A daughter of a teacher, Winkelmann learned the trade of a carpenter at a young age in her grandfather's construction business, where she worked on new- or re-construction among other projects.
In 1902, even though at that time women in Prussia did not have access to higher education, she was allowed to study at the Technische Hochschule Hannover as a guest student.
After receiving the commission for the theater, which was built in 1908, many wealthy developers reached out with requests for her to design manors and mansions in Berlin, Babelsberg and Schleswig.
Between 1910 and 1912 she planned and built numerous rural manors in the Province Pommern, amongst others in Wundichow in Kreis Stolp and in Carwitz in Landkreis Dramburg.
In 1913 Emilie Winkelmann drafted, on the behalf of the „Genossenschaft für Frauenheimstätten“ the Neu-Babelsberg-Nowawes, the "Haus in der Sonne“ (House in the Sun).
After she opened her own office, she contributed to a traveling exhibition on “Kurland” as well as the House of Friendship, the intended future location of the German-Turkish Institute.
The modernization of manor houses and mansions continued to play a major role in her work, but also new buildings, for example in the 1920s she designed Schloss Nieden of Winterfeld near Pasewalk.
The villas and country houses she drafted are still considered to be exceptionally modern today and are on a par with those of famous architects such as Alfred Messel and Hermann Muthesius.