About Us • Quality • Profile

Michael Ragan grew up in an Orlando Florida family of professional golfers. His Dad, Dave Ragan Jr. was a touring pro joining the greats such as Arnold Palmer for the 1963 Ryder's Cup. His mother, Joanie finished second in the Western and Southern Seniors.

Growing up Michael concentrated his efforts on performing arts and received a scholarship in fine arts before venturing to New York as an actor. As a triple threat Michael performed on Broadway from 1978 until 1990 for such legends as Bob Fosse, Agnes Demille, Michael Bennett, and others. In 1990 he decided to change his career and move to Los Angeles to pursue Television and Film.

It is during his Los Angeles transition that friends discovered his abilities to create new interiors. Michael created a new California look from his New York styled furnishings for his home in West Los Angeles in a weekend. He made everything himself. Learning to knit, sew and paint at the age of five by his beloved grandmother.

With friends support Michael started his manufacturing company RAGS, with a line of fashionable pillows that were sold through the uber chic store Fred Segal. His pillow assortments grew to a full line of custom furniture and bedding that were distributed nationwide through designers and fine Retailers such as Robb and Stucky and Neiman Marcus. Very quickly Rags grew to managing seven permanent showrooms around the country with over 50 employees. Mike soon learned that bigger is not always better! "Running the showrooms was like babysitting and took most of the creativity out of what I loved most and that was designing." A consulting firm was hired to come in and evaluate the business. We had twenty five hundred accounts that we were doing nothing with, the new philosophy was to close all the showrooms and take the top ten accounts and make them each $100K, the rest of the 2500 will fall into place.
It was then that the business started to take off. Happily designing everyday Mike collaborates with designers around the country in developing their custom projects where he owns and operates RAGS' a design build custom manufacturing facility. For 20 years he has produced hundreds of high end residential interiors collaborating with well known designers like Kelly Wearstler, Tracy Murdock and Lori Dennis; hospitality giants The Breakers in Palm Beach, The Hard Rock in Hilton Head, The Lodge at Cordillera and celebrities like Drew Barrymore, Angelica Houston, Annette Benning, Warren Beatty, and Bill Murray. He is also a brand identity expert and consultant, having developed textiles, rugs, pillows, lighting, dinnerware and other accessories for Disney, Tommy Bahama, The Rug Market, 2 Old Hippies and Jean De Merry. His projects have been featured in In Style, LUXE, People, Vogue, Elle Decor and countless other publications. Mr. Ragan is the Senior Editor of LA Design Magazine and can be seen as Lori Dennis's "go to" guy on HGTV's new Series "The Real Designing Women" premiering this fall. Michael has also been featured in "Homes Across America", "Awesome Interiors", "Kitty Bartholomew Show"
Mr. Ragan believes in giving back and serves on the board of the non-profit organization Dec My Room and works with The Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. He was also on the Board of Hamilton Music Academy (A top rated Theater Magnet in Los Angeles where budgets for productions reached 100K per show, and actually made money in the end). He lives in Los Angeles with his partner and Weimaraners, "Olive" and "Dover".