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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMAGES OF JANICE ROHAN'S HOME.
Before recycling was cool, Janice Rohan was a recycler. Not just in terms of paper and plastics (although she does purport to have “hardly any trash” on pickup day), but also, most interestingly, in her design philosophy. “Whenever I can, I want to reuse things—especially things of value—and give them new life,” Ms. Rohan says.
In the design business for the past 25 years, Ms. Rohan has forever reinvented old furnishings and fabrics in her home, as well as those of her clients, but she took that approach into turbo mode in September 2007 when she, her husband, Phil, and their 13-year-old daughter got ready to move into their current home, a 1928 brick colonial in Ladue. “The buyer of our old house told me she was going to remove the marble on the kitchen island,” Ms. Rohan says. “Later, I found out she was going to replace a lot of the light fixtures and draperies, too.”
One woman’s trash became Ms. Rohan’s recouped treasures, as she welcomed back into the nest many of the belongings she’d left behind. There were the red-and-gold “Persian diplomat” patterned drapes, which Ms. Rohan altered to fit the French doors in her new living room. There was the island’s Benou Jaune marble slab, which she reinvented as an outdoor bar. Out went the built-in banquette in the old house’s dining room; its benches would fit perfectly as free-standing seating in the new house’s breakfast room. Ms. Rohan also nabbed three closet doors without knowing exactly what she’d do with them. Years later, they would become the linen-closet door, water-closet door, stained-glass window, and trapdoor in a newly added master bathroom. “The window and trapdoor is actually one door cut in half,” Ms. Rohan says. “For the window, I replaced the door panels with leaded yellow stained glass.”
Ms. Rohan was particularly tickled by the return of two beloved sconces. The gold-and-black fixtures by Maitland-Smith are in the shape of gloved hands clutching the base of a lantern. As a professional dealer and personal fan of Maitland-Smith, the American manufacturer known for its elegant reproductions of 17th- and 18th-century English antiques, Ms. Rohan has at least one of its pieces in every room of her house.
Once she had reclaimed all she could from her former home, Ms. Rohan began the work of salvaging some existing features of her new home. “I think of my furniture as a whole inventory to choose from,” Ms. Rohan says. “I’m constantly taking stock and thinking of new ways to use things.”
Though Ms. Rohan repainted the foyer’s walls with an orange glaze (the color reminded her of vacations in Charleston, S.C.), she was careful not to completely conceal the gold stripes beneath. “I don’t like undoing what someone else has done,” she says. “Someone went to a lot of trouble painting those stripes.”
Taken by the dining room’s green knotty pine paneling and tropical hand-painted mural, Ms. Rohan left the dining room completely intact. Her only additions were the furnishings, including a black bar cart with Japanese ivory carvings and a pagoda-topped, leather-paneled breakfront cabinet. The Maitland-Smith piece now stows china and linens, but it used to hold sweaters and hats in Ms. Rohan’s bedroom.
One of the house’s most charming assets is its layout. Every room spans precisely—and strictly—the depth of the house, and features a rear door leading to the sprawling backyard. The living and breakfast rooms’ French doors would have to be replaced when she upgraded to a geothermal heating and cooling system, but Ms. Rohan found new life for them in the master bedroom. One set of doors became the interior entrance to the bedroom, its glass panes offering views through the adjacent gallery into the backyard. The four sidelight doors, meanwhile, separate the dressing room from the master bath and bedroom, with a mirrored finish for privacy.
In the backyard, an 8-foot-high brick privacy wall blocked views from the home’s addition. But Ms. Rohan chose downsizing over demolition. The now 3-foot-high wall adds old-world structure to the surrounding patio, terraced shade gardens, towering magnolia tree, and scattered equestrian hurdles. “Our daughter takes riding lessons,” Ms. Rohan says. “But here she uses them as a jumping course for the dogs.”
Resources:
Interior design: Park Avenue Design, 314-863-0095. Foyer: glass bowl, Julista, available from Neiman Marcus, 100 Plaza Frontenac, 314-567-9811, neimanmarcus.com; hanging tapestry, Aubusson, aubusson.de; lamps: Maitland-Smith, available from Park Avenue Design; painting: Peter O’Neill Gallery, 843-408-4165, oneillgallery.com. Living room sconces: Maitland-Smith; Den: plaid Italian polyester drapery fabric: Dedar, dedar.com; Tibetan rug: Michaelian & Kohlberg, michaelian.com; custom wine racks: made by Cory Lamp, Redwood Wine Cellars, 90 Clarkson Wilson Center, 636-532-6069, redwoodwinecellars.com; sofas: Beachley Furniture, beachley.com; hanging light fixtures and tortoise shell coffee table: Maitland-Smith. Kitchen: pendant light: Artemide, 4727 McPherson, 314-361-0107, artemide.us; painting: Peter O’Neill Gallery. Master bedroom: bed: Milling Road by Baker, available through KDR Designer Showrooms, 11660 Page Service Drive, 314-993-5020, kdrshowrooms.com; red lacquer chinoisserie bedside tables and mantel mirror: Maitland-Smith; printed cotton drapery fabric: Clarence House, clarencehouse.com; blue drapery fabric: Schumacher, fschumacher.com; painted wood chair, lounge chair, ottoman and silk tiered light fixture: Oly, 775-336-2100, olystudio.com. Master bath: tub surround tile: Walker Zanger, walkerzanger.com; sink bowl: Kohler, us.kohler.com.
