Check Out Matthew Lapides’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Lapides.

Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Our arrival in Columbus, GA resulted by hundreds of small forks in the road that ultimately led to The Goetchius House.

Renata Martoni is a Brazilian made by Italians. She was born and raised in a small rural town of 15,000 located 6 hours south of Sao Paulo in the southern countryside of Brazil. Renata is multi-lingual, and had aspirations to pursue her passion in design. She outgrew her rural hometown and lived in major cities such as São Paulo, San Francisco and Miami, and is recognized as an international top Interior Designer and business woman. Renata aspires to do more than making beautiful houses, she wanted to make beautiful homes for people to enjoy with their loved ones. Now, her passion is being fulfilled with The Goetchius House at 405 Broadway. Renata has a natural ease in sharing her heart in ways that bring a soul in the creation of beautiful places. Her personality is intoxicating, her natural happiness is contagious, and her husband says that her smile lights up a room (it still lights up his heart and puts a twinkle in his eyes).

Matthew Lapides is a consummate entrepreneur from historic Annapolis, Maryland. His life experiences allowed him to live in a variety of cities both in the U.S. and China. After graduating from Lehigh University in 1991, he joined a family business. Within a year, he quickly knew that he needed to forge his own future and create his own life path, and that’s what he did. Matthew is a creator, and spent the past 30 years building businesses that engage him in activities that challenge his personal and professional growth. He is the founder of a registered investment adviser firm named Ethos Wealth Management, a state licensed construction firm named Casa Tua Construction Group and Sprout Publishing. He served in executed roles with Merrill Lynch and a private bank from more than a dozen years, successfully sold a bicycle manufacturing and distribution business in the 1990’s and spent years in mainland China creating Sino-American joint ventures in various industries.

Together, we’re better! While Renata provides the “What”, Matthew provides the “How”. Together, they are on a mission with a vision, purpose and dreams. They are more than a couple who met by happenstance, they are business partners, best friends and hopeless romantics (often caught smooching in a grocery store, or dancing in a restaurant).. Renata and Matthew have come together with a common vision in helping to create a better life and environment for the community, for the ones they love and for themselves. With two boys, now 15 and 27, and two girls (the four legged fuzzy type), their adventurous life journey never seems to have a dull moment… just how they like it!

They visited Columbus for parent’s weekend after their son enlisted in the U.S. Army and completed boot camp in Fort Benning. With the first visit, we thought “why aren’t we living in a place like this?”. By chance, Renata came across a listing for a house with two dogs cast in iron at the front door and sent it to Matthew. “What does that have to do with me, and am I moving to Columbus and don’t know it”.

After a long conversation at dinner, Renata explained her vision of having a healing house with open doors to bring joy to those who visit and to be a source of strength to other army families facing complicated life situations around deployed family members. After a 2 year painstaking renovation and redecoration (which is a whole other “Money Pit” comedy in itself), The Goetchius House was revived and offers culinary creations, cultural events, live music and ongoing programs with the Department of Defense to help prepare families for deployment and help keep them together and become re-acclimated after a tour.

Serving as a community gathering place, guests typically find that they are not visiting a restaurant, but coming to our nearly 9,000 sq ft house to enjoy a meal with friends.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Of course, when one refurbishes 10,000 sq ft of home and an acre to open a restaurant, what could go wrong? Of course it was smooth sailing and everything went as planned. Well, at least that was our attitude. In reality, Renata had the vision of the house and all the decorations like she has a sixth sense in design, Matthew and Renata have been decorating, designing and remodeling properties from them selves and other clients for decades. The reality is that we were not fearful of the journey ahead of us, , and that is about the attitude. There was no aspect that we had not faced before, except the scale of the projects was financially on us.

Even before the work began, we had a marathon ahead of us with City Zoning to re-open the building for its last use, a restaurant. Regretfully, there was one family on the street that opposed re-opening the business. Thank goodness they were so opposed and made such noise because the entire community heard of the roadblock and came out in support, citing 185 years of history and memories as well as the opportunity to breath life back into a dilapidating eyesore. This first obstacle became a huge amount of positive support and energy.

The biggest challenge was finding talent and unique tradesman for the work, lots of folks could overpromise and underdeliver… if they even showed up. Also, countless contractors showed up with outrageous pricing that most people would have accepted, but presenting absurd bids to a seasoned designer and state licensed general contractor only embarrassed the contractor. We were told by experienced builders and developers that if the project took 3 years and $1 million to complete, we would be doing well. Well, completed the renovation in 12 months for a small fraction of the of the amount that we were told… we’re resourceful!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Renata Martoni. It’s that last 1% that take 100% more effort, and Renata nails the last 1% at everything she touches. Most people perform a task or carry out a job and think about the exchange of hours worked for income earned. Take that idea, and let’s rethink the scenario with purpose. What if you served others for the personal pleasure of serving others? That’s Renata’s view of the world, and it starts culturally with her Brazilian heritage from Italian ancestors. As a designer, she did not merely choose furniture, she created architectural flow, lighting and considered textures and colors on floors, walls and ceilings. She selected or had furniture built to meet a full vision. With all of the accessorizing of paintings, books, artifacts as well as printing family photos of clients to frame in bedrooms, create custom bedding, embroidered towels, stock a kitchen with tableware, cutlery and storage and even place favorites foods in the refrigerators, Renata’s clients at her design business, I Make It Happen Home Design, walked into a new home or condo that appeared that they had lived in it for three years with their first step inside. Renata did not build a house, she created a home. Even to the point of making the first meal in a new kitchen of the client’s favorite meals (or soon to be favorites), she pour her heart into her work for the pleasure of serving others.

The Goetchius House is no different, shifting from a dilapidating property to an elegant and comfortable space inside of a 186 year old time capsule is remarkable. Moving the property further to almost a living entity of joy and happiness for the community to enjoy goes far beyond the imagination of most. Renata is always creating new ideas in design and in the kitchen. Her fearlessness and resilience is needed for her contagious energy she brings with here at every step.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
Both Matthew and Renata grew up on farms, or adjacent to farms. For Matthew, living in Annapolis in the days that only fisherman, shrimpers or crabbers lived there brought a simply life with the joy of living off the land. Every summer, the days were full of a shoeless and shirtless boy on a splintery dock with twine, an old chicken part and a net. Those were the standard issue tools for catching blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay… by the dozen! Sure, it is a slow process, but the dinner was worth it!

Pricing:

• History Tour: FREE
• Brunch: $15-$47
• Dinner: Apetizers $9 – $42
• Dinner: Entrees $26 – $57
• Happiness: Compliments of the House

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.405broadway.com
• Instagram: @thegoetchius
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGoetchiusHouse