Heidi started designing fantasy homes, as a little girl. She was inspired by her father who built contract homes and loved to visit him on his construction sites. Her dream was to become an architect but realized that her passion was in finishes, rather than engineering and structure. She attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and obtained a duel degree in Home Economics and Interior Design. When she was in school, she designed sets for the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre in her spare time. She enjoyed the lure of theatre and upon graduation, decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. She got her start Art Directing film shorts and her first feature was called, "Bob, Verushka and the Pursuit of Happiness". Her first big television show as a Set Decorator was for Comedy Central's The Man Show. Over four seasons, she decorated a wide variety of sets. She was asked to move along with Jimmy Kimmel when he was offered his new night-time talk show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live" for ABC. They shot the show in a space in the El Capitan Theatre complex, on Hollywood Boulevard. The space had to be completely renovated to fit the needs of the show and Heidi was asked to do all of the interiors for all of the public spaces. It was an enormous challenge as the budget was low and the schedule was rushed. After three seasons at JKL, she left to start a family and welcome her daughter Ella.
It was during this time that Heidi took on several interiors projects, including helping Jimmy Kimmel redesign his JKL office complex and his home in the Hollywood Hills. Eventually, she was asked to do more TV shows. Her first reality show was Unan1mous for Fox. She found this format to be challenging in a whole new way as the design process was not driven by character constraints. She has since gone on to do over 26 seasons with Gordon Ramsay, including Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef and MC Jr.. She has also had the pleasure of doing many more shows including, Lip Sync Battle (Season 2) and The Talk (also Season 2), Next in Fashion (Netflix) and Copy That (YouTube).
The highlight of 2021 came when she was asked to do the sets for “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses” (HBO Max), hosted by Helen Mirren. Set in the world of Harry Potter, this fun program showcased fans of the film franchise as they competed against one another in teams based on their chosen Hogwart’s houses. As an enormous fan of the entire Harry Potter universe, Heidi was eager to be a part of this project. She has attended several LeakyCons (Harry Potter Fan Conventions) in the past, has seen the stage production of “The Cursed Child” in multiple cities and had the pleasure of being able to tour the original film sets in London. Everything about HP:HTOH was magical. Her Set Dec team was also tasked with the responsibility of handling actual props from the films and placing them on set in front of the cameras, including the Sorting Hat, Harry’s Wand, and a Nimbus 2000.
Her next project will be Set Decorating Dan Levy’s “The Big Brunch” for HBO Max.
She has been nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys, 1 for Hell's Kitchen and she won for her work on MasterChef. The HK Art Direction team also received 2 nominations of the ADG Awards, winning once for Best Art Direction for a Multi-Camera Series. She also had the honor of serving on the Board of the Television Academy’s Art Directors/Set Decorators Peer Group Executive Committee for 4 years, until she termed out last year.
Heidi feels blessed to have such an amazing and supportive work team. Her husband, Gabe and her children... Ella and Milo are the loves of her life and she is grateful for every moment she has with them.