OCEAN CITY – You’ve no doubt seen some of Steven J. Cirile’s architectural work in Ocean City. Yet, few would have expected him to not only design but also run Ocean City’s first professional music recording studio.
The Caine Woods section of north Ocean City may seem like an unlikely place for a recording studio of any kind, albeit one that resembles one that you might find in Nashville, but for local architect, former New York City musician and aspiring music producer Steven J. Cirile, it ended up being the perfect place to build the studio he’s been planning in his head for over 20 years.
Although he’s designed buildings from the house of Greene Turtle owner Steve Pappas to countless condos and single-family homes, to the downtown Dumser’s Dairyland, Cirile, with the help of his Emmy-award-winning brother Michael, is trying to make a name for himself as a music producer, by creating the state of the art and almost 700-square-foot Park Recording Studio on the second floor of his newly built Caine Woods home.
“I’ve wanted to build a studio in this area for over 20 years, to help musicians who have to drive hundreds of miles to record music. Salisbury State has recording capabilities, but they don’t have the equipment that we have,” said Cirile.
After looking into the zoning in Ocean City, Cirile was surprised to find that you could run up to three businesses out of a single-family home, so the neighborhood was the perfect spot for him to build his new home, equipped with his architectural offices as well as the Park recording studio.
“There’s 1,000 square feet downstairs for me to live in and 1,000 square feet upstairs for my offices and the studio. When I designed the house, I had to think of the resale value of it, so this could very easily be turned back into a three-bedroom home,” Cirile said. “The 13 by 14 drum and control rooms could be turned back into bedrooms, the two 6 by 6 vocal isolation booths would be walk-in closets and my office could be a loft.”
The studio itself came at a hefty price tag, as Cirile estimates he put around $150,000 into the project, which includes uber-thick walls to provide soundproofing and special angled ceilings perfect for recording, Cirile said.
“When you build a recording studio, you do it for the love of the art of recording music, and we don’t know if we’ll ever make the investment back, but we are already bringing bands from all over to the studio to record so the word is getting out,” he said.
The love of recording runs in the family as Cirile’s brother Michael won an Emmy for his work as a sound mixer at the Sydney Olympics. As an audio engineer, he’s worked with big names in the business from Eric Clapton to Willie Nelson to Britney Spears, according to his biography.
Cirile hopes to get the word out that the Park Recording Studio is open for business and ready to rock and will produce a high quality product at the very reasonable price of $30 per hour. Check out www.theparkrecordingstudio.com for more information.