Happy Father’s Day, Billy!
Who is Billy? :
Billy and Jane, his wife and co-founder, built Stray Dog Designs from the ground up. Their 30-year journey has been full of love, creativity, adventure, and challenges.
In the early days, Billy and Jane spent their time traveling Mexico's backroads with paper maps in hand, discovering artisans and welcoming their first stray dog, "Princessa," into their lives. Though they were often just scraping by, those years were rich with romance, possibility, and adventure.
Billy likes to joke, "I always thought I'd be the businessman and Jane would be the artist. But I'm not really suited to be a businessperson—I have a Master's in poetry, so that says a lot."
While he may not fit the traditional mold of a businessman, Billy's warmth, enthusiasm, and ability to connect with people helped build the foundation of Stray Dog Designs. Today, however, we're measuring his success in years of fatherhood.
Father-daughter Trip to Spain:
Billy is the loving father of three children: Pete (28), Stella (26), and Franny (22). The three have always called him "Billy" instead of Dad—a family term of endearment that stuck from their childhood and never went away.
Recently, Billy took a father-daughter trip to Northern Spain with Stella and Franny. So, in light of Father's Day, we asked Franny to share about this special trip:
"The three of us drove up the Costa Brava and spent days lounging on a small rocky beach in an old fishing village called Sa Tuna. We read, swam, and listened to all the different voices and languages drifting across the beach. In the evenings, we drove up to the neighboring town of Begur for drinks and dinner. We had one of the most spectacular meals of the trip at Clara, a restaurant attached to a beautiful hotel there.
The next part of our trip was spent in Barcelona. We mostly wandered, ate tapas, had drinks, and played cards. One especially fun afternoon was spent at La Plata, an Anthony Bourdain-recommended tapas bar. The food was incredibly simple, bread with sausages or sardines, but also savory and delicious. The wine tasted almost like a cider-like beer. The three of us sat there watching people flow in and out before we wandered to the next wine bar, where we played cards for hours.
Other highlights included seeing the Pope (twice!), visiting the Picasso Museum, Park Güell, and Casa Batlló. But the most memorable part of the trip wasn't any particular place; it was how hard we laughed. Every day, everywhere we went, we were belly laughing, building on jokes and bits that somehow kept getting funnier. At one point, we were asked our 'rose, bud, and thorn' from the trip, and all three of our roses were the same: the laughter. That's a pretty lucky thing to come home from a trip saying."
This Father's Day, we're celebrating Billy not just for helping build Stray Dog Designs, but for weaving humor and charisma into every relationship he cultivates and for being such a lighthearted and loving father.
Happy Father's Day, Billy. We love you.
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