Continual construction over recent years has urbanized Winooski’s downtown and turned Route 15 into a canyon flowing with traffic. When the traffic light by Beverage Warehouse briefly halts them, motorists have a moment to observe the sleek white-and-charcoal building on the adjacent corner. If they’re puzzled by the words “DWELLNESS BY STEINMETZ” on one storefront window, the next window offers clues: “GIFTS • HOME GOODS • LIFESTYLE.” And then, the light turns green.
They’d have to park and go inside to learn that Dwellness is a unique hybrid of real estate brokerage, interior design service and retail shop. And Steinmetz? That refers to married partners Brian, 42, and Ruth, 40.
He’s the real estate guy — an eighth-generation Vermonter who grew up in Essex and studied filmmaking at Champlain College. She’s the designer — a Kenyan turned Vermonter by way of Georgia who earned a degree in communications and business at Champlain. The two met online during the COVID-19 shutdown and married in 2022. Both brought daughters — now 13 and 17 — from previous relationships. They’ve since added two baby girls to the blended family.
If the couple had a circuitous path to each other, the same can be said of their current enterprise.
Since her college days, Ruth has served in various capacities for BIPOC, immigrant and new American advocacy; most recently she’s been the director of the Working Communities Challenge initiative for the City of Winooski. During the pandemic crisis, she was employed at the state Department of Health as a public health communications officer, in part managing grants and outreach for marginalized Vermonters. Eventually, Ruth began to feel professionally pigeonholed, while her creative side beckoned.
“I felt like my career path was stuck in communications and public health. I wanted to have more fulfilling work, more joy,” she said. “I would find myself spending my free time consuming design content, eating up so much of that world but not participating in it.”
Meantime, Brian gained experience in construction before joining Green Light Real Estate in Montpelier for several years, followed by six years with Keller Williams Realty. But he came to realize that the corporate world didn’t suit him, and he didn’t like being what he called “a pushy salesman.”
Dwellness is approaching your life in a way that is supportive of your health, well-being and joy.
Ruth Steinmetz
“Brian was in a place in his career where he needed to branch off and do something different,” Ruth said. “I proposed, ‘If you go solo, I could join you to offer design services.’ That’s when Steinmetz was born.” Brian became an independent broker in 2023.
The couple opened their Dwellness storefront in August 2025. Their chosen name for the tripartite business — a portmanteau of “dwell” and “wellness” — conveys a foundational ethos. Whether selling a condo or a candle, making over a room or minding kids in the shop’s cozy family space, the Steinmetzes believe that “Dwellness is approaching your life in a way that is supportive of your health, well-being and joy,” Ruth summed up.
In the retail boutique, that approach manifests in nice-smelling potions, comfy loungewear, books, crafts and jewelry — with “an affinity for BIPOC artisans,” Ruth noted — along with pillows, pottery and furniture.
“It’s an everyday curation of goods that complement the [dwell-well] lifestyle,” Ruth explained. “Holistic products that don’t have harsh chemicals, derived from nature. A focus on craftsmanship and detail, quirkiness and personality. A sense of adventure and wonder.”
She likes the idea that customers might happen upon an object that makes them feel good, whether it’s a bracelet by an African artist or a T-shirt that declares, “Housing Is a Human Right.” The prices in Dwellness range from a few dollars to a couple thousand. “We have to respond to the market and offer attainable luxury,” Ruth said.
Her dream of renovating entire houses remains aspirational — after all, she’s been busy with community work, overseeing the store and caring for two littles. Because of both personal circumstances and the economy at large, she’s turned her attention to more affordable single-room renovations and virtual design consultations. She’s not alone there: Even HGTV star Joanna Gaines has promoted mini makeovers, Ruth pointed out.
Many Winooski residents are renters, she added. But even people who don’t own their homes can benefit from a designer’s eye to refresh their décor and better utilize a room. “Spend a few thousand and work with a person who can help you tell the story of how you live,” she suggested. Her consultation fee is $500; project costs vary depending on scope.
On the Dwellness website, visitors will find room designs that are contemporary, sophisticated and probably pricey. But Ruth’s YouTube series is more homey, literally: She creates videos touring her own rooms and touting creative, inexpensive design hacks — in other words, renovations on a budget.
Though her current responsibilities seem like the very definition of a full plate, Ruth is eagerly pursuing another one: a real estate license of her own. Soon, she’ll join Steinmetz Realty and make it truly a family affair — and a shared ambition.
Like many Vermonters, the Steinmetzes are concerned about the availability and affordability of housing. “People should be able to buy a house at 25,” Brian declared. “In our future, we’d like to have good quality and not necessarily huge.” He predicts the end of the “McMansion.”
In addition to the cost of houses, Brian focuses on how we live in them.
“Since COVID, a lot of people are still working from home, and I don’t think we will ever go back to the old model,” he said. “Because of that, people need gardens, a workout or hobby room. When I take a listing, I try to emphasize those kinds of features.” In his videos — often made for sellers — Brian calls upon his cinematic savvy to emphasize the wellness possibilities in, say, a downtown Burlington condo.
Big picture, he hopes to work on projects that address homelessness and the needs of communities for whom homebuying might be out of reach.
We want to bring our own flavor to the industry.
Ruth Steinmetz
“We have dreams about helping developers restore and redesign old homes,” Ruth said. “For aging in place, upsizing, downsizing. [There are] a lot of opportunities for real estate and design to do that work. We want to bring our own flavor to the industry.”
Some of that flavor comes from an immersion in the immigrant communities of Winooski, where both Brian and Ruth have served on boards and committees. “There’s not a lot of housing out there for new American families, which are mostly large and multigenerational,” Ruth said. “Of the housing plans approved in the city, none of the designs are for multigen families. I’d love to bring forth designs for that.” Bonus: She can interpret for those who speak Swahili.
“We’d love to be able to help people create communities to help each other, such as in duplexes,” Ruth added. “We think there will be people open to that lifestyle. That is exciting to me.”
“I take it to heart that if you want a village, you have to be a good villager,” Brian said.
From retail to renos to real estate, it seems the Steinmetz credo might be called “dwellness for everyone.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Good Villagers | At Ruth and Brian Steinmetz’s Winooski storefront, dwelling well is everything”
This article appears in Nest • Fall 2026.
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