Chapter 9 Always Ahead of What’s Emerging

PHOTOGRAPHS: Adrian Wilson.

New headquarters for Design Within Reach, the leading modern home furnishings retailer, in Stamford’s South End, above and right.

Renovation of the historic 700 Canal Street, in Stamford’s South

End. PHOTOGRAPH: Jarad Kleinberg. “We are the little engine that could,” Rye, New York, native Lindh says. “We have worked our way up to being one of the three names called upon when someone in Fairfield or Westchester counties needs a designer. The Stamford office isn’t as large as MKDA’s other two in larger cities, but the market is very active and we get a healthy share of the business.”

Lindh appears to be something of a kindred spirit with the New York-based principals and project managers of the firm in that she takes exactly the kind of entrepreneurial approach encouraged by Milo Kleinberg at all levels. She is independent of the New York operation, yet hews to the notion of cultivating and maintaining relationships, always being available to the clients and making sure MKDA “is first in their mind if they want to expand or contract,” she says.

Like Michael and Jeffrey, and their father before them, Lindh sticks with the client from start to finish on any given project, not simply making a presentation and leaving it to someone else to follow through. “We always want clients to leave a project with a good feeling and thinking that we have a good relationship,” she asserts.

The strategy moving forward is to branch out. “We are going after more health care and hospitality work, and more building repositioning work that includes renovations and building entrances,” Lindh explains.

Offices of Tradition Energy, consultants in the energy industry, Stamford.

PHOTOGRAPH: Garrett Rowland.

Bank of Ireland. PHOTOGRAPH: Garrett Rowland.

The same way it is able to spot hot industries coming to the fore, MKDA knows an emerging market when it sees one. Jeffrey had long had his sights on Miami and environs, seeing the potential for growth in funky neighborhoods like Wynwood, and in cities like Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables, where a number of unusual buildings were ripe for refurbishment and repositioning—something Milo built his reputation on with projects like the Childrenswear Building at 100 West 33rd Street. Jeffrey was considering an eventual move to Miami from New York, where he’d lived his whole life, and the Florida city’s thriving design sector had its appeal.

On a whim one day, Jeffrey asked one of MKDA’s junior designers if she knew anyone who could head a Miami office. One of two names the designer gave was that of Amanda Hertzler, NCIDQ, a former instructor of hers at Miami International University of Art & Design. When they were next in Miami, Jeffrey and his wife, Ellyn, had coffee with Hertzler and they clicked, in much the

Wynwood Park, Miami.