When designers open shops, you can take advantage of their great taste just by wandering through the front door
By Amy Fenster Brown, Christy Marshall and Stefene Russell
Photography by Frank Di Piazza
Interior decorators and designers have a multitude of advantages over the Jane or Joe Schmoe who can’t tell a Scalamandre from Spiegel. Not only do they have the eye and the access to all the latest and greatest in home design, but it’s their job to shop. Just consider the implications. No longer is a stroll through a store a potentially bank-breaking source of guilt. It’s a money-making opportunity. So who better to open a store? A number of interior designers took the plunge into retailing with stores of their own. Our list of 10 isn’t all-inclusive: Arlene Lilie owns West End Gallery in the Central West End; designer David Richardson co-owns Rothschild Antiques with local developer Pete Rothschild; Susie Knopf has Expressions with its plethora of custom furniture; Rose Roberts recently opened her new store in O’Fallon; Grace Rudnick is both designer and shop owner of Galleria Toscana in Chesterfield. And we didn’t include two super showrooms—Vicki Dreste’s Design & Detail in Maplewood and Karen Fortune and Alan Brainerd’s Merrifield-McLaughlin in Webster—because, as the moniker “showroom” implies, they are to-the-trade (though it’s well worth befriending a designer in order to gain entry).
Downtown
It’s one thing to have designers who love to shop and fund their own store, but having an architectural and interior design firm the stature of the Lawrence Group make its retail debut is immensely impressive. That’s what happened when the company opened Niche, a sleek shop selling the latest in contemporary design. Not only can you get anything from chairs to china, beds to bedside tables and lamps, but you can get expert design advice from such outstanding designers as Cindy Lee and Joe Vodicka, on staff and on-site. The price range is good, and if clean/serene is your kind of look, this is your kind of place.
300 N. Broadway (its new store), 314-621-8131, nichestl.com
Maplewood
Love fine antiques and have an IRA you don’t really need? Cash it out and head to T. Rohan Inc. An inveterate shopper who works the road from Alton to Atlanta, Tim Rohan has an eye for prized possessions, and his shop is packed to the rafters with them. If you love antiques, get ready to drool. There you’ll find, for example, a 19th-century mahogany box on a stand for $2,250, a mid-19th-century bow-front chest with original locks and pulls for $6,500, or an 1830 French Empire mahogany cylinder desk for $7,000. A complete fabric library awaits upstairs. Mr. Rohan personally does the home design and turns to his own on-site workroom for the fabrications.
7310 Manchester, 314-647-7400, trohaninc.com
Open the door to Elizabeth House, and you step into a fairyland washed in the purest color, white. An old chandelier ($1,200) adorned with white feather boas, vintage pictures in antique-white frames, even baby clothes that look like they were knitted out of white yarns many decades ago (but they weren’t; they’re new). Opened in 2002, this store and every piece of its merchandise reflect the artistic sensibilities of the owner, Elizabeth Garza Maxson. It’s one of those shops where you could happily while away hours finding clever treasures. You can also get design advice from the owner herself.
7268 Manchester, 314-644-0828, elizabethhouse.us
Clayton
Lenore Pepper may not stand even 5 feet tall, but in the interior design world, she’s a giant. In a truly family affair, she started Edwin Pepper Interiors with her husband, and they run it with son, Michael, and daughter Karen. The place is practically a department store, full of things for your home—right down to the (proverbial) zillion-count color-coordinated sheets and plush towels. Aside from the Peppers, the store has a staff of designers who make complimentary in-house visits to assess needs and assist with purchases.
909 S. Brentwood, 314-862-6330, edwinpepper.com
One would expect a shop calling itself Heirlooms to be filled with antiques—but Lani McKnight’s shop aims to delight and surprise. Browse all 2,700 square feet of the sales floor, and you’ll find old objets d’art (an egg-shaped covered cup with bone veneer); new furniture (a desk hand-painted with lily-pond scenes, $2,277); assorted whimsies and new furniture that looks old (Maitland-Smith reproductions). Heirlooms also offers a full range of design services.
32 N. Brentwood, 314-862-7757, heirlooms-stl.com
There’s a lot in a name: Joy Tribout Interiors has joie de vivre to spare. A chocolate-brown tea set with leaf-shaped plates, carefully packed in what looks like an enormous pink hatbox ($265) or a glass whiskey decanter blown so that a lion’s face peeks out from within the bottle ($135) … that’s just a tiny sampling. There are throw pillows galore—a Tribout specialty. She can also help you update or decorate from the ground up; the signature line is Century Furniture.
8139 Maryland, 314-721-0670, joytribout.com
The St. Louis dwell subscriber should mark down the address of Exclusives by CLB. The shop (the initials are designer Caryn L. Burstein’s) is exclusively contemporary, an edited showcase that testifies to her designing acumen. She carries wool carpeting by Belgian company Metropolitan; couture-sewn bedding by Wildcat Country; work by local artists and her own contemporary furniture, which can be customized.
8125 Maryland, 314-721-3355, clbdesigns.com
The Designing Block, on Clayton’s Antique Row, catapults whimsy to a new level. When the store sells a pillow trimmed in ribbons, for instance, it won’t be a fainting, lacy Victorian full of whispers and sighs; it will be a huggable hot-pink pillow trimmed with ribbons of all different colors, grains and lengths, layered fish-scale style. The Designing Block stocks items of all price points, from Tyler soy votives, which come in scents like “Hippie Chick” or “Glamtastick” ($1.95), to the wooden “infinity mirror” with a lemniscate on top ($890). Owners Susan Block and Steve Brown personally provide interior design advice.
7735 Clayton, 314-721-4224, thedesigningblock.net
Town & Country
There is something very reassuring about going inside a house to buy things for your home. Proof positive: Sonja Willman’s Summer House. Two stories of this old Victorian manse are loaded with treasures—upholstered furniture (a couch covered in a brown-and-gold floral with matching pillows for $4,596), lamps, chandeliers, decorative doo-dahs (a Staffordshire-like shepherd with his flock for $99), pillows of every possible persuasion, artwork of every genre. For that finishing touch, they make lasting flower arrangements on-site.
14356 Manchester, 636-256-0011
Chesterfield and environs
Designs of the Interior doesn’t just offer the services of one designer—instead, like something out of a fairy tale involving poison apples and little men, they have seven on staff. And the shop is a showroom of their talents. The space is sliced up into rooms— dining room, bedroom, family retreat, living room, den. And each one is a different style. The store also offers custom window treatments and complimentary in-house consultations.
1656 Clarkson, 636-530-5970, dotichesterfield.com
It’s hard not to be attracted to a store that greets you with a sign audaciously announcing: “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.” Inside, Ooh La La!’s filled with oversized art (including a portrait of a hound in a dressing gown, $2,272), large leather and upholstered furniture and a plethora of accessories that look old but aren’t and look real but aren’t (7-foot cedar tree for $795). Decorators Dee Hencken and Elaine Tesson’s touch extends to the window treatments—and, if you pick things in stock, redoing a house in a hurry. If need be, it can be done in a day.
17701 Edison, 636-532-3353, oohlalahomefurnishings.com
If your taste inclines toward French Country, Three French Hens is nirvana. One display room after another is packed with furniture (some antique, a lot not), artwork and accessories. The interior design team is headed by owner Jeanie Hood and includes J. R. Zachary, Tina Bennett, Marie Gelineau and LeAnn Werre.
16935 Manchester, Grover, 636-458-8033, threefrenchhensantiques.com
