"It Can Be Like This..."

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Weddings/Celebrations
Vows: Mitchell Gold and Tim Scofield

By Lois Smith Brady
Published: July 2, 2010

When Mitchell Gold, now 59, arrived in Manhattan in 1974, he “was young, fresh out of college and closeted,” he recalled. He took a job selling pillows at Bloomingdale’s, and remembered going out with women and usually finding that “the waiter was more interesting, or her brother.”

He eventually began dating men and fell in love with Bob Williams. In 1989, they created the furniture company in Taylorsville, N.C., now known as Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, whose logo looks like something two lovers would carve in a tree.

The company makes couches and armchairs that are hip in an everyman way. Its Web site reads like a friendly blog, with the two founders writing about the importance of giving back to their communities, staying curious and avoiding mean people.

In time, Mr. Gold and Mr. Williams became so well known that their portrait began appearing on the walls of Pottery Barn, which sells their furniture. It was at a store in Chevy Chase, Md., that Tim Scofield first saw Mr. Gold’s photo. Mr. Scofield, now 33, was working there while studying for a degree in American history at the University of Maryland.

He recalled how he used to stare at the picture and admire Mr. Gold’s cool half-smile and the faded blue jeans that made him look more like a teenager than an executive. (Mr. Gold calls himself the chair-man.)

After college, Mr. Scofield spent years working in a tiny basement office at the National Postal Museum, a part of the Smithsonian in Washington, where he meticulously cataloged items in its stamp and postal history collections for the museum’s Web site. In the fall of 2006, while he was in Manhattan for an auction of rare stamps, a friend invited him out for cocktails with a group that included Mr. Gold, who was dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans. (In his wardrobe, blue jeans are as ubiquitous as yellow cabs on Fifth Avenue.)

Mr. Scofield was awestruck. “I was too shy to look into his eyes,” he recalled.

By then, Mr. Gold had broken up with Mr. Williams and expected to be single for the rest of his life. “I’d had one big love and I didn’t think I could find another,” he said.

But in Mr. Scofield, he sensed a possibility. He liked his “winsome” quality, and the fact that he seemed knowledgeable about everything from paper-making techniques to the latest legislation on gay marriage. “He was as adorable as can be, but he also had depth,” Mr. Gold said. “It was nice for me to just sit and listen and not have to be the one selling and talking.”

Mr. Gold even laughed at Mr. Scofield’s jokes, which are notoriously dry to the point of undetectable. “He’ll be talking normally and somewhere in the sentence there’s a joke,” said Alison Kilgore, Mr. Scofield’s older sister.

One of their early dates began in North Carolina and ended in the Hamptons. On another, Mr. Gold took Mr. Scofield to his parents’ house in Florida, not just for a few hours but for a few days. “I would have been unglued if someone did that to me,” Mr. Gold admitted now. “But he just goes with the flow.”

Mr. Scofield had just taken a job at an auction house in Dallas, but soon quit. “Basically, he packed his bag and came to stay,” said Mr. Gold, who lives in North Carolina and Manhattan but travels frequently for business.

It was an easy transition for both. “I spent 10 years at the Smithsonian buried within the vault of the collection, barely seeing the light of day,” Mr. Scofield said. “Traveling with Mitchell was such a contrast, and very exciting.”

Some people would never date a smoker; Mr. Gold said he could never date a clumsy conversationalist. He soon discovered that Mr. Scofield can make conversation with anyone at a party, out of almost nothing, like a chef making a great meal out of leftovers.

Although their first year together was a whirlwind, Mr. Scofield took it slowly emotionally. “Early on, Tim said to me: ‘Mitchell, I don’t fall for someone quickly. I meet someone and my love builds up,’ ” Mr. Gold recalled. “I thought that was really smart, rather than make everything quick, quick, quick.”

Mr. Gold added: “It’s not the things Tim does that I like, it’s the things he doesn’t do. He doesn’t get into a lot of drama. He doesn’t get angry. Life is just too complicated for that.”

Mr. Scofield calls himself the “old soul” in their relationship. He is the one who prefers to spend an evening reading historical literature and going to sleep early, whereas Mr. Gold “has so much energy and life,” he said. “He might spend the day in meetings with bankers, but when he comes home, he’s like a 17-year-old.”

While Mr. Gold takes him to business meetings and parties, Mr. Scofield makes a point of taking Mr. Gold to historical sites wherever they are. “I took Mitchell to a first-century catacomb in Italy and you could just see the look on his face, like, ‘Why am I here?’ ” Mr. Scofield said. “But he doesn’t complain. He just smiles.”

On June 19, they were married at the Des Moines Art Center in a wedding that was in some ways a celebration of Iowa, one of five states that permit same-sex marriages. As 92 guests, including Mr. Williams, watched, the couple said their vows before Judge Robert B. Hanson of Iowa’s Fifth Judicial District, whose 2007 ruling helped open the door to same-sex marriages in that state.

Afterward, guests wandered through an exhibition of Iowa artists, then gathered in an outdoor lounge created for the evening with white furniture supplied by Mr. Gold’s company. It featured a disco ball and the New York D.J. Lady Bunny. The grooms wore matching dark suits, and Mr. Gold was wearing his trademark half-smile.

“The world could be ending, and you wouldn’t know it with Mitchell,” Mr. Scofield said. “He’s always so calm. You want a partner like that, someone who makes you feel everything is going to be all right.”

From now on, they will be known as Mr. Gold and Mr. Gold, or the Golds.

“I’m changing my name,” Mr. Scofield said. “My grandfather’s name was Goldberg. It’s almost like going back to my roots, in a way. I think it’s very interesting that women are becoming more liberated and keeping their names, whereas gay men are becoming more traditional and changing their names.”


Jennifer Seter Wagner contributed reporting from Des Moines.

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