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Ann Stillman O’Leary: Taking Chances and Following Intuition

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“I painted needlepoint scrims and buttons for a small shop in Maine to earn the money to go skiing! I have been fortunate to travel to places that will never be as they were. As an example, I was in China in 1980 to 1984. Beijing was Peking then; Shanghai was a decayed but charming city on a waterway. The locals had never seen anyone with red hair! And I had never seen how lacquerware was made, or Blanc de Chine (Fukien) porcelain was produced. All of the travel and places and things I have seen are part of a visual vocabulary and history I draw on daily.”

An indelible eye for making any space compelling has served Ann Stillman O’Leary successfully through her well-traveled career as interior designer, illustrator, author and mother. All her talents blend to make her a charismatic, sought-after leader in her pristine Lake Placid locale. And there is another facet to Ann’s life, an accomplishment that grew from joy and fun. She is only the second woman in the United States to own and start a micro-distillery, Lake Placid Vodka. She and her then-boyfriend, now friend, hatched the idea.

Growing up outside Buffalo, Ann and her two sisters led an idealistic life. “My childhood as a tomboy was a bit like Scout’s in To Kill a Mockingbird, with lots of neighborhood intrigue,” she explained. “We all went on to big cities to do well in our fields because our mother was our champion. We never thought of ourselves as being limited due to the fact that we were women. There was still a glass ceiling in those days, but it was invisible to me.”

She found her interest in architecture and design at an early age, as her family vacationed in New England yearly and she would do pen and ink drawings of the covered bridges or lighthouses. When she was just eight years old, she would see Realtors’ “open house” signs and take it literally. “I was bold enough to gain entry, declaring that my parents had sent me as their emissary to find the perfect house. Untrue, of course, but I gained access to some lovely houses that way, and I have had a lifelong interest in making a room into a compelling space,” she mused.

After graduating with a degree in studio art from Denison University, Ann began her career in New York City as a product director for the decorative home division of AMC/Federated Department Stores. She served a consortium of 45 prestigious department stores around the globe, including Harrod’s and Bloomingdale’s. During this time she directed the design and production of merchandise from 21 countries and was one of the first to establish inroads in China and Africa for home goods. In addition, Ann pioneered the private label branding in the decorative home industry.

“I actually supplemented my income at first by freelancing as an illustrator of signature Christmas cards for Neiman Marcus, Bloomie’s, Macy’s and others,” she smiled. “My career in New York started when someone took a chance on me for a position that I happened to be very good at. I would source and develop merchandise from around the globe and gained access to the world of interior design this way,” she noted. “My inspiration in many cases came from patterns used in wallpaper and fabrics, and I would visit showrooms all over the place to spark an idea. I had to develop a discerning eye in order to cull the best from the market and design what was the next hot thing in the market.”

Her first project was her own home in New Jersey, and over the past 27 years Ann has established a solid reputation in the field of interior design. She moved with her family to Lake Placid in 1989 and founded her firm, Evergreen House Interiors, Inc. Known for leading the renaissance in rustic architecture and interior design, she is sought after for her distinctive style that is both rustic and refined. “I will and have worked on homes all over the place–a Manhattan apartment, a Florida beach house, a Michigan lake house. I am known for rustic but the tenets of design apply across the board,” she asserted. “One of my favorite homes was for a client and his wife who said, ‘We know what we don’t know, which is anything about architecture or design; make us happy.’ We had a great team of architect, builder and me and we were given carte blanche and no real budget. We gave 150 percent. I feel like the success of a project is for the client to hire a good team and let them do their job without micro-managing.”

Ann is the author of two books, Adirondack Style and Rustic Revisited. “In the early ’90s, I started sensing a renaissance of the style of architecture that had been indigenous to the Adirondacks a century before, and I kept wondering why no one was writing about it. I told one of my sisters, who was in publishing, and she said, ‘Well then, you should.’ I got a C in English in college but thought, why not.” Her second book was written while she was in the midst of a divorce, raising two teens and had just found out she had melanoma. “The moral of this story is,” she reflected, “we are just visitors here. Take chances.”

Ann has been featured on the Today Show, HGTV radio, Cabin Life, Country Living, House and Garden Channel and numerous national publications. In 2007, Ann was named the Designer of the Year by the National Wood Flooring Association.

Why Lake Placid? “My ex-husband was born to a Wall Street family and had grown tired of it and wanted to change careers,” she discussed. “When we moved to Lake Placid, you could shoot a cannon down Main Street six months of the year and not hit a soul. We had left a rather fancy life for a simpler one. I loved it and the fact that there was no keeping up with the Joneses here.”

Ann still travels frequently and loves coming home, but she admits her busy life keeps her on the hamster wheel. “It’s in my DNA regardless of where I live. I love getting up and driving or walking to work, no traffic, minor parking issues. The view as I drive every morning to my office is always glorious even on the grayest of days. I need to remind myself to look at it because I am so focused on other things.”

Not an outdoorswoman, Ann’s orientation is toward the indoors, but she enjoys cross-country skiing, boating, tennis and her walks around Mirror Lake, a true de-stresser. Her children, a daughter in New York City and a son in Denver, hold the house and town dear to their hearts. “I have promised to never sell the house they grew up in,” she revealed.

Now, about that distillery. “My friend is an idea guy and had a dream to do something with all the potatoes we grow up here. We took a huge leap! I was the creative and the bank, and he became the chemist,” she said. “This was a new industry and we knew the big guys were huge. Our first vodka, P3 Placid, was bottled and ready for the first taster, who happened to be Bruce Springsteen, who was sitting on a friend’s dock. We were ready to unleash it and noticed a haze in the bottle. It turns out there was too much electric current in the lake water and we had to figure out how to mitigate this. It took us two more months to work it out. Bruce got his in the form of a Christmas gift basket!” Lake Placid Spirits has sponsored and donated product to every cause possible in Albany, Saratoga and Lake Placid, from the Joy to the Children event hosting 700 people to the Cancer Society Gala for 450. In one summer they did more than 20 events.

When asked the life experiences that inspire her, Ann unabashedly admits travel does it for her. She has been traveling around the world for business and pleasure forever. She took her first trip at age 14, to Italy. “I painted needlepoint scrims and buttons for a small shop in Maine to earn the money to go skiing! I have been fortunate to travel to places that will never be as they were. As an example, I was in China in 1980 to 1984. Beijing was Peking then; Shanghai was a decayed but charming city on a waterway. The locals had never seen anyone with red hair! And I had never seen how lacquerware was made, or Blanc de Chine (Fukien) porcelain was produced. All of the travel and places and things I have seen are part of a visual vocabulary and history I draw on daily.”

This free-spirited yet grounded woman advises other women to follow their intuition, be open to opportunity and never take no for an answer. She thrives through her well-honed sense of humor, and her motto is, “Make it happen through creative problem solving. Be able to prioritize. I have a running yellow pad that every Sunday night I outline my clients on, and what has to happen with each one, with a special sheet on urgent things,” she confirmed. “As Anthony Bourdain says, it is my mise en place, and it’s crucial to getting through multiple projects at a time.”

For more information, visit annstillmanoleary.com and lakeplacidspirits.com/about.php.