Childhood for Bobby Sukrachand ’04 straddled two worlds: his school-year home with his mother in Millis and his summer home with his father in Thailand. Growing up half Thai and half American with his parents residing on two separate continents, he felt himself not quite rooted in one land or the other: “As a kid, I didn’t quite know where I fit in. Growing up in a small town like Millis, I was conscious that I didn’t really fit the mold of what was ‘normal’ in my town. Likewise, when we’d visit Thailand, it wasn’t as though my brother and I just blended in. Our mixed identity was always treated with a bit of curiosity by Thai’s, and not being able to speak the language meant that it was difficult to connect in a deep way.”

Now as an adult, Bobby has found a way to bring his two worlds together and to proudly plant his own roots. He’s a much lauded furniture and lighting designer who has recently opened a new studio, storefront, and artist residency space in Thailand. Working with designers from the United States, and sourcing materials and hiring skilled craftsmen in Thailand, his studio - Pern Baan - is melding voices, stories, and experiences, and turning them into works of art.

Bobby came to Xaverian from the Millis public schools in 2000, following in the footsteps of his brother, Daniel, who graduated in 1999. Here he found a level of academic excellence that he appreciated. In Millis, he admits, he wasn’t a great student, often bored and “just coasting.” “When I came to Xaverian,” he says, “suddenly the studying was much more challenging. If I didn’t try or didn’t apply myself, I wasn’t going to do well. It’s an environment where there’s excellence in the quality of the instruction and also the peers that you’re surrounded by.”

From Xaverian, Bobby went to NYU, where he majored in photography and appreciated having the city as his campus. “New York City was the education,” he says. “One of the ways I developed my perspective on the world was through the ways that I interacted with the city.” And that perspective on the world, Bobby believes, is one of the most important things an artist can have: “If you don’t give yourself the opportunity to develop the point of view, the perspective, the ability to ask questions so that you can have some kind of a vision and have something to say, it doesn’t matter how technically gifted you are as an artist. If you don’t have a voice, there’s nothing behind it.”

Bobby found his voice in furniture design, which wasn’t part of his original plan. He graduated from NYU with an already thriving career as a wedding photographer. The income afforded him the opportunity to pursue his creative passion in his free time - that of social documentary photography. “The type of work I was passionate about and wanted to do didn’t pay well,” says Bobby. He admits he hated doing weddings though, despite being featured in New York Magazine for his skills. Eventually, Bobby tried his hand at a furniture building course at a local community woodshop. From then on, he was hooked. He enrolled in a three- month intensive at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and rented woodworking space in Brooklyn. His early work caught the attention of friends and family, and commissions started coming in for custom pieces. He quit photography and within two years, launched his first collection of furniture.

That collection, which he launched under his own name, served as a learning opportunity for Bobby to finetune his approach before opening his second business, Pern Baan. He first began dreaming of the concept of Pern Baan pre- COVID. At the time, he and a fellow designer from New York traveled to Thailand and began making connections with local artisans. They returned to New York with big ideas for a new project that would tie together Bobby’s two worlds, but two weeks later, COVID-19 shut down the city. The pandemic allowed Bobby time to reconsider his business approach, and he decided to shutter his existing operations, move out of his apartment and his woodshop in Brooklyn, and eventually, head to Thailand to ride out the rest of the pandemic.

“Thailand was managing COVID extremely well,” he says. “It was a little bit of a paradise at first. I dove deep into exploring craft, artisanship, and design in Thailand over the next year, trying to develop relationships and meet fabricators and producers.” Those relationships formed the basis for Pern Baan. As Bobby points out, “‘Pern Baan’ means ‘neighbors’ in Thai. If you translate it literally, it means ‘the friends of our home.’ The mission of the company is to connect my two homes, the U.S. and Thailand, using design and using craft as a language for that connection.” Pern Baan launched online in 2024 and the storefront just opened in January after more than 18 months of construction and Bobby’s painstaking attention to every design detail. Elle Decor, Dwell, Vogue, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Surface, Domino, Interior Design ... with the launch of Pern Baan, the name “Robert Sukrachand” is everywhere. The design world wants to hear from Bobby.

“When I was just another woodworker guy from Brooklyn making furniture, I didn’t have much to say about my work. I’m not that natural self-promoter,” he says. “With what I’m doing in Thailand, I’m more than happy to talk about it because it feels authentically aligned with my personal story, what I care about, and what I want to talk about. I have that point of view now.”

Pern Baan is more than a business venture for Bobby “The products that we make, the people who make them, and the stories involved in making them is our way of producing a connection which I felt like I lacked when I was a kid,” he says. Bobby has come a long way from the boy who didn’t fit in anywhere, building a global neighborhood of designers, craftsmen, and artisans. Through it all, he says, he’s found a little bit of personal healing.

Pictured: 40 Side Table and Coiled Heavy Antique Pendant, available at PernBaan.com