About

A love story + a professional collaboration. Architect meets Interior Designer. Lake Street Studio is born.

LAKESTREETSTUDIO is where Mary Rentschler (Rentschler Interiors) + John Fuller (Mitchell Fuller, LLC) commune to practice the ‘design of living spaces’ inside and out.

We offer a full spectrum of design + technical services to handle your residential projects large or small, including project management, from drawing board to final installation.

Knowing that the fabric of people’s lives are rich and varied and that their personal histories are complex, our challenge is to create a refuge where a successful blending of form and function reflects the client’s essential and intangible relationship to their surroundings.

**John Fuller, AIA,**
**LEED AP**

**Principal**

Passion: Sitting down at my drafting board in our wonderful repurposed studio to sort through collected information about your project/persona as I endeavor to create a design that is responsive in regards to your wants and my commitment to provide environmentally responsible designs.

I’ve been fascinated with building things since I was a young boy playing in my grandfather’s workshop in the basement of the Buckman Tavern in Lexington. I became a carpenter when ‘normal path’ college wasn’t for me, culminating with being hired by Universal Studios to help build sets for the movie JAWS.

Realizing this was my career path, I went to Wentworth Institute in Boston for a degree in building construction technology, and learned of all the trades (and perils) involved in building buildings. My drafting classes inspired me to the extent that I applied and was accepted at architecture school- RISD, spending my 5th year at RISD’s European Honors Program (EHP), an independent study program in Rome where I became a student of the Renaissance.

My first commission was to design a timber frame house on family land fronting on Edgartown Great Pond, but I went on to join Hugh Stubbins’ firm in Cambridge where I became project architect for numerous commercial developments. After a six year stint, I started my own firm with a focus on commercial and residential design. Eighteen years later, Perkins+Will, an international powerhouse, acquired my practice.

After 25 years of non-stop architecture, I took a leave of absence and volunteered as a shipwright restoring the iconic 122’ Gloucester dory fishing schooner Adventure, eventually becoming Executive Director of the non-profit organization, tasked with getting the 1926 vessel certified by the Coast Guard. I prepared numerous drawings that were submitted for grants needed to fund this historical endeavor and completed this mission in 2015- in time to move to Martha’s Vineyard to begin a new chapter of my life with Mary Rentschler.

We were married on the beach at Pohogonot Farm after which we formed a partnership – Lake Street Studio- to provide architecture and interior design services to a wide variety of discerning clients. I was back in my ‘comfort-zone’ - building things with wood.

Working between a carpenter’s sensibility and an architect’s creativity, my designs are as diverse as my client’s interests.

**Mary A. Rentschler, Designer**

**Principal**

BIO

I first ‘washed ashore’ on the island (as an infant) in Hurricane Carol, coming from Chicago with my family to visit our summering grandparents…and my life has been Martha’s Vineyard centric ever since, where I was meant to be. All the golden Augusts of my childhood and into my teenage years were spent under the spell of the island.

After completing my design studies (in graphic design, photography, Art History & Interior Design - while in the Midwest & Italy), at 23, I followed my heart and moved to the island year-round. I moved in with, and later married, a multi-generational islander, had an amazing son, and we were together for 30 years.

During that time, I co-founded an Advertising & Graphic Design firm, which I was part of for 23 years. Switching gears in 2004, I went out on my own and started Rentschler & Co Interiors, designing on the island & beyond.

A decade later, fortune would have it that I met the perfect match both personally & professionally - John M. Fuller, AIA, who also has a long history on the island. In short time, he moved here from the North Shore, we were married, merged our families and combined our separate businesses under the umbrella of our new enterprise, LakeStreetStudio. Together, we relocated (from a bluff on the outer West Chop Harbor) and renovated a Writer’s Cottage, to serve as our work studio, 30 odd steps from our main house.

We are currently celebrating our 10th year together in our bustling Studio and thought it was high time to launch a new website of our work.

ETHOS

The Island has always afforded me a community rich with artists & artisans, family & friendship, support & opportunity, and a sustaining beauty & peace to do what has been my life’s work; to design - inspired by the islands sublime & varied landscape, surrounded by the fickle ocean waters.

The natural world has steadfastly been at the core of my design sensibility. Practicing sustainability, reclamation and honoring one’s heritage is of utmost importance in my work. The layering of the past & present, finding new & vintage treasures from far & wide and finding the relationships between contrasting & complimentary objects is paramount to my design.

Creating a home is like concocting a delectable feast for your family & friends, by gathering the best of ingredients, exotic & unexpected, from near & far. ‘Mixing it up’ in the end, seems to be a key ingredient to achieve the realm of truly inventive & successful design.

My mission has always been to listen intently to our clients, to best understand how to create function & beauty that truly resonates for them in their unique worlds.

**Lara T. Fuller**

**Associate Designer**

Inspired from an early age by parents in creative fields, an architect and artist respectively, I obtained my BA in Photojournalism from Boston University stemming from a love of photography. Post-graduation, with a spirit of adventure and desire to travel, I landed in Australia, where a one-year trip turned into a seven year trip, and Australia became home.

Upon my return stateside I joined the team at Lake Street Studio in 2017 as a Design Assistant, excited to be part of a creative work environment. I find the world of interior design to be an inspiring pursuit of beauty, ever challenging, and incredibly detail focused – driven to help our clients develop and realize their vision of house and home into fully thought through and unique spaces.

Four years in, I became an Associate Designer, loving the larger role of more directly designing our clients’ spaces. And, in a melding of worlds, I photograph all our finished projects – inspired to beautifully capture the every detail we designed.

Adding to Lake Street Studio’s history as a love story meets professional collaboration, I am John’s daughter, thus making LSS a truly special family team.

I have been with LSS for 6 years now, during which time I’ve shared my design role with the role of being a mother, to a now 6 year old and 3 year old, both of whom were Studio babies in their first year of life.

**B. Whitney Fuller**

**Project Architect**

My passion for carpentry began some 50 years ago and I went on to become an accomplished carpenter in all phases of building from framing to finish, working on resort projects in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and then Aspen Colorado. After returning east, I worked on high end homes in the western suburbs of Boston with a noted builder.

In an effort to take my trade to another level, I enrolled in the Building Construction Technology program at Wentworth Institute of Technology, before transferring to Massachusetts College of Art & Design to pursue an architecture degree. After graduation I joined with two of my professors designing and overseeing construction of an oceanfront property in Bar Harbor, Maine.

I went on to join my brother John in founding Fuller Associates, Inc, an award winning design firm in Boston where I headed up the Firm’s residential projects ranging from Maine to Martha’s Vineyard - where I have been coming since the mid-1960’s. As Fuller Associates become more commercial-centric, I left to go on my own with an emphasis on residential projects on the Vineyard.

I have reconnected with John at LakeStreetSTUDIO where I have been Project Architect on numerous of the Firm’s residential projects, applying my extensive construction technology background in the development of contract documents and providing site supervision.

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