VENUS WILLIAMS Tennis star already courting new career

Her parents taught her to think ahead.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Make no mistake: Venus Williams still lives to play tennis.
She talks about the sport that has brought her four Grand Slam titles and $12 million in prize money with the wistfulness more often reserved for someone recalling a first love.
But this savvy 22-year-old isn't a typical myopic sports star, caught up in the belief the glory days will never end. She has seen the future ... and it has more to do with fabric and focal points than slams and sets.
Last November, Williams called a press conference to announce she was starting V Starr Interiors, an interior design firm based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (The business name is a play on her full name -- Venus Ebony Starr Williams.)
Since then, the firm has attracted clients, decorated a room for the Red Cross Designers' Showhouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., and generated a tide of controversy among the interior design establishment.
Her reasons
Why does one of the superstars of women's tennis start planning for her next career so soon? Is she ready to pack away her racket for a new career after losing her No. 1 ranking and three Grand Slam finals to younger sister Serena last year? Or is she just planning for the future?
"I did this because Mom and Dad taught us to be forward-thinking," she said, while sitting on the upstairs terrace her firm designed for the recent show house. "I love to be busy, and when I'm off the court I do things I love, and this is something I love."
This family propensity for planning meant she incorporated the business seven months before the press conference. She hired Bonnie Nathan as design director in August. Nathan, a licensed interior designer, owned Interior Space Affiliates in Boca Raton, Fla., from 1985 until this year. Before that, she had her own design firm in Syracuse, N.Y.
"Venus and I are consistent about our design philosophy and the philosophy of the whole firm," Nathan said. "Service is our motto."
The two women met the high-tech way -- over the Internet. Nathan posted her resumes on two job Web sites, and Williams responded. They had three hour-long interviews on the telephone before they met face to face. Nathan was impressed with the young woman, but she didn't know her true identity.
"I had no idea who it was," Nathan said. "She said her name was Ebony Williams. She had studied fashion and needed some help in getting her new design business up and running because she had other interests right now."
Little training
Williams needed more than some help. She needed someone licensed as an interior designer. Although Williams loves interior design, she has little formal training. She studied fashion design at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., enrolling in October 1999 and leaving after the fall 2001 semester. Now, she says she is studying interior design through Rhodec International, a London-based correspondence school.
Williams' lack of formal training has given her foray into the design business a slightly rocky start. And it has stirred up some resentment in the tight-knit world of interior design, which is highly regulated in Florida. Anyone can be a "decorator," but you can't call yourself an interior "designer" unless you are licensed. And when licensed designers suspect misrepresentation, they call foul.
"We had a complaint based on a newspaper story that Venus was holding herself out as an interior designer," said Lee Smith, who investigated the complaint for the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design. Under Florida law, only those who are grandfathered because of work experience or pass a tough three-part examination can call themselves interior designers.
Williams, it turns out, didn't misrepresent herself and Nathan, her design director, had the proper license. The problem was the firm wasn't properly licensed with the state.
Kevin Davis, Williams' attorney in New York, said Williams and Nathan thought all the proper filings had been done and all regulations were followed.
"It was a technical error and it was corrected," Davis said. "The board didn't fine them."
But the semantics game continues. In her promotional materials, Williams is described as a "certified interior decorator."
"There is no such thing in Florida as a certified interior decorator," says Mary Jane Reeves of MJR Interiors in Boca Raton, a member of the state Board of Architecture and Interior Design. "She can call herself an interior decorator. It's the certified thing that doesn't work."
Certification
Williams' certification comes from Certified Interior Decorators Unlimited, a private organization founded by Ron Renner. Members pay a $15 application fee and $295 a year in dues. Unlike interior designers, decorators are not required to have a college degree.
Design director Nathan says the certification fills the gap between those who are studying and seriously planning a career in design and those with good taste who have a card made and call themselves decorators.
The firm is moving from Palm Beach Gardens to Jupiter, Fla., where Nathan lives, in mid-June. They have hired another designer and will have student interns, but they are taking it slow.
Even though she's rated No. 2 in the world (behind Serena), she knows tennis won't last forever. What is her dream for 10 years from now?
"In 10 years, I suppose I will be finished with tennis," she said. "I would like to take a vacation, to go places and actually see things. I have never been to Africa. I don't have time right now. I can't take three weeks off."