Home decor giant Victoria Mackenzie-Childs dies at 77
The founder of interior design brand MacKenzie-Childs, Victoria MacKenzie-Childs, has died at age 77.
Her brother announced on Facebook that his sister had died Wednesday morning.
“I’m sad and sorry to see you, Victoria, my sister go!” Donnie Mackenzie wrote.
The cause of his death was not mentioned.
“I say sad for all of us who loved Victoria so much, but we know that she continues to live her life with such vigor, creativity and enthusiasm!” » added Mackenzie. “I already miss you so much, but I am very grateful for the impressions you left on me about how to view life with unlimited freedom; without limits or boundaries!”
Syracuse station CNY Central said MacKenzie-Childs and her husband Richard Mackenzie-Childs started their business in upstate Cayuga County in 1983 before losing the business to bankruptcy in 2001.
The couple’s children, Heather and Niels, posted a video on YouTube last month showing a boat named The Yankee Ferry that their parents transformed into a well-appointed floating home and studio in 2004.
“She always loved New York, with all its layers of textures and people and cultures coming together, but she couldn’t figure out how to be there with a lot of space to work and had this idea of wanting to be on a boat,” Heather explains. “It was just an amazing way to live in Manhattan, but with the feeling of being, you know, on the open sea.”
MacKenzie-Childs explained in an Instagram video that she spotted the boat — a former Ellis Island ferry — while rollerblading around Manhattan and checked it out.
“This mean guy came and he gave me a price and it was really cheap, so I said it was a bargain,” she recalled.
Yankee Ferry was put on the real estate market last summer. It was then docked in Staten Island and listed for $1.25 million.
MacKenzie-Childs said her company employed 400 people before it folded due to an “unfair and powerful situation”.
