Photography by Alise O’Brien
The layout of the home is classic. The front door opens into a small vestibule, and from the main hall, the living room is on the right, the dining room to the left, and a staircase straight ahead. The large rooms came with exquisite moldings and built-in alcoves, architectural details befitting the early 1900s, when this Clayton house was constructed.
Then the 21st century hit—with an assist from interior designer Dana Romeis, owner of Fibercations (7713 Clayton, 314-721-9237, fibercations.net). When Romeis started working with the homeowners a decade ago, the decor was “from the ’80s,” she says. “It was peach and aqua, with blond furniture and light floors. It was fashionable when it was done, but it was looking really dated.”
The team from Fibercations broke the redo into phases. The first addressed what Romeis calls “the bones”: refinishing floors, painting, wallpapering, replacing windows, and redesigning the living room and dining room. “It was a big, messy project,” she says.
The dining room now comprises a table and eight black leather chairs. The walls are covered in what Romeis refers to as “deep-water blue and green silk.” But it’s that table—a large piece of finely burled cherry finished to perfection, created by artist Chris Lehrecke and sourced from the Ralph Pucci International showroom in New York—that grabs your attention. “I have loved that table for years and years,” Romeis says.
The dining room opens up into a sunroom, recently completed by Romeis and lead designer Nicole Tosi. “Nicole was the make-it-happen girl on this,” Romeis says. “She lived this project most of the summer.”
When they started their work on the space, the sunroom was khaki and green. The existing furniture consisted of a couch, a chair, and an ottoman. “It was the typical stuff,” Romeis recalls. “This is not a room they use a lot, but wouldn’t you like to sit here in the evening and talk? It was meant to be a room for conversation.” In other words, there’s no TV. Now, though, there are two comfy Holly Hunt sofas and small round tables, a Christian Liaigre coffee table, and A. Rudin end tables.
The shades were already in the house. “We just stained them,” Romeis says, adding that H.R. Zollinger Furniture Co.’s refinishers helped. “They were so expensive, and they were perfectly fine, but they were just the wrong color.”
The walls are what Romeis calls “a greigy brown,” covered in what looks like fine grass cloth. It’s not—it’s vinyl. “Grass cloth and sunshine don’t go together,” she says. Romeis picked the neutral color palette from two large linocuts by local artist Tom Huck. A Donald Baechler painting hangs above the mantel.
“The thing I love about this house is the long view,” Romeis says. “When you are in the entry, you can see all the way to the ends of the house both ways. I love to be able to put something in the terminus [like the Baechler painting] that makes me want to walk into that room.”
