Evolving an interior design business into a design-build business while also making sure that each project reflects the needs and personality of the client.
It started with a literal (nocturnal) dream. In 1999, having launched her fledgling interior design business out of her dining room, Valerie Winig was looking to rent a small space in the south side of the brand-new, still-vacant building on Stockbridge Road in Great Barrington.
“I dreamed I was walking north down the middle of Route 7 and people were yelling ‘No! Turn Back!’ and I just kept walking slowly. After I crossed a threshold these barriers blew open and there were horsemen with epaulets and batons, and it turned into a fanfare. I knew then that I had broken through the block of fear. I took the space with confidence and set it all up and acted on my vision,” Winig recalls of what appears to be a still-fresh memory. (She then incorporated Wingate on the auspicious date of January 1, 2000.)
At the time a single mother of two young sons, she could reasonably have given in to her fears. But conviction trumped any trepidation—Winig had mastered the business model as a partner in another design firm that was based in Soho.
Plus she had learned to trust her gut. “I always tell young entrepreneurs that when a transition is met with an incredible amount of angst, it is something that perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in. But when everything seems to fall into place easily, there’s this power of inspiration that can’t be stopped even if you wanted to. It’s a meant-to-be kind of feeling.”
Some 20-plus years later, Wingate fully inhabits the same creamy two-story clapboard showroom-cum-studio, which looks out over an interior courtyard.
Despite an abundance of furniture and decorative objects everywhere you look, there’s an overarching sense of collective calm—of being in a space that is deftly curated while also humming with creative energy and spark. It looks lived in, cozy and inviting. That atmosphere is clearly an extension of Winig, who radiates an inner strength that’s softened by a sincere interest in who she is with. She is professional yet personable, and it’s easy to imagine entrusting her with your home.
During a quick tour, Winig leads to where she handles the design work on the first floor; groups of fabric swatches, paint chips, and floor samples from her vast resource library are organized for different projects around the large room. “They are all taking on similar tonalities at this moment,” she says of the prevailing color scheme.
Pointing to several (daunting!) stacks of paperwork that line a worktable, she explains she keeps active projects close by so she can grab them quickly and generate ideas. “There is just a lot of information in each job that you have to be ready for.”
Upstairs is an on-site finishing shop for upholstery and painting, where upon this visit an entire bedroom ensemble had been painted a lovely matte grey (updating a milk-paint powder blue) and was air-drying before being delivered to a client. (Wingate also has an off-site cabinet woodworking shop.)
Back downstairs, Winig describes the showroom—more like showrooms, with staged sleeping and seating areas—as having an assortment of pieces she’s acquired over the years and that doesn’t fully reflect the variety of her work.
She stops at an oversized armoire made from reclaimed wormwood from England, a holdover from her former business. “We used to be heavily into reproduction antique furniture and these pieces would sell frequently, when TVs were much deeper. There’s no need for that anymore but you could turn one into a bar or, if you have space for it, a wonderful linen closet.”
She likes how those reproductions are part of the history of what she’s been involved with, and to perceive their value even if buyers don’t (referring to the demise of “brown furniture” over the past decades). “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that design is cyclical. What’s deemed ‘out’ will ultimately come back with a bang and people will wonder why they got rid of it.”
Sure enough, Winig was in the process of clearing out a sizable haul—a significant number of pieces were marked with “sold” post-its—for a return client. (Much of her business is from clients she has worked with before.)
“That same client first came into the showroom around 1 p.m. on an unremarkable Sunday. She spent hours sitting in chairs and looking around. And then she said, ‘Would you do me a favor and furnish my New York City apartment?’ And so we did!”
According to Winig, they loaded the truck up with pieces as well as hooks and picture wire and did the entire job in one day––after of course spending about two weeks working over the phone and augmenting from other sources.
“Lo and behold, the client just came back and has asked us to do the same thing for their new house in Maine, and now we are starting to run out of things,” Winig laughs, looking around all the items that will remain.
Although the pandemic brought challenges, Winig says she did not experience the degree of supply chain issues that have plagued so much of the industry. But like others, she has experienced an uptick in business, especially in the design-build area (more on that below).
In comparison, she vividly remembers the recession in the aughts as “ghastly because we were entirely home furnishings and retail, and no one called, let alone came in to buy anything or embarked on new projects.” She had just purchased many thousands of dollars of merchandise that was shipping out that week and faced substantial debt associated with the 30-day payments. Fortunately, she had the wherewithal to negotiate more feasible terms with the vendors and was able to pay it all off in due time. “I have great relationships with them to this day.”
Even still, it was a struggle to come up with the cash during those hard times. Tired of sitting in a showroom filled to the rafters and zero prospects, she created an advertisement that offered an incentive for people to buy local, all in the spirit of recovery. “I was trying not to perceive the recession just from my perspective but from the perspective of others who were also experiencing the economic impact but might still have a need.”
Sure enough, it resonated with one client who, inspired by the ad, “boldly came forward” and asked her to furnish their entire home. “And that was the end of the recessionary woes for me.”
Leaning into that rebound helped her remain optimistic during the shutdown in 2020.
“I find that when you are going through hard periods of time—whether you are grappling with making a decision or facing difficulty in coming up with solutions to problems—those are when you are learning the most. In reflecting on those times of my life, I’m encouraged by that knowledge. We will always have times when things are easy and wonderful and other times when things aren’t so easy and great.”
Wingate currently has eight full-time and a few part-time employees along with a roster of local subcontractors who collaborate on the design-build business.
That business—where Wingate oversees the design and construction of a project from the ground up, whether a brand-new home or more often an addition—now represents over 50 percent of her total business. The rest comes from more traditional interior design services.
“I am by no means a residential architect, but I am familiar with plans and know what I like,” she says, adding that she is accustomed to perceiving things from an indoor/outdoor whole as an interior designer and landscape architect. (Her first position out of college was at an architecture firm.)
According to Winig, the business has evolved organically, growing out of her experience working with the clients’ contractors and offering suggestions and input without having any financial connection to those contractors. “What’s changed is that I now bring in my own team and find it to be more seamless and full-service. There’s trust, unity, and clarity.”
She is even being approached by general contractors at the recommendation of some of her regular subs. “It makes it much easier for the client if there is a single point person who is able to orchestrate the whole thing, and it’s all fully transparent.”
That said, she still does more traditional interior design projects, including furnishing entire homes. “I try to keep my service options open to a variety of avenues so there’s flexibility going forward. You never know how things are going to change.”
Not surprisingly, Winig has ideas for the future and is fine not fretting over how they will all turn out. “My sons have heard all kinds of ideas come out of my mouth throughout time and they know not to question me too hard because many things do come to fruition, but many things don’t.”
Ideally the business will remain in the family. Her son Christopher, who is Wingate’s digital strategist (and former logistics specialist for the U.S. Navy), helped stage the Saratoga Showcase of Homes, for which they won an award.
Her other son’s significant other also helped with staging several houses. “I really enjoy working with her. She has a gorgeous home, unbelievably beautiful!”
Otherwise, Winig sees the company as being transferable— the business model is in place and the name is familial but also generic, so it could be packaged and passed on. “That wouldn’t be my first thought, but it could certainly happen if need be.”
“I’m happy to exercise our art and have a great team to execute beauty, and that’s all I need,” Winig says. “I don’t need to amass great business wealth or grow it into a well-oiled machine.” And she is quick to add that she cares about people getting paid well and feeling compensated adequately, being empowered and enjoying what they do.
She also gauges achievement by the often-tearful expressions of her clients, sharing a recent anecdote of a client who hired her in January to completely make over her home while she was in Florida—and refused to see any photographs of the progress because she wanted that “wow” experience.
“We were all waiting inside and as soon as she came around a corner into the room she started shaking and crying. To see that joy is so gratifying,” she gushes. “Yet another client in a similar reveal moment said, ‘I’m speechless!’ What more do you want?”
Ultimately, Winig views serving clients as an honor—and prefers to reflect their desires over imposing her own. “I do have strong ideas, but I love the springboard that is personal to the client rather than having a clean slate, which is not as creative or interesting. Their taste, their family heirlooms make it their own space.”
It’s another meant-to-be kind of thing.
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