When Julie Baur was little, she would trail decorators at her parents’ house, play with their fabric samples, rearrange the furniture in her room, and continually beg to redecorate. Then she grew up, earning degrees in art history and history, as well as a master’s degree in hospital administration. But her heart was still stuck on interior design. “It’s just what I enjoy,” Baur says.
Five years ago, after rehabbing her own house, she teamed up with a friend, Margot Good, to create Baur Good Interiors. When Good returned to her native Cincinnati, the company’s name changed to Baur Interiors (9216 Clayton, Ste. 121, 314-567-4204, baurinteriors.com). Today, Baur works with Carrie McLean, daughter of designer and estate-sale maven Carolyn Hager.
All designers dream of doing projects for amiable clients with deep pockets, and Baur scored both while redoing a master-bedroom suite in Ladue. “We started with a clean slate,” she says. “It’s fun when you can do something from start to finish, and it’s unusual to not really have a budget.”
The house is 20 years old, and the bedroom’s appearance was clearly not a priority in the past. When Baur walked in, the room was essentially a plywood box: The carpet had a rose pattern, and the bedspread was made out of a red toile. “It was unfinished, but the accents were chintz,” Baur says. “What they wanted was sophisticated and calming, and I suggested pale lavender. They look out their window and there is a small pool. I thought it would be pretty with the bluish-gray granite of the terrace and the pool.”
The room juts out at one end. “I said, ‘That space is just screaming for a window seat,’” recalls Baur. PK Construction built the seat, complete with drawers underneath, and Designer First created a tufted French mattress. Now, the homeowners’ grandchildren fight to sleep there when they spend the night.
The walls are painted in Benjamin Moore’s Sail Cloth and finished in a high gloss. The woodwork got a coat of Benjamin Moore White Dove in a semigloss. The lavender-colored window treatments are made of Italian linen manufactured by Vedar. “It is the most scrumptious, incredible fabric,” Baur says. “Some linens get really wrinkled or crusty feeling, and this is like butter.” The drapes are edged in a flat beige Rogers & Goffigon trim. The beige-and-white patterned fabric on the headboard, chair, bed skirt, and some of the pillows is by Elizabeth Eakins. The carpeting is from Inside and Out.
All of the furniture was purchased new, but much of it—the green lamps, the dresser, and the ceramic pots atop the dresser—came from Jules Pass Antiques. Baur also found some expensive Rose Tarlow nightstands. Rather than lay down big bucks, she had a woodworker in Idaho duplicate them, and a local painter finished them with an eggplant-colored lacquer. “It was definitely not Rose Tarlow prices,” Baur says.
The end result: “traditional, with a flair. It’s not the typical matchy-matchy; it’s traditional with a modern twist.”
And after Baur completed the master suite, the owners asked for more. “They are basically like, ‘We want you to do everything,’” Baur says.
