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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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After spending two years and touring more than 50 houses, it took Lynn Eastin exactly 15 minutes to find and bid on the beauty where she and her husband, Phil, now reside.
“Phil was out of town, and I was just getting ready to go to the office when I saw this woman carrying the sign down the street to this house,” says Mrs. Eastin, Allied Member ASID, of Lynn Eastin Interiors. “I was the first person in the house, and in 15 minutes, I put a bid on it. I called Phil—he was in Florida—and said, ‘I’ve got this house; I’m going to put a bid on it.’” He suggested waiting until his return, three days hence. “I said, ‘Nope. Can’t wait till Friday.’ So I put a contract on it before he got home.”
At 2,000 square feet, this University City Tudor house is exactly half the size of their previous home in Wildwood. “The only thing that held us back a little bit was the size,” says Mrs. Eastin, conceding that it was a tad tinier than they had hoped. “But it works.”
The 1928 cottage fulfilled their wish list: It is charming and within walking distance of Clayton, with a fireplace, three bedrooms (each with its own bath), lots of light, a small yard, and a two-car garage.
The Eastins purchased the house in February 2008 and moved in eight months later. The trick of downsizing, they discovered, was multiple rounds of purging. “It was amazing,” says Mrs. Eastin. “As much as we thought we got rid of, when we moved in, we still had the whole garage filled.” Time for another round.
The work done to the house was minimal. The arched front door, with its small openable window; the terrazzo floor in the foyer; and all of the windows in the house are original.
Mrs. Eastin had the walls painted—“I wanted to lighten it up,” she says—and added lamps and plenty of reflective surfaces, like the antique mirror–topped coffee table in the living room. In the kitchen, her brothers (whose business is construction) refronted the cabinets, tiled the backsplash, and reworked the shelving. The former owners’ walk-in closet became Mr. Eastin’s office. Finally, the loft space in the garage was transformed into a 200-square-foot “man cave” for Mr. Eastin and their son, Matt, along with Mrs. Eastin’s four younger brothers, five nephews, and two godsons.
Now that the house is complete, Mrs. Eastin occasionally ponders her previous dwelling—but she’s coming to think of a large house as unnecessary excess. “The longer we live here, we think, ‘What else do we need?’” Mrs. Eastin says. “We really don’t need anything more.”
Small Talk - St. Louis AT HOME - May/June 2011 from St. Louis Magazine on Vimeo.
Lynn Eastin discusses the challenges of decorating a small house and gives a tour of her home.
