Act Three: The Repertory Theatre Apartments Go Through the Final Phase of Transformation

For years, Deborah Sharn, the company manager at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, heard the actors’ chatter about working here: St. Louis is beautiful; the people could not be nicer; the quality of the productions is excellent. But the place you have to stay? Disgusting.

No one could argue the point. The Garden Apartments, built in 1960, made an old Motel 6 look like the Ritz. While Ms. Sharn had done her best to brighten them up, the furniture—mostly hand-me-downs from Rep patrons—was shabby, the toilets and bathtubs corroded, the floors moldy, and the carpets stained.

In 2010, one of AT HOME’s community projects was to tackle five of the apartments and make them habitable—and handsome. This year, we returned and with the help of 24 designers, one architect, and hundreds of generous donors—including Kohler, Beck/Allen Cabinetry, and ProSource, we finished the remaining 14 apartments. As a result, the Rep now has some of the best theater-owned housing in the country—and actors are clamoring, not dreading, to stay there.  

Aquarius Rising

Susan Bower, Mitchell Wall Architecture

Susan Bower, the only architect to tackle the project, had a lot to start with in Apartment J2—both good and bad. The good was the Rep had a splashy Peter Max Love mural painted on the living-room wall, which gave the suite its theme: the exuberant rock musical Hair. But the apartment also offered some nasty surprises. “The floors fell through in the bathroom and the kitchen,” Ms. Bower says, “so we had to do reconstruction. We had to reconfigure the dressing area and the closet. We were not planning to do quite as extensive a restoration.” In the living room, the groovy couches are true vintage—Ms. Sharn of the Rep inherited them from her grandparents—and her father constructed the period-appropriate, amoeba-shaped glass-topped table. Cabinetry is by Innovative Interiors, with hardware donated by Locks and Pulls Design Elements. The art on the wall is recycled (making it theme-appropriate in both style and execution): it’s bus-wrap from a 1995 Levi’s advertising campaign. There’s also a Hair poster. “So, you know, it’s ‘Tune in, drop out…’” Ms. Bower says. Of course, when your floors are collapsing, you have to be a bit more focused and detail-oriented. But the space has a sense of humor: the bed sheets have a marijuana-leaf pattern, and the hooks near the door are shaped like canine hindquarters. In other words, “dog butts!” Ms. Bower laughs.    

Clockwork Orange

Jimmy Jamieson, Taylor Haywood, and Matthew Reed, Jamieson Design

The design for Apartment C1 began with the building’s exterior. “It’s ’60s motor motel,” designer Jimmy Jamieson says. “We thought the interior and the structural elements of the interior should be reflective of that period.” The walls are bright white, the accent color is orange, and the elements recall the era of The Beatles, Mary McFadden, and Twiggy—the first time around. The result is clean, chic, and modern classic. The floors are covered in cork—“which is very 1950s and ’60s,” Mr. Jamieson says. A shag area rug lies in the living room. The furniture is midcentury modern, with Arne Jacobsen chairs, an Eero Saarinen tulip table, a Charles and Ray Eames bench, a Le Corbusier sofa, and a Mies van der Rohe modified daybed. Throughout, the art is equally period-appropriate. “I had the reproductions made, and this is a Paul Klee, a Helen Frankenthaler, a Robert Motherwell,” says Mr. Jamieson. “The art is reflective of the same midcentury, ’50s, ’60s vibe.”  

C'est Chic

Kelley Hall-Barr and Kayleigh Dumond, k. hall designs

In Apartment F2, the antique secretary desk near the door says it all. It’s an olive-tinted dove gray, commandeered from Kelley Hall-Barr’s k. hall designs shop, and it looks like a place where a novelist would have written love letters in 1910 Bruges. Yet it’s a practical repository: You can conceal jangling keys, loose coins, or scrawled director’s notes inside, then invite your leading man in for a martini in a serene, uncluttered living room. Entertaining’s easy here: A floor-length curtain hides any unwashed coffee mugs in the kitchen, and the apartment divides into living spaces that feel airier than their square footage would allow. Vintage and found pieces give the place a soothing, softened-edges feel, but the colors deepen in the bedroom, where a sparkly chandelier lights the charcoal dresser (topped with a spray of berries and a tray of driftwood) and adds a glow to the pomegranate-red Belgian bed linens. The space blends drama and ease, at once.  

Flora, Fauna, Fabulous

Carolyn Peterson, Carolyn Peterson Designs

“When I came in, it felt very dark,” says Carolyn Peterson of Apartment B2. To brighten things up, she laid rustic hardwood floors and used pale paint colors, and added a Hunter Douglas vertical Roman shade in the living room. “They just came out with it this summer,” Ms. Peterson explains. “It really diffuses the light.” What most lightens up the space, though, is the mural-sized black-and-white vintage photograph hanging in the dining area featuring German kids watching a play, their faces contorted with surprise, joy, and fear. “I looked at a lot of St. Louis images, and they were really pretty, but I wanted something with a lot of movement and energy,” Ms. Peterson says. “This is the moment where the dragon is slain, so that’s why you get all those facial expressions.” She added mostly West Elm furniture throughout the apartment, including the scoop-back dining-room chairs in a black-and-white leaf pattern and a round table that she topped with CaesarStone left over from the kitchen. The bedroom is done in West Elm, too, right down to the linens and the papier-mâché coral lamp, made by the artists’ studio Stray Dog Designs. The apartment gets an extra touch of warmth with the addition of some whimsical flora (a terrarium on the dining-room sideboard) and fauna (the papier-mâché gemsbok head in the bathroom).  

Manhattan Whimsy

Retta Leritz and Laura Elzemeyer Murray, Hip & Gable Interiors

Walking into Apartment H2 is like stepping onto a movie set. You can imagine a romantic comedy about two urbanites taking place there. It’s unafraid of its own boldness, with a cowhide rug stenciled to look like zebra, the dining-chair pads in a Navajo-blanket pattern, and a chandelier that’s all orbs and spheres. It’s daring, urbane, and yet completely livable. “People are here three months,” explains Retta Leritz. “So we felt like we had to bridge that gap and have all the amenities of a hotel and your own personal apartment.” She and her Hip & Gable co-owner, Laura Elzemeyer Murray, designed stationery with the apartment’s own monogram, an art deco H2, which is also on the shower curtain, pillow shams, and bedspread. Other details came out of conversations with the actors. “We talked to some of the actors before we started, and they all made the same comments,” say Ms. Leritz. “There wasn’t enough actual table space.” So they included a desk, dining table, and shelving. For extra finesse, they used lion’s-head pulls on most of the drawers in the kitchen and the hall closet door, and hung a stone lion’s head in the living room. The result is Manhattan chic with Art Deco touches and a helping of whimsy. When people come in, says Ms. Leritz, “I want them feel relaxed, inspired, and upbeat.”  

The Nutcracker Suite

Jay Eiler, Lawrence Group/Niche Home Furnishings + Design

Maybe it’s because he was a dancer—he’s performed at The Muny and STAGES St. Louis—that interior designer Jay Eiler’s reimagined Apartment A1 is reminiscent of a prima ballerina’s arabesque (penchée, of course): balanced, beautiful, and so effortless. “My inspiration was actually the wallcovering,” Mr. Eiler says. “I took the darker charcoal gray from that, so it looks like it’s bleeding off the wallcovering.” The grass cloth behind the off-white sofa (from Phillips Furniture) seems to glisten against the muted walls and the dark, espresso-stained hardwood. In the dining area is brass wall art by Jeffery Miller, resembling a trail of crumpled flower petals. Mr. Eiler wanted it “organic and sculptural. I didn’t want to overkill on accessories,” he says. “I wanted the space to speak for itself.” He designed a media niche, built in a floating shelf, and used bookcases on casters to delineate an entryway without closing anything off. “I was really my own client,” muses Mr. Eiler. “So I just went with my gut and my initial design and I’m really happy with the end product. I wanted it be dramatic and sexy, and being an ex-professional dancer, I knew what I wanted to do.”  

The Zebra Zone

Vicki Dreste, Victoria Dreste Designs

The first thing you notice and the last thing you remember in Apartment G2 is the zebras galloping across a blood-red background, seemingly impervious to the slings and arrows flying around them. “This whole design came from this Scalamandré wallcovering,” explains Vicki Dreste. “It brings a level of sophistication wherever it is.” The apartment is not all color and drama, though. Ms. Dreste used a neutral base with soft caramel hues for most of the apartment. “I think it gives it a nice spacious feel,” she explains. “I wanted to add the color in smaller areas rather than all over, because it really opens it up.” Like the zebras, the pops of color catch the eye, like the red Osborne & Little chrysanthemum pillows on the couch or the red leather chair from Design & Detail. The art wall behind the sofa comprises pieces by Ms. Dreste’s friend Sherrie Whitehead, including a black-and-white pencil sketch of a rhino, a limned flower on the pages of an encyclopedia, and abstract calligraphic lines with only dots of color.  Used sparingly, color coyly flirts with the eye, giving the apartment Ms. Dreste’s desired “sophisticated, artsy kind of look.”  

All That Jazz

Ardra Bradley, Modernity Interiors

When the designers were invited out to the Garden Apartments to “shop” the existing furniture and items, Ardra Bradley found a small stack of vintage jazz 78s—and inspiration. When she found an antique record player on Craigslist, Apartment D2’s theme was sealed. “I wanted to do something different, something that I would never do in my own home or that clients would never have let me do in theirs,” Ms. Bradley says. “I wanted to have some fun.” She went with a palette of yellow, bright blue, and gray, with special attention paid to the walls. The wall running from the front to the back doors was turned into a chalkboard. Then Kyle Davis, a professional illustrator who was once her professor, drew various jazz instruments on the walls. To the left of the front door, the wall shimmers, shines, and sparkles with a treatment of individually placed pieces of mica, created by The Color Craftsmen. The bedroom is more subdued—and mellow. “That is where the grays came in,” Ms. Bradley says. “But I still wanted it to be fun, so that is why I did the stripes. The houndstooth is very reminiscent of the ’60s, which I thought was appropriate for the building.”  

Marrakech Dreams

Marcia Moore, Marcia Moore  Design

“The theme is Moroccan,” says Marcia Moore. “It started with fabric I found at Calico Corners that lent itself to that.” The rich, orangey paintings in the living room of Apartment E1, from retailer Tuesday Morning, are abstract depictions of Morocco; the prints that hang in the bedroom were donated by Grafica Fine Art Gallery. Ms. Moore also worked from an inspiration a little closer to home: Her son, who recently left for college, no longer needed his dresser or four-poster bed, so Ms. Moore used them here. All of the fabric in the bedroom came from Calico Corners, and the bed linens were made by Class Act Designs. The side tables came from HomeGoods (“But they match!” marvels Ms. Moore) while the lamps came from a La-Z-Boy closeout sale for less than a song. In order to make the room more functional, Ms. Moore removed half of the existing closet and replaced it with closets donated by NewSpace. In the living room, all of the furniture and lamps—with the exception of the coffee table, which was donated by a client—came from a Rothman Furniture closeout sale. The window treatments were donated by Victor Shade Co. “I was the shopping queen on this project!” Ms. Moore laughs. The final touch in this room is flexible track lighting, which came from Home Depot. “I call it jewelry for your ceiling,” she says, “because ceilings are so boring, and I’ve rarely walked into a house that I’m working on that has enough light. Track lighting is a way to get something interesting on your ceiling, but also get light where you need it.”  

Mad for Mondrian

Stevens Institute of Business & Arts

Walking up to the Garden Apartments feels like taking a time machine back to 1960s, and Jeffrey Pounds and Judy Plattner, co-chairs of the interior-design department at Stevens Institute of Business & Arts, wanted to help their design students capture that feeling. “We really strived to be true to the space, so we had to go with Los Angeles postwar Modernism,” Mr. Pounds explains. Bursts of color dominate Apartment K1, including original, oversize red, blue, yellow, and green paintings of singular items, such as an applause sign and a camera, and Ferarri-red steel kitchen cabinetry spray-painted by a local auto-body shop. In the bedroom, the designers went for a Piet Mondrian-inspired look with structural, scattered rectangles in the custom headboard made by Beck/Allen Cabinetry and painted in alternating primary colors. For the students, the project was a real-life learning experience in specing all the features and finishes, ordering cabinetry and flooring, and choosing fabrics, like the wave-print, multicolored curtains in the dining room.

“We tried to focus on structural solutions, and one of the most unique things we did was dropping the soffit in the bedroom to create a work area where actors can sit and read over their scripts,” says Mr. Pounds.  

Black-and-White Delight

Renée Flanders, Renée Céleste Flanders Interior Design, and Marcia Smith, Marcia Smith Design Group

Designers Renée Flanders and Marcia Smith formulated a concept of black-and-white New York sophistication for Apartment G1. Ms. Smith’s “third-millennium” style and Ms. Flanders’ affinity for hands-on design combined to create a space that’s cozy, modern, and black-and-white all over, with painted upholstery, unique works of art, and bold stripes lining it.

“We wanted to work with the 1960s architecture of the space, so we kept it simple, yet playful and engaging,” Ms. Flanders says. That style extends to the Corian countertops and backsplash in the kitchen, a chain-link mesh shower curtain in the bathroom, and blackboard paint covering the wall behind the bed, dotted with chalked Z’s. Ms. Flanders’ original art (now painted directly on the wall) complements a piece of art that the Rep already had depicting a pair of tango dancers, which Ms. Smith says served as the initial inspiration for the space. The dancers now hang above the couch.

“We’re both opera and theater lovers, and we wanted someone of the caliber of Christine Brewer to have a beautiful, comfortable home,” says Ms. Smith.  

Boho Beauty

Jenny Baca, JIPSI

Designer Jenny Baca’s eclectic, modern bohemian style is hard to miss. In Apartment K2, a black-and-white mural of an imaginative woman plays off of a Union Jack-topped table and a burgundy couch with patchwork cushions.

“I wanted the space to have a very dramatic theater feeling, and that mural was a must-have,” says Ms. Baca. “I knew I had to have her on the wall right when I walked into the apartment. It’s a very powerful image.” Ms. Baca sought to convey a sense of the unexpected through art and accessories. In the living room, she hung her trademark origami, created from folded book pages and mounted to pop off the walls. She also added an enormous light fixture created out of hangers and scores of page slivers. The part of the project Ms. Baca admires most is a colorful, watercolor-esque mural in the kitchen by a local painter, which she interprets as a personal aura, a luminous field radiating the energy of the apartment.

“I’m really proud of the fact that we were able to get so many local artists to be involved in the project,” Ms. Baca says. “These people took my ideas and fulfilled them better than I could have imagined.”  

Right at Home

Jenny Manganaro, Interior Design Consultants, and Zachary Cramberg, Zachary Interiors + Garden

On a couple of nights, Jenny Manganaro and Zach Cramberg worked until 2 a.m., slaving to create a space in Apartment B2 that would feel effortless. They wanted to be resourceful rather than matchy-matchy, so the place would have a warm and inviting vibe. The duo had a pleated tablecloth tailored to soften a contemporary, octagonal glass-topped table. Mr. Cramberg built the base of an end table out of volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, the literary feel a perfect foil for the Oriental rug. Mrs. Manganaro inset leftover tumbled-glass tiles from the bathroom floor to transform a medicine cabinet. They found a full-view glass door for $10 on Craigslist that let sun stream into the narrow kitchen, opening a full view of Nerinx Hall High School’s hockey field. When a square of Labrador verdigris granite was cut out for the sink, they suspended it from the chocolate-glazed cabinet as a shelf for the microwave. And Mr. Cramberg hung a double row of shutters in the bedroom, a trick Mrs. Manganaro’s mother came up with years ago to suggest a deeper, more evenly placed window.  

The Green Queen

Sonja Willman, Sonja Willman Designs

The plant died years ago. But Sonja Willman considered the branches and leaves so interesting that she saved them—and ended up pinning them on the living room wall of Apartment B1. In the same room, chicken wire adorned with pictures covers one wall; antique lampshade frames decorate another. In the bedroom, a headboard was created from corrugated metal and two-by-fours. “Reuse” is the watchword here. The bed skirt comprises recycled packing materials attached to the bed’s frame. Empty picture frames hung at angles work as wall art. “I wanted it to be a little more unpredictable and add things that you wouldn’t expect to work in the space,” says Mrs. Willman. The majority of the furniture chosen came from the Rep’s stockpile of pieces that had been used prior to the renovation. She painted the walls green—“It is still a neutral for me and it’s a good background for other colors.”  

By Jeannette Cooperman, Rosalind Early, Christy Marshall, Nancy McMullen, and Stefene Russell, Photographs by Matt Hughes, Styling by Kathy Curotto