A New York native, designer, and interior architect Jessica Wilpon Kamel founded her Manhattan-based design firm Ronen Lev in 2016. Two years later, Christina Akiskalou joined the studio to help build upon her vision. Here, Wilpon Kamel tells HD about how she got her start, her deep appreciation for Scandinavian design, and how her practice blurs the lines between function and beauty.
Where did you grow up? Did it influence your career path?
I grew up in Port Washington, New York. My parents are both from Brooklyn and moved to a suburb outside of the city when we were kids. We were a 40-minute train ride to Manhattan, so when I was in high school I started to ride the train in to take art classes. I spent a lot of time at the Art Students League and felt the most comfortable in figure-drawing classes. It was those experiences that confirmed my desire to do something creative with my life.
What are some of your first memories of design?
I remember spending hours in our basement creating neighborhoods out of wooden blocks and Playmobil furniture. I would use the blocks for the exterior and interior walls so, from a bird’s eye view, the whole basement looked like The Truman Show.
Ronen Lev has helmed the design of three Goop stores, including its Palm Beach pop-up
Give us a bit of your background: college, first jobs, early lessons learned.
I studied art history and painting at Washington University in St. Louis, and studied abroad during my junior year at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. After graduation, I worked as a Curatorial Studies Intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, where I was inspired to apply for a formalized education in design. That ultimately led me to grad school at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Through Pratt’s abroad program, I studied textile design at the Danish Design School in Copenhagen and fell in love with Scandinavian design and design theory. We took a study tour to Sweden, Finland, and Norway to learn about canonical Scandinavian designs, and it was there that I was introduced to Josef Frank, Marimekko, Finn Juhl, Hans Wegner, and Børge Mogensen. That was a trip that forever changed my point of view.
What led you to launch Ronen Lev in 2016?
I was working on a few small projects on the side, and once I had enough interest, I began working for myself fulltime. When Christina joined me [in 2018], we started planning and building our business together. We have experience across different sectors, she is an engineer and architect, so our shared perspectives and experiences help form the partnership and projects we work on.
The firm recently completed its first restaurant renovation, Main Street Tavern, in Amagansett
What is the meaning behind the name Ronen Lev?
Ronen Lev are my children’s middle names. Both names are derived from the Hebrew meaning of joy and heart. After having kids, I felt that whatever work took me away from them should have joy and heart in it, so the name is a reminder of that. My partner Christina also has two—soon-to-be three—children, and we both feel the same way about prioritizing a healthy work-life balance.
How would you describe your firm’s style?
Aesthetics are important, but more so the overall atmosphere and feeling of a space. Architecture is about people—how materials and space can influence how you feel. It’s about problem-solving using design thinking. We begin each project by interpreting our client’s needs and translating them into interiors that feel functional, comfortable, and sophisticated—ultimately blurring the lines between function and beauty. There are so many hidden layers behind what we present to a client. There is tremendous thought in every decision we present.
Lifestyle brand Goop’s San Francisco outpost in the Pacific Heights neighborhood
What inspires you?
The design pioneers who helped define the modernist aesthetic of the 20th century. The clean organic lines of Scandinavian design. I have always loved design from Belgium and Denmark, where the approach to modernism is about emphasizing traditional values and the human need for warmth, beauty, and simplicity.
Describe a few of your recent hospitality projects.
We worked on the design of Maison, a private women’s club on the Upper East Side of New York City. Maison is an agenda-free, warm, and supportive environment that needed a lot of flexibility. In 2018, we started working with Goop, the lifestyle brand founded by Gwyneth Paltrow, to design physical stores in Nantucket, San Francisco, and most recently, Palm Beach. Our latest project—and first restaurant—was Main Street Tavern in Amagansett, New York. We loved working on a restaurant, especially one that is focused on community. We’d love to do another one soon.
Ronen Lev collaborated with Lubrano Ciavarra Architects and Two Blu Ducks on the design of Maison
What is your dream project?
Our dream is to design a boutique hotel. I love creating an emotional connection with a space, and hotels always have an element of storytelling to them. We love the idea of shaping every moment of someone’s experience—from the branding to the restaurant to the bed linens. A hotel allows you to tell a story from start to finish.
If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? Where would you eat and what would you be having?
There are too many to choose from, but I think an extraordinary dinner might include Eckhart Tolle, Georgia O’Keeffe, Peggy Guggenheim, Greta Grossman, Stephen Sondheim, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Camille Claudel. It would be a late summer outdoor dinner party with lots of pasta and wine—and no sense of the time.
If you weren’t in your current career, what would you be doing?
I would be a painter.
