Private Clients and Personal Designers: An inside look at two designers and their own homes in Hawaii

“Over the years, we have been asked a lot of questions by clients and casually at parties. Two frequent ones are: How do you live? Do you have a favorite look or style?”

I will take a deep breath, at times, and the answer is always revealing. We live and work several wonderful places. Our likes in interior design are varied.” Here in a revealing article are the lives of two interior designers, owners of ironically two design firms but that is for locational purposes. As owners, Richard Rombach and Roger Ingram don’t profess to agree on everything but they do have a process of being creative that brings stunning results for clients, and for themselves, in their own homes.

It is this inside look at their personal homes that says so much about them as designers and their passion for residences.

Carmel and Honolulu: Not a bad transition

“Hawaii has been wonderful to us,” says designer partner, Roger Ingram. He along with Richard Rombach came to Hawaii nearly ten years ago from Carmel, California, where Richard owned several furniture stores and art gallery over the years. Roger was a shorter term resident with a cottage near the sea and a larger home in Palm Springs. With grandparents as well as parents in the furniture business, it was “in Richard’s genes” to be an interior designer, muses Roger, tongue in cheek, for he came to design in a very different way: as a psychotherapist and with a PhD, he always enjoyed the process of design in his parent’s homes and took to the visual excitement of furnishings early on. It is the team of the two of them that has resulted in such creative results in Hawaii and elsewhere. He assures us he doesn’t use his clinical background except to understand the desires of clients in their homes.

No Trademark Look

“We don’t have a trademark look, at least that is what our clients tell us, and we take that as a compliment,” says Richard Rombach. It is comfort, beauty, and gracious living that unites their residential projects.
Indeed, the scope of their work is quite remarkable, from English countryside, Hawaiiana, contemporary, and modern but the beauty of mixing color and periods of furniture is apparent in their approach, a rather practical approach based on over thirty five years of experience.
They meet initially with clients to discuss ideas and practicalities as well. Listening to the answers about client’s hopes, styles, and favorite interiors, this design team also asks questions about how the residence will function, as a family gathering place, adult retreat, etc.

Creating Resort Homes

The firm is known for their harmonious remodeling and furnishing capabilities as well as working with architects and owners from early stages of developing a home. They grew into that part of the business but the immediate benefits for clients building or remodeling a resort home is apparent in terms of practical ideas and approaches. While some clients who reside and live in the area will be present during a construction phase, it is equally as common for non-residents to meet with the Richard and Roger and then leave for several months or longer, while the changes in flooring, windows, walls, baths, and kitchen, etc. are underway. Then with the arrival of furniture, the completed home created by our two designers is presented to returning owners.

Personal Residences

Then there is their adventure in their own lives of designing residences for themselves. One might think that continuing work in their own time would be avoided but there is a passion for making spaces beautiful and using their combined expertise of building construction, design trends, and a sensibility for comfort that works well in their own lives.
“Of course, we don’t sit down so often, but instead enjoy entertaining with smaller dinner parties and yes we offer our homes for charity events as well,” states Roger Ingram. But an evening at home, reading, is also treasured.

Roger Ingram 808.542.9845

Richard Rombach 808.225.5821

Email: furnishingsllc@yahoo.com

2415 Ala Wai Blvd
Suite 1202
Honolulu, Hawaii
96815