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Alise O'Brien
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the artpiece based on the nude body of Widmann's girlfriend
Life may be a cabaret to some, but it's one hell of a good party to Mark Widmann. His business: the Randall Gallery, an art gallery and party place. His home? One and a half acres in South St. Louis overlooking the Mississippi, a contemporary house designed to hold many, many people. This is not just a place to hang your hat, it's a place to entertain.
Specifically: * Three professional kitchens. * A commercial dishwasher that takes 90 seconds to do a load, several commercial refrigerators, six-burner stove, three ovens and a baking station with ice drawers under the marble slab for cooling. * A fourth satellite kitchen on the second floor. * Two pass-throughs from the main kitchen to the butler's pantry so caterers can refill diminishing supplies on the buffet line. * One dining room for 12 and a second dining room that accommodates 60. * A "swim spa"--one side a hot tub, the other 4 feet deep. It can accommodate 40, sitting and standing. Recessed coolers (and hideaway trash bins) are within arm's reach on both sides. * Twelve dining room chairs, each monogrammed with a single word from the quote: "If you can't say anything nice about someone, sit next to me." * "Hotel Widmann" monogrammed towels and robes for guests. * A state-of-the-art audio-visual system with speakers facing the driveway, throughout the house, on the deck, even the river bluffs. * No carpets. Furniture that can be moved around to make room for dancing feet. In the lower-level living room the couch is all sectionals. * Built to withstand a lot of weight with no deflection or vibration. "I designed [the house] with a commercial weight load," Widmann explains. "Because of all the entertaining." * Doubled joists throughout the kitchens. "I said I was going to buy a couple of 1,000-pound countertops," Widmann says. "And I told the contractor, 'If I have a couple of young ladies dancing on the counter and 40 to 50 people around them cheering them on, it needs to handle the weight load.' And, yes, we've had women dancing on the counter." * Two-inch copper water line, 2,000 btu furnace on the pool, a commercial water heater for all three kitchens plus three regular water heaters for the remainder of the house.
But the house does more than simply hold party after party. It also showcases Widmann's art collection. The height of the ceiling in the living room was dictated by a piece of sculpture titled "Circle of Life" that Widmann had never been able to hang due to lack of air space. Other artists hanging and shown about the manse on the Mississippi: Beryl Cook, Brother Mel, Mark Bunch and Ken Kouhtek, among others.
Widmann has his own art tradition. For each amour who stayed more than two years, he has a piece of art commissioned in their honor. There's "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley," by Steve Hanson in honor of Widmann's high school girlfriend. Widmann's instructions: "I wanted a woman in a banana print dress [to match the pillows on the couch] with red hair [which his Sally didn't have], interacting with another person or thing and slight sexual overtones."
A second tribute piece, "Donna Lynn in the Porcelain," is a not terribly flattering papier-mache sculpture of a curvaceous woman with teal eyes (just like the real Donna Lynn), lying in a tub (a favorite Donna Lynn pastime). "When I had the piece done, it was in the bathroom in the basement [of a previous house]," Widmann says. "[Donna Lynn] told me, 'That is where that will stay' until she was gone. She left shortly thereafter."
Finally, Widmann's current girlfriend, Johna Sides, is immortalized in a piece titled, "Johna in the Sauna" by Randy Cooper (opposite). Based on a piece of Cooper's art Johna had admired, the piece of shadow art made of wire mesh has the title of the piece sewn in the left leg of the sculpture (the artist's own name is on the other leg). The entire design of the house is meant to augment the art. A crucial element in displaying artwork is the lighting. On the plans, Widmann laid out where each piece of art would go, took a picture of each piece, noted if it had glass or not, listed the size and put it on a grid. He then gave that information to Ken McKelvie of McKelvie Lighting Design, considered one of the top lighting designers around.
Another trick was to enhance and not detract from the individual pieces. With that in mind, designer Don Occhi, owner of Interior Design Solutions, picked a neutral taupe for the walls and ceiling in the living room.
"It is not an exciting color but look at it as background for the artwork," Occhi says. "To [Widmann], the artwork is the most important part of the whole deal. As he says, 'Furniture is just a place to sit and to eat off of.' Part of what I suggested was simplify and repeat. We did that a lot. There was so much else going on that you are better off using the same things over and over in different places and different ways."
To detail: * The taupe in the living room is used on the patio furniture and deck railing. * A bow (as in the deck of a ship) theme is repeated throughout. Originally the idea of architect Tom Cohen of Johannes-Cohen, the bow point comes up in the point of the deck, the top of the mirrors, with the lighting in the shower and above the tub in the master bath and the red V in the bar top on the lower level. * Stainless steel that has a quilted pattern is behind the range in the first kitchen and below the pegboard in the butler's pantry. * Aluminum barn roofing is behind the back bar on the main floor, in front of the front bar on the lower level and as a backsplash in the kitchen on the second floor. * The stainless steel on the countertops and trough sink in the kitchen shows up again in the stainless pegboard and countertops in the butler's pantry and the corner trim of the lower-level fireplace. * Stainless steel bowls are used in bathrooms throughout except in the master, which has a stainless trough sink. * Cork floors are on the lower level and second floor. * The flooring on the main floor became the counter in the bar and was wrapped around the fireplace, both on the lower level. * The pulls in the kitchens match those in the master closets. * Stainless backs on the barstools on the lower level have the same burnished circle pattern as the handrails on the deck. * The same maple cabinetry is used throughout the house.
Attention to every detail can be depicted in every corner on every floor. It even extends to every guest. At a recent St. Patrick's Day fete, Widmann welcomed some 200 to his home. They started arriving at noon on Saturday; they left at 6 a.m. on Sunday. After all, it was a party. And it was a party at the river rendezvous of the party man, Mark Widmann.
