From yachts and jets to clubhouses and mansions

COURTESY PHOTOS Ron Kopko has experience designing everything from yacht interiors and clubhouses to sleek New York City apartments. Interior designer Ron Kopko may, until now, have been best known as the welcoming proprietor of the oh-so-inviting Bar Association in downtown Fort Myers. But he is fast becoming known as the creative talent who transforms clubhouses in prestigious communities across Southwest Florida.

Mr. Kopko designed Estero's Wildcat Run clubhouse, fitness center and pro shop, and is now finishing a complete revamp of the common areas at The Landings in South Fort Myers: the marina building, the main clubhouse, and the administration building.

The affable Mr. Kopko got his start in Pittsburgh, where he designed everything from corporate jet interiors to restaurants to penthouses. He moved here in 1993, and began securing design projects along the Gulf coast, including yacht interiors, lighting jobs, and residential, commercial and light industrial interiors. He had done interior design for several owners at Wildcat Run when one of them suggested he be hired to restyle the clubhouse.

The bedroom and kitchen of a New York City apartment done by Ron Kopko, a designer who is happy to tackle projects of any size. "It was Craftsman-style and reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright," says Mr. Kopko, "so we stuck with that, kept it natural and earthy, and added a circular, double staircase in the entry." Kopko went on to add faux finishes like the two-story faux stone wall that holds the fireplace.

"I always spend my clients' money as if it were my own," says Mr. Kopko. "I take a nickel and make it look like a quarter. There are millions of places you can cheat, and some places you can't. Some items cost a lot of money. But the less I can get my clients to pay for individual items, the more items they can have. I am adamant about sticking to budget. Nine out of 10 times, I'm under budget. And our clients see every receipt; we just add a percentage to the wholesale price that we get. It's a great deal."

Mr. Kopko had the chandeliers made locally, of hand-wrought iron. "There's a gentleman in Naples who does that," he says, citing one of many artisan sources he taps for projects. For the patio, Mr. Kopko selected pavers that "resemble a brick alley. Not clean and crisp, but comfy and worn," he says. He even designed the railing that went around the patio, submitting it to an iron worker, who crafted it.

None of the furnishings were found in this area. "I wanted something that people hadn't seen," says Mr. Kopko. "Nothing I use is really available locally; that's pretty much the way I operate on all my jobs. I mix it up so you might only recognize one piece or two; that way I feel I'm being honest with the client that they'll have what no one else has."

The furnishings took six to eight months to decide upon and purchase. Mr. Kopko cheerily navigated the gauntlet of running design decisions past a committee of 14. "It was challenging," he says, admitting he used his culinary skills to woo people to his way of thinking. "I started making cheesecakes to take to the meetings," he says with a laugh.

The locker rooms were outfitted with handsome lockers in a beautiful cherry wood and select granites were utilized for counters. Amazingly, all the carpeting was custom carpeting. "It's a lot of fun," says Mr. Kopko, of the design process for floor coverings. "We do some drawings and color them, then they, in turn, make a 'strike-off' — exactly the fiber, exactly the color, exactly the pattern.

COURTESY PHOTO The men's locker room at Wildcat Run features lockers in rich cherry. Select granites were utilized for the counters. "It really isn't that expensive to have custom carpeting," says Mr. Kopko. "I've done this for as low as $50 yard. That's using state-of-the-art fibers, also. The carpet that I put in these commercial places, you can spill Clorox™ on it and it won't affect the color."

The designer always works to incorporate durability into spaces that will get heavy use. In Wildcat Run's Grill Room, Mr. Kopko used a unique product on the wainscot of the bar. "It's called lincrusta," he says. "It's a thick, linoleum-like product (made of linseed oil and wood pulp) that can be put up like wallpaper, then faux finished or papered," he says, "and you can take a steak knife to it and can't hurt it."

The response to Mr. Kopko's look for Wildcat Run was overwhelmingly positive; he immediately landed four or five more residential jobs. Today, however, he's spending much of his time overseeing the jaw-dropping transformation of common areas at The Landings.

"I started a year and a half ago,'' he says, of the multi-million-dollar project affecting three buildings. "We tore almost every interior wall out in all of them."

At the Helm Club (which includes both pro shops and the main dining room), we even tore a portion of the roof off, and raised it a story. That will be their main lounge," says Mr. Kopko. "It's going to be spectacular, nicer than any commercial bar." That's saying a lot, coming from a man who holds court nightly in his own downtown establishment, one of Southwest Florida's most handsome and inviting bars.

The finished Helm Club will be a real treat for owner members. "It hadn't been touched for 30 years," says Mr. Kopko, noting that The Landings is one of the city's first gated communities.

When vying for the Landings job, Mr. Kopko says he made it clear "I don't do a canned look, one of those looks where you could be anywhere. But if you want something spectacular, something totally different, I'm your man." He says, "I feel Tommy Bahama is over; it's done. I won't do another monkey, another pineapple."

Mr. Kopko also won't use a calculator. "When I was first in this business, back in the '70s, I had a Sicilian boss who caught me using a calculator, and he smashed it. I've never used another one. You can do it in your head, you know."

At the Landings, Mr. Kopko is working with a committee of only four or five members. He attacked The Wheelhouse first, which holds an informal restaurant, a bar and the ships' store. "When I first saw it," he says, "it was gray; my heart sank. But we painted it yellow, put shutters on it, and there are plans for a green tin roof. It looks like a brand new building; you can't wait to get in there now. It just looks great."

Custom-designed booths perked up the bar's informal interior, which is fun and colorful. The ceiling is painted gold, the I-beams are painted in a shade of rust, and there are two shades of blue on the walls. "We designed a huge bar," says Mr. Kopko, "and the granite is from a riverbed in Brazil; it's thousands of years old. If you sit at the bar, you see all the pebbles and all the lucky stones in the granite, but it's been flattened. It's just spectacular."

"From what I understand, the Wheelhouse never got a lot of use," says Mr. Kopko. "After we redid it, they were serving 400 lunches a day; they recouped their expenses pretty quickly."

The Helm Club, in the main clubhouse, is much more formal and very sophisticated. "It's transitional," explains Mr. Kopko. "If you like contemporary, you're going to like it; if you like traditional, you're going to like it."

The whole space was reconfigured to achieve better traffic flow while also creating a much nicer entry. "The carpet we designed has a 6-foot repeat;" says Mr. Kopko, "one of the largest repeat patterns I've ever seen. Instead of seeing a million of the pattern, you're only seeing 20. You won't feel that it's repetitious."

For window treatments, Mr. Kopko imported a gold metallic sheer from Europe, which is complemented by blue silk panels on all the windows. The room is topped with an acoustic tile ceiling which looks like tin.

Mr. Kopko's busy: he's also currently doing a renovation on a $2 million Estero Island home. "It will probably flip for $3.5 million because of the square footage we're adding," he says. "It's right on the beach."

But this busy designer takes on projects of all sizes. "Some of my clients have a budget of $30,000," he says, "and I give them their money's worth. That's what keeping me so busy."

"I actually dream about designing homes," says Mr. Kopko. "I wanted to be an architect, but classes were full. So I studied drafting, design, and engineering technology. But it was not what I wanted to do, ever. I couldn't design something and cover it with dirt. It just didn't seem right."