A home is often realized with the services of an architect, contractor, interior designer, landscape architect, and cabinetmaker typically addressing each separate piece. At Wingate Ltd. in Great Barrington, those disciplines are brought together from the outset. This full-service design-build firm handles projects ranging from perfectly curated furnishings to the design and complete construction of newly created homes in which architecture, interiors, and landscape form a cohesive whole.
“There are a lot of diverse clientele with various needs who we serve,” says founder Valerie Winig. “We do everything from finding the perfect lamp to building a brand-new ground-up constructed home—and everything in between including renovations, additions, etc.”
Winig began her career as a landscape architect before working as a senior project engineer for a prestigious Boston commercial real estate development/construction company. After returning to her native Berkshires, along with continuing her practice as a registered landscape architect, she began designing custom furniture and interiors, gradually expanding her expertise to encompass architecture, construction, furnishings, and landscape design. Today, Wingate’s team includes designers, architectural draftspersons, civil and structural engineers, and a network of contractors serving projects throughout New England and beyond.
This multidisciplinary background still shapes the way Winig approaches a property. She is inspired by the character of the site or existing architecture, the clients’ needs, and the visualized experience of moving through a completed home. Views, spatial relationships, color, texture, and outdoor features are treated as parts of the same composition.
“I look at things from the inside out and the outside in,” she says. “It’s the total, comprehensive feeling that is developed—and the flow of how one proceeds through the space. That’s what creates the greatest amount of continuity, seamlessness and beauty.”
Wingate’s 15,000-square-foot showroom offers clients another way through the process. Its eclectic collection includes furniture, lighting, fabrics, an exclusive carpet showroom, accessories, and pieces that can be customized with different dimensions, configurations, and/or finishes. For clients furnishing an entire home, the showroom can provide something close to instant gratification: an opportunity to assemble and experience a complete look without making every decision from a catalog or computer screen.
The company also operates its own custom cabinet and finishing shop, allowing its team to design and fabricate kitchens, libraries, vanities, cocktail tables, consoles, and other made-to-measure pieces. Winig cites a Wedgewood-blue library in Williamstown as an example. By opening walls and integrating the cabinetry with the adjoining living room, Wingate made a relatively modest and disjointed space feel dramatically larger by uniting the separate spaces and making them feel as one. This same comprehensive thinking extends outdoors. At a Lenox property, Wingate recently designed a hot tub pavilion, bluestone pool terraces, a fire pit, swing, extensive stonework, and a redesigned cobblestone edged and aproned driveway. Carefully aligned sightlines connect the swing, pool, and pavilion, giving the property a strong sense of structure and visual momentum. New interior spaces include a gym, sauna with a curved glass wall, a brass and cerused oak bar and glass door panels separating spaces.
Every project begins with conversation. Winig listens for what clients respond to, then uses those reactions to help guide the next round of ideas. “I love when it’s a collaboration instead of dictating what they should be doing,” she says. “We’re participating together in the process of what the end results will be.” The outcome is a home grounded in how its owners want to live: comfortable, durable, personal, and designed to retain its value. As Winig puts it, people want their spaces “to feel so relaxed that they are inspired to be at home.”
Wingate Ltd.
420 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington
(413) 644-9960; Wingateltd.com
