Marin Reinhardt had always wanted to run her own business. For a few years, she brainstormed how to build on her background in interior design. Should she start a housecleaning service? Maybe interior painting or property management? Nothing felt quite right.
Then she remembered something her stepfather suggested years ago: maybe a future business venture could involve the rendering skills she had gained in her B.F.A. studies at Savannah College of Art and Design.
“Rendering was my favorite part of my degree,” says Reinhardt, who majored in furniture design and minored in interior design. “I loved being at a drafting table and doing technical drawings of furniture.”
Of all her skills, Marin Reinhardt is most confident about her ability to draw. I can attest it’s one of her strengths. When we first met in middle school in Orleans, it was our love of art that made us fast friends.
Last year, Reinhardt started to paint houses — but not in the usual way. She made a few watercolors of houses she liked and posted the pictures on social media to see if anyone was interested in commissioning a house portrait. She got 20 orders right away. Now she gets commission inquiries for portraits of houses across New England through her website, marinreinhardtdesign.com, and her schedule is full through June.
“That first day, two real estate agent friends commissioned my paintings as closing gifts for their clients,” Reinhardt says. Since then, quite a few of her customers have been agents, but all kinds of people want her portraits. There are summer people who want to bring a bit of their Cape experience back to the city. There are year-rounders who are selling their houses and moving away and want paintings as reminders of their time here. And there are locals who have held onto their homes, some for generations, and want a lasting tribute to the family place. One of her portraits became a 45th wedding anniversary gift when a client commissioned a portrait of the house she and her husband had built together all those years ago.
Some of her paintings have been used to raise money for causes Reinhardt cares about. They’ve been auction items at fundraisers for the Homeless Prevention Council, for example, where she also volunteers.
Reinhardt’s art station is tucked in the far end of the small attic above the North Eastham rental where she has lived with her family for more than 10 years. Her husband, Matt Wetmore, is a lobsterman who works out of Provincetown, and their children, twins Owen and Teagan, 11, and Everett, 6, all attend the Provincetown IB schools. They feel fortunate to have an affordable rental, but they dream of owning their own house one day. In the meantime, painting allows her to indulge her appreciation of architecture and study a wide range of designs.
She starts with a photograph provided by the owners (often just one, though more is better; they don’t have to be professional photos) and then does a consultation: What features of the house are they especially fond of? What season would they like for the portrait? Some people want hydrangeas front and center while others love fall leaves. It doesn’t matter if the photo is from the dead of winter; her paintbrush can make it spring. The conversations often turn emotional as people recount their memories.
After making a pencil sketch based on the photograph, Reinhardt gets out her portable drafting table. Architectural details are meticulously rendered to scale (or “squared up,” as she says). A simple shingled half Cape gets the same attention as a grand waterfront spread. For new construction, she refers to house plans. Sometimes she looks at Google Street View or real estate listings for different angles on a property. She often looks at design books and magazines to make sure she’s getting particular materials just right.
Then she brings the sketch to life with color. Watercolor is a particularly fussy medium; you have to paint fast and then let it dry as you go to avoid blooms. It’s slow work. “I love painting shiplap and shingles,” says Reinhardt, who doesn’t mind pausing to enjoy the process.
“I haven’t done a turret,” she says. “I would love to do one of those.” But looking ahead, she has aspirations beyond turrets. She offers prints of her work to those who’ve commissioned portraits and has in mind other ways to use the paintings, such as for personalized stationery.
Reinhardt also has started painting a particularly important element of her clients’ households: their pets. Miss Ellie, the rescue cat who is a fixture in Reinhardt’s studio, seems to approve, at least in theory. She does seem a little dubious about all the attention Reinhardt has given the subject of one of her first pet portraits, a golden retriever.
