.
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The wall hanging of Rockpile Beach was created by Kyle Bynting from Austin
In addition to founding Moya Living, bringing her artistic nature to the foreground also involved exhibiting at the Sawdust Festival –creating mosaic tiles. It’s not surprising that she loves the work of Marlo Bartels and admits she idolized him back then. Wynn was also an exhibitor. “He was better than I was, he was fearless, so he ended up doing 30-foot murals.”
Along with the attraction of the building’s architecture, O’Neill had a vision for the interior, which she designed. “I wanted to feature local artists on a rotating basis,” she said.
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The rug in the entry was also created by Kyle Bynting
“It’s important to me to have the artists from town represented here, and I want to support more artists. I’m just starting with the ones that I know like Marlo Bartels and a few others,” she said. “I support all the galleries here, but these artists are ones I’m familiar with.”
They include Siemon and Salazar, the glassblowers/glass vessel and lighting artists from Laguna Beach, artist Jerome Gastaldi and ceramics by Mike Ezzell.
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Vessels by Siemon and Salazar decorate the sitting area
Is there anything that surprised O’Neill when she moved into the new space? “What surprised me is the reaction of people when they walk in here. They say, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’”
North End Design brings an extraordinary element to the community – stop by and take a look. Whether Moya Living cabinetry is where style meets steel or steel meets style, the resulting integration is stunning.
North End Design is located at 345 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Laguna Beach. Call 949.817.786 and visit www.northenddesign.com.
They are open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on Saturday by appointment.
For more information about Moya Living, go to https://moyaliving.com/about-us/.
