A well-known Eyota home has served as an endearing family home for 5 years

Rebecca Mitchell, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·4 min read

May 20—EYOTA, Minn. — People know the house as the one by the roundabout, the one surrounded by trees or the house with a "humongous" shop. For the Ringenbergs, it's where Jen and Jeff were married, where their family played baseball and kickball in the backyard and friends gathered for time together.

"Everybody always knows this house too, 'Oh, I know that I drive by that all the time,' on their way to Wabasha or wherever," Realtor Jen Ringenberg said of the home at 11436 County Road 9 in Eyota. The house is by the roundabout on Olmsted County Road 9 and Minnesota Highway 42. "It's just a zip down the road to St. Charles or Winona and you get on the interstate real easy here, it's just been a great location."

The visibility could help a potential business owner, too, Ringenberg said, like her husband Jeff's geothermal and HVAC business, which he's run at the property for over 20 years. He housed his tools, boat and project items in the 6,000-square-foot shop that includes a wash bay, loft, laundry room and bathroom. She also runs her interior design business Ring and Bird Design at their home.

In the four-bedroom and four-bathroom home, Ringenberg said "there's lots of special things in here that I'm going to miss."

"When I planned the house, I really carved out nooks and crannies for all my special things. So it's definitely me all over the place in here," Ringenberg said with a laugh. "Hopefully someone else will really enjoy it, too."

Through the design process, she sketched the 4,470-square-foot home and made sure the rooms flowed well, whether a double-sided gas fireplace between the kitchen and living room or the organization in the kitchen. A draftsman helped with the final architectural drawings and details.

"You're always kind of thinking, trying to visualize ahead what things will look like," Ringenberg described of the process. She said they repurposed and reused pieces, including wood from an old barn for the beams and window headers in the primary bedroom.

While looking at a construction timeline of a year (which became 13 months), their family with two kids and a dog lived in a camper in the shop. The shop was built in 2002 when the property included a small farmhouse. She said the new home, which was completed in 2019, felt "so huge and roomy."

After the long process, "the time just flies," Ringenberg said. She'll carry memories of their first Christmas decorating the house, the birthday parties and sleepovers in the basement and living out of totes in the trailer. They are building a custom home in Wabasha.

"It was great fun and it was a lot of work, though. We did a lot of it ourselves and it becomes a labor of love and you feel so endeared to it when you have such a stake in it," Ringenberg said. The home is listed for just over $1.2 million.

She plans to follow a similar layout at their Wabasha home, though the family will be saying goodbye to the large basement. The garage also served as a "great entertainment space" for graduation and parties.

"I probably get the most compliments on this little room," Ringenberg said of the teal-painted bathroom on the main floor. The mercantile countertop as the vanity and the knoll posts on the kitchen's custom walnut table are also a nod to her antique collection. "Just that it's unusual and they typically like the color, they like the tile."

With the orioles just beginning their gathering frenzy at the bird feeder, Ringenberg said bird-watching and spending time in nature is peaceful. She enjoys incorporating nature in her designs, including the "beautiful," "pretty" and "lovely" property on 2.92 acres. The home is hemmed in by trees and the pattern of branches jetting out is noted in pieces throughout the home. Ringenberg said the design motif started with a piece from Gold Rush.

"That's why it spoke to me so much too is it looks like trees," Ringenberg described. "When I found that at Gold Rush, I was so tickled I just didn't know what I was going to do with it but I just had to have it. It's just a nice theme and a nice reflection of this home."

Ringenberg designs with color, visualizes the final design product and stages properties for sale. It's part of the process she loves: "helping people and championing them along."

"This is my brain-child," Ringenberg said of their family home. "I came with up with the design altogether and really thought about the flow of the house and that's one thing that I'm really proud of, I mean the house flows so well. You just move so easily around."