Designer Profile: Greg Samoulides of Embellish Home Staging

A passion for design, a willingness to set his ego aside and some lucky breaks have helped Greg Samoulides become one of the Bay Area’s premier home stagers. Since 2007, the native San Franciscan has helmed Embellish Home Staging, though he officially began staging homes in the late ’90s, when he owned a furniture store on Brannan Street in South Beach.

It was at that furniture store, also named Embellish, that Samoulides had a fortuitous run-in with an up-and-coming Realtor.

“One day a young Realtor walked in and asked if I could stage a home at the Oriental Warehouse,” Samoulides said. “That Realtor wound up being Garrett Frakes, who would later go on to become managing partner of Polaris Pacific. I developed a relationship with his marketing firm and staged a number of his model homes. Then I began picking up other projects with other marketing firms.”

Though his background is in finance (Samoulides holds a bachelor’s of science in business administration from UC Berkeley), design and art have always held his interest.

After working for brokerages like Charles Schwab, AGS Financial and Crocker National Bank, Samoulides had saved up enough capital to open his own furniture store in South Beach. The year was 1998, and his location on Brannan Street was just a few blocks away from the yet-to-be-built Pacific Bell Park (now Oracle Park).

Though the stadium was still a couple of years away, South Beach was seeing an uptick in live/work lofts and condos. Samoulides’ location was in the heart of it. He found himself staging units in the sprouting developments, and the native of the Sunset District soon amassed a diverse portfolio of condos, penthouses and single-family homes.

In his free time Samoulides serves as a guide at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Samoulides himself enjoys an extensive...