Growing up, Kimberly Stewart used organizing as a way to maintain a semblance of structure while touring with her father, Rod Stewart. Now, she’s spun her skills into a bona fide business venture

Kimberly Stewart is always on the go. In the span of just a few days, she took her 11-year-old daughter, Delilah, to Boston for summer sleepaway camp, then she flew to Palm Beach for her cover shoot before joining her family in Nashville for a concert where the performer was none other than her father, the legendary British rock and pop singer Rod Stewart. 

When she’s finally back in Los Angeles and has a break in her schedule, we meet for a poolside lunch at The Cabana Café at The Beverly Hills Hotel, which is just a short drive from Kimberly’s Bel Air residence. She slides into the green-pinstriped booth wearing a satin maxi shift dress and a pair of black Bottega Veneta sunglasses that rest just below the blonde’s iconic fringe bangs. 

Kimberly admits that the travel lifestyle is what she knows best from growing up in the ’80s and ’90s and spending summers or holidays on tour with her dad, who over a 60-year music career has performed more than 3,000 concerts across the globe. “From what I can remember as a young kid, you’re going literally from plane to car to hotel to gig and then sleeping there, and then plane to car to gig. That was my life.” 

Every time she would find herself in a different city, the first thing Kimberly would do when they checked into a new hotel was organize her belongings. “That kind of structure made me feel safe, and it made me feel like each place I went to was like home,” she says. Her knack for unpacking became the foundation for her business, The Realm, which she launched at the beginning of 2021.

It all started when the COVID-19 pandemic put a pin in travel. Kimberly and Delilah, whom she co-parents with actor Benicio Del Toro, flew from Los Angeles to Florida to stay at Rod’s Palm Beach home. Kimberly remembers going there for family vacations ever since she was a teenager. It became the place where she and her seven full and half brothers and sisters on her dad’s side could all be under one roof. Her dad and his wife, Penny Lancaster, would fly in from England with their two kids, and the other siblings who lived in the United States would travel down to Florida and stay at the oceanfront estate. 

“It was our hub of meeting, so it was just always a place where we would have fun memories,” she says. “I remember bikes—we used to bike a lot. There would be 10 of us on the street on these bikes.”

Returning to the house in 2020 for an extended stay, Kimberly and Delilah settled into a morning routine together, since the time difference between the East and West Coasts meant Delilah didn’t have to log on for homeschooling right away. “We would go to Starbucks and then we would go jump in the ocean and play on the sand, then she’d go take a shower, and she’d be in school until 5:30 p.m.,” Kimberly says.  

With some extra time on her hands in the afternoons, Kimberly did what she’s always done when she’s away from home: She started tidying up the house—and the pantry in particular. She ordered containers on Amazon and organized all the snacks and ingredients, posting the before and after pictures on Instagram. 

“I got all this feedback from it, and I was like, ‘Woah. This was just for fun. I’ve been doing this forever.’” 

Given the response, her family and friends encouraged her to start a home organization company, and The Realm was born. 

Operating out of Los Angeles and Palm Beach, Kimberly helps her often overwhelmed clients who have procrastinated in organizing a pantry, a closet, or any other clutter-prone room. She not only brings order to these spaces, but she also encourages and aids clients in the process of tossing out the items they don’t need or use anymore. “There’s such an attachment to material objects and not wanting to get rid of stuff,” she says. “That’s the reason why spaces get so cluttered, because you just can’t let it go.” 

Kimberly looks at each project like a puzzle, figuring out how all the pieces can come together to create a space that is better utilized and more aesthetically pleasing. Having grown up in the spotlight, she understands the vulnerability it takes for her clients to let her into their most personal spaces, and she values the trust she builds with them. Currently, she only takes on one client at a time in order to dedicate her full attention to them, since “it’s such an intimate thing that you’re doing with someone, you get quite close to them,” she says.

There’s also an element of styling to the job, especially when Kimberly helps her clients sort through their closets and toss out the pieces they don’t wear anymore. And who wouldn’t want advice from the effortlessly chic entrepreneur with her signature rock-meets-boho style? “The other day my client texted me, and she asked, ‘What Chanel bag do you like better? Which will look better in the closet?’” Kimberly says with a laugh. “I said, ‘You’re getting a Chanel bag, it’s going to look great regardless. … I like that color better.’”

Kimberly buys in bulk from The Container Store, keeping an inventory of storage bins in a dedicated room at her Los Angeles home in case of shipping delays or shortages, which have affected her business since the beginning. It’s the reason why she’s dreaming up her own line of organization products, from baskets to containers to hangers.

Another part of her long-term plan is to move more permanently to Palm Beach, though she’ll always keep a place in Los Angeles. When she’s on the island, a few favorite spots include Le Bilboquet or Sant Ambroeus for lunch, followed by shopping at The Royal Poinciana Plaza, where she says Delilah always wants to stop into Roller Rabbit and Stoney Clover Lane. 

“Palm Beach to me is much slower [than Los Angeles], but at the same time, there’s just enough action,” she says. “Since COVID, a whole new group of New Yorkers and people from Europe and London have moved there, and it’s becoming a young, fun crowd.” 

No matter if she’s working with a client in Los Angeles or Palm Beach, or traveling the world with her family in support of her dad, wherever Kimberly Stewart goes, she’s sure to finesse any place into a home.

Photography by Joriann Maye-Keegan, shot on location at the Stewart residence, Palm Beach

Hair and makeup: Deborah Koepper, Deborah Koepper Beauty, Palm Beach