Michael Uhlenhake: UNVEILED

Is Michael Uhlenhake just an architect? Or more like a social innovator? I show up to Uhlenhake’s second floor walk-up in Cincinnati’s Brewery District, located just north of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, to find that he already has a thesis statement of how the interview will be conducted. “I’m going to start from the very beginning,” he says.

The sun had long set over the city’s western hills, and, when he offers me a whiskey cocktail, his eyes light up with anticipation to begin. In earlier conversations with Uhlenkake, in an attempt to set up the early Saturday evening meeting, I’d fired off vague and somewhat pretentious suggestions about what we would talk about, like when he began to be an entrepreneur, before being an entrepreneur was a thing -- maybe he would want to talk about that. He received my message. He was prepared.

“Those attempting to make a living as a licensed architect,” Uhlenhake argues, “they can now take the test to become an architect any time they want!” He grimaces. “We had to wait an entire year if we didn’t pass a portion of the certification.” Despite that little change on the licensing law, Uhlenhake has built a very real and certified career as an architect, in a very perfect, unreal way. This evening, sitting in his small kitchen of one of his newest projects, doubling as his home, he seems calm and confident, as most entrepreneurs are. But somehow he doesn’t consider himself a successful entrepreneur. Maybe it’s because he never set out to be one. His path to today came more out of necessity and the love new adventure and possibility.

Or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to undermine his humble nature. “Calling myself a successful entrepreneur… odd.” Uhlenhake laments. Uhlenhake reminds me that, despite him being his own boss for the past two decades, there were times that his work wasn’t always appreciated. “I have definitely been fired from a job before...” he says. He’s not kidding -- he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati’s prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1991 -- but even without the pedigree, it’s obvious this guy is smart, the kind of smart you have to hustle to keep up with.

It’s possible that Uhlenhake’s success is a self-confessed fluke of timing. He’s came into his prime as one of Over-the-Rhine’s leading architects—driving industry success obsessed with a drawing ambition to make the area a better place to live.

The Belman, Sycamore Street Residence and Fifth Street Bar, just a few of Uhlenhake’s recent projects in the area, could easily be defined as being synonymous with the acclaimed resurgence of design aesthetic drawing swells of people to live, work and play in the historic neighborhood. HIs love for creating elaborate structures for people to live has been a part of him from a very early age: “While everyone else was outside playing ball, or hide and go seek,” he says, “I was in the house drawing buildings.” Men like Uhlenhake, they know what they want, and go for it. “From an early age,” he says, “I knew that an architect was what I wanted to be.” Like those of us who have grown-up, trying different paths in life in attempt to find the one that most suits us, Uhlenhake lives steadfast at being a serious student of life -- expressing his talent through design.

“I grew on the east side of Dayton (OH). I used to sit in my room and just draw. And my dad gave me all this paper I could use to draw on. I had these little drafting tools and I still have all my drawings from when I was a kid. I started when I was in 5th grade.” Uhlenhake stands up and spreads is arms out wide. “I have maps and plans...I have this humongous mapped that I displayed a little over ten years ago at the Mockbee. It was the length of a football field. It’s been changed over the years, but I began drawing it when I was a kid.” All of those experiences helped to shape the man that Uhlenhake has become. He carries too much confidence to pander to the status quo, too much love for historic design and preservation to be confined to popular design pedagogy. There’s also a certain softness, sometimes, around Uhlenhake’s words. He has one specific memory of accidentally reconnecting with a love interest, after fifteen years. Right after college Uhlenhake walked dangerously close to following the path of many --- taking an office job at a large architecture firm, designing hospitals and shopping malls. But his resilience to live a life outside the lines prevailed. Growing up, he developed an unusual mix of practical yet aspirational self-awareness about what it means to be a better person and more for a greater good rather than personal gain.

In high school, Uhlenhake followed the expected course plan for him to graduate, but made sure that his classes were geared towards a career as an architect, with his sites only set for the University of Cincinnati. “You’re taught to get good grades, but you’re not really taught to find your own passion,” he says. “I found it really confining.” After graduation, and before settling into his Over-the-Rhine abode, he explored his life options by road tripping across the country and taking odd jobs as a demolishing man and ranch hand. But the wake-up call for him to make a real commitment to leap out on his own came when he, because of his rouge roommate, was evicted from his Covington, KY apartment. Fast-forward to the present Mr. Uhlenhake.

Uhlenhake has clung to his normal-guy nomenclature in the midst of Over-the-Rhine’s rise in popularity. For way longer than made sense, he has lived in the same building on Orchard Street he purchased as a shell just over 20 years. One undeniable upside: being courted by area business owners and architects that shared his love for design.

Uhlenhake doesn’t fawn away from talking about himself as an artist of design. As a modern entrepreneur, he continues to script the next chapter of his career. By turning his Orchard Street property into a highly sought after Airbnb rental, while rehabbing is currently property in the city’s Brewery District -- he still keeps up with his architecture projects, it’s easy to say that his game is still on point.

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