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A self-proclaimed domestic archeologist, Anna Pei is devoted to preserving memories. After the death of her grandfather I.M. Pei, the esteemed architect renowned for his works such as the Louvre Pyramid, she unearthed a trove of her grandparent’s personal documents. These photos, letters and records of their life inspired her to curate a digital archive of their estate to immortalize their history.

, the NYC-based archival agency that is helping others safeguard their stories. With every ode to a life, Anna is reviving memories, transforming them into legacies that last.

It seems you and your grandfather were kindred spirits. Tell us about your experience discovering your grandparents’ estate.

“I was devastated when my grandfather, my Gung Gung, passed away at 102 in May 2019. Despite the 80 year difference, we were best friends. I grew up eating dinner with him twice a week and later stayed in New York for college to be with him. After his passing, I searched endlessly for evidence of him around me.

“Finding those shoeboxes under his bed brought him back more clearly than many of the last years we shared together. All of a sudden I had troves of relics invaluable not only for their historical merit but for their sentimentality. Using the tools I learned from my internships at Christie’s and college classes on collecting and curating, I started teaching myself the institutional techniques, proclaimed myself the family archivist, and the rest is history.

“Uncovering these memories enriched so many different facets of my grandparents’ lives. The professional, the personal, the private… all these anecdotes have been saved and offer a sort of immortality. Through reading their most intimate letters and memos, I almost feel I know them better now than during my own lifetime.”

Are there any pieces from these findings that you’re especially drawn to?

“It’s hard to choose any one ‘asset’ (how we refer to the material at Ode) over another. It could be the baby photos I found of myself or the inscription besides my grandfather’s awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ultimately, it’s the variety of locations and dates that makes me so ravenous for this collection—it's truly an example of international time travel in a shoebox.”

How did this experience lead to the beginnings of Ode?

“Ode has had a very colorful journey. I began archiving out of pure necessity and the treasures I uncovered allowed the value of this process to speak for itself. I immediately saw how applicable this practice would be to so many others, but I was still in school and felt the pressure to find a more stable profession post-graduation. With plans to enter the auction world as my internships had prepared me, Covid was the perfectly imperfect opportunity for those pieces to fall out of place and to force me out of that comfort zone and launch me into entrepreneurship.

“My first client was a close family friend who saw the vision and had me digitize the scrapbooks she had made for each of her children over the years. The threat of natural disasters, notably the wildfires in California and Australia at the start of 2020, were key forces behind the urgency to protect these stories. Soon, families and creatives alike were finding Ode through word-of-mouth and the team has grown from there.”

“Ode’s goal will always be to preserve stories. Everyone deserves to find the beauty in their lives, and be given opportunities to share their stories. Ode’s work right now is exceptionally hands-on, and we meet with our clients for hours to relive the extraordinary details found in the most overlooked places. Our next step is to find ways to scale these opportunities.”

You describe yourself as a ‘domestic archaeologist’. Where does that stem from?

“There’s a moment at the beginning of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where they show one of the characters at an archeology camp. It was brief, maybe only a minute or two long and definitely a minuscule element in the plot of the film but I hung onto that image for a lot longer than the director likely intended. However, being a very passionate native New Yorker, the reality of me sitting in a dirt pit was slim. Archiving is the best of both worlds: discovering invaluable stories without the khaki capris.”

“While mummies go to museums, the materials uncovered at a client’s home further articulate their cultural footprint. Just as precious as a thousand-year amphora, the photographs and documents we handle are all that tangibly remain of a family’s history. The sensitivity and emotional labor required in this field are what make the work fulfilling.”

What is your favourite part of the archiving process?

“There is a sense of novelty to immersing yourself in the lives of strangers. Everyday offers a chance to travel to places I’ve never been, to communicate with those no longer with us, to revive stories that once were bold enough to shake towns. Once it’s all done, something bigger can be made of all those details and trivia you learned along the way. I can’t imagine a more powerful feeling than breathing life into an epic collecting nothing but dust.”

What is it like to grow Ode in your grandfather’s old office—a space where he created so much?

“My father and uncle have been incredibly generous to loan me the corner office at their Park Avenue South architecture firm. The space was designed for my grandfather during his time in the office. Sharing this view across three generations of Pei leaders keeps me close to Ode’s mission. I remember running around these halls as a little girl and to still trot around in my socks as an independent business woman fills me with gratitude.”

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