Trace Lehnoff Only Wanted a Job When He Signed Up for "Flipping Out," But He Got a Father Figure as Well

When 22-year-old Trace Lehnoff applied to work for Jeff Lewis Design he knew what he was getting into. Working for Lewis, a California real estate speculator and designer, not only meant appearing on Lewis’ Bravo reality show Flipping Out, but also dealing with Lewis’ obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as the older man’s penchant to put his employee’s in awkward situations to see how they would react.

But what Lehnoff didn’t expect to find was a father figure, something most regular viewers of Lewis’ antics also might not have expected.

But that’s just what Lehnoff did discover in the man he describes as being the older version of himself.

Flipping Out just returned for its new season and AfterElton.com caught up with Lehnoff to discuss what it’s like working for Lewis, coming out and much more.

Jeff Lewis (left) and Trace Lehnoff

AfterElton: What are we going to see with you this season?

Trace Lehnoff: Well, it's focusing on the different characters and, kind of, the different people in the office. So, the second episode is going to focus more on Sarah and the third is more about me and what I do. Just kind of giving the viewers more of a perspective of what goes on with the individual people and kind of our relationships with each other.

I kind of do my job correctly and don't have a lot of drama, so if I don't get air time, it's a good thing with Jeff Lewis. That's usually why I'm not focused a lot, as much, but there's more of me this season.

AE: So what's it like being on that particular show, with Jeff being so volatile? Because you do your work fine, do you stay outside the drama?

TL: I think that he respects me and I respect him, I think it's a mutual relationship. I just kind of do as I'm told. What he wants is for his employees to stay ten steps ahead, so I at least try to stay two or three and then do my job.

AE: Is he your only job? Do you work for him full-time?

TL: Yeah, I work full-time now, yeah. I was hired on after I graduated college.

AE: How did you come to be on the show? You obviously knew who Jeff Lewis was when you applied.

TL: Yeah. I was going to college in San Diego and I needed a good internship and there weren’t that many opportunities down there so I transferred to the campus in Santa Monica. I started reaching out to the designers that I appreciated and respected, and Jeff was one of them.

I just found his email online and I contacted him through his own site and just said that I was available and that if he needed anyone… He contacted me, reached out to me, and I just set up an interview with him and was hired on as an intern.

I worked as an intern for six months. Then he hired me part-time while I was in school, and when I graduated I was on full-time.

AE: So you didn’t come to him through Bravo?
TL: No, no.

AE: Because you’re a handsome fellow. When you joined the show, my partner and I said, “Okay, Bravo found him and—“

TL: No, not at all. I mean, Jeff does ... He's said before that he hires attractive people, so when I submitted my resume he also asked for a photo. I think it's kind of a screening process anyway.

So that was the beginning. But honestly, the show is the show and it's kind of more of a documentary of what we do, so it's not like...I mean the people who work for him, it's completely real. It's not anything that's set-up or casted.