Bridging The Gap

Interior Designer Steffen Ringelmann of Studio MTK Navigates the Local Building Trade with Finesse

When it comes to design and renovation projects, Steffen Ringelmann wears many hats. Some of them are hard (donned on site visits, when dropping in on a client’s contractor to see how the kitchen renovation is coming along). Others are soft but not squishy (such as when he counsels a client against signing another change order and explains why). Still others involve putting on a listening cap and responding with creative ideas that make eminent good sense. There’s no catchphrase to describe all the design- and renovation-related things he does. “I never know what to call to myself,” he says. “Homeowner’s rep? Advocate? Liaison? What I am, really, is another set of eyes.”

Ringelmann is all those things and more. In a previous life, in New York City, he was the creative director of a real estate investment fund with an in-house design-build firm where he managed a team of architects and interior designers and worked closely with outside contractors and project managers. Then, a few years ago, he and his family moved to Montauk. They bought an old cottage which Ringelmann renovated. He did much of the carpentry and all the design work himself. Soon after, he and his wife, Sara, acquired and refurbished a second old cottage as a vacation rental property. Once that project was complete, Ringelmann found he’d learned a great deal about the idiosyncrasies of the local building trade; whereupon he was inspired to start his Montauk-based design practice, Studio MTK.

Since then he’s consulted on and designed interiors for residential projects large and small, including, among others, a historic ‘kit’ home, a cottage with a retro feel, various condominiums, and a five-bedroom house, all in Montauk. The story behind the latter house exemplifies the ways in which he eases projects along. The owners of that property, a young couple who loved to surf, had lived there for over twenty years. The place was deeply shabby when they bought it but the owners were disinclined to undertake a full-scale renovation.

When they began raising children, though, they realized they could not defer remodeling the place any longer. At first they considered a cosmetic renovation. Then, after they realized a more aggressive intervention was in order, they considered tearing it down. But when they mentioned to Ringelmann that if they had a magic wand, they would re-orient the two-story house by 180 degrees — spinning it around, in effect — so that the kitchen and living room gave on to the serene back of the house rather than its front (which overlooked a road), he said, “Hold on, I think you’re on to something.”

The homeowners were extremely surprised, as they thought such an idea was a pipe dream. But Ringelmann saw what they could not and helped them to communicate their ideas to the architect who drew up the plans for the renovation. Along the way, he, Ringelmann, also reviewed and refined those plans, checked in with the general contractor, and convinced the couple that they could and should install a powder room on the ground floor — a smart move that was accomplished without having to enlarge the house’s existing footprint and that also allowed them to add a full bathroom to the primary bedroom. At a later stage of the project, Ringelmann also designed the interiors.

“I’m not an architect or a general contractor or a structural engineer,” he stresses. “I’m an interior designer with earned experience in the construction trade. And because of that, I know how to fine-tune a set of plans so that they align with the client’s vision without blowing the budget. And if the client is tempted to make a decision that probably isn’t worth the money, I’ll make them aware of it. I also know how to communicate with contractors and architects. Very often, relationships between homeowners and people in the building industry become acrimonious because of misunderstandings. When people bring me in, I make sure that everyone’s expectations are the same so that the project never goes off the rails!”