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Photography by Anne Matheis
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a tastefully decorated sitting room
David McCay and Susan Webbe firmly believe in surprises. They met on what McCay calls "a surprise [aka blind] date—the first one I ever had and the first one she ever had."
Now, they go antiquing to uncover, and buy, surprises. And unsuspectingly, they found a house more French than American—mere icing on the cake for Francophile Webbe. It happened after a long day of house hunting. Webbe's real estate agent suggested one last stop at a house in Kirkwood. Webbe wasn't particularly interested. Then living in Webster, she and McCay, her fiance, had decided to move into Clayton. But she agreed to mush on.
"We pulled up and I said, 'This is my dream house. We don't even need to go inside,'" Webbe says. "I was like, 'Oh my God. I love it.'"
Set off a main thoroughfare in Kirkwood at the end of a small bridge, the two-story house stands mere steps from the edge of the street's pavement. With its plantation shutters, two-tiered terrace, second-floor balcony and wrought iron railings, it's a dead ringer for a residence in New Orleans' French Quarter. Webbe and McCay signed the sales contract the night before it was set for its first open house--and before McCay ever saw the interior. They outbid a competitor by $50.
Built 70 years ago, the house is on a site that was originally the apple orchard of a farm owned by the Lindbergh family (as in the boulevard). The previous owner, Richard Roloff, was the architect for Plaza Frontenac and the Ritz-Carlton and is now executive vice chancellor at Washington University. He left the house in great physical shape, but the decor was a tad too contemporary for Webbe and McCay's taste. They repainted every room but the kitchen, which they left as it was. The base color throughout the house is butter yellow. Literally. The paint store made a perfect match to a stick of Land O'Lakes.
"I picked this color scheme because I thought it went so well with the home, being a New Orleans-style home," Webbe says. "I wanted something light and bright."
Then she started filling the house with antiques—inherited and picked up at antique stores and estate sales. "I love antiquing," she says. "I am a frustrated decorator. I love putting things together, making surprises."
In the living room, the loveseats, chairs and Bombay chest came from Webbe's childhood home in St. Louis Hills while the lamps flanking the fireplace (which dates back to the 1904 World's Fair, a Roloff acquisition) were picked up at the now-defunct Dragonflies. The dining room, painted a soft sage, holds a table from McCay's family, chairs from Arlene Lillie Interior Design and a bench from Summer House. The house is all sharp angles, nooks and crannies, one room after another. Although only the duo live there, Webbe explains that she needs the space. There is the bedroom called Patricia's Room, reserved for her mother. Then there is William's Room, named for one of her two nephews. He, along with his sister and brother, whiles away a good deal of the summer with Webbe and McCay.
"Since I have never had children, my niece [Brittany] and nephews [William and David] are mine," Webbe says. "Every time William leaves, we fall apart. He takes our breath away." William and his siblings, the children of Webbe's sister, Gale, and brother-in-law, restaurateur David Slay, live in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
When Webbe was a little girl, she frequently resided in a penthouse suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas—a hotel owned by her father, Sorkis Webbe Sr. "I had a very interesting life," she says. No doubt. Her father, a legendary attorney, former committeeman and state senator, was allegedly linked to some nefarious characters and activities. After he passed away in 1985, Webbe and her mother, Patricia, lived in the Mayfair Hotel downtown (which also had been owned by her father) for two years. Her mother, long active in The Missionaries of Charity, worked alongside Mother Teresa; a picture of Susan Webbe with the blessed nun hangs on her wall.
McCay, an artist and retired banker, and Webbe, director of marketing at Seven Gables Inn, met six years ago on their "surprise" date. One year later, they went to Paris, and there, Webbe says, they fell in love. "We were in Paris, which I have always loved, and David brings me this box. I'm thinking, 'Oh my gosh, I'm finally getting married.' It was gorgeous pearls, which I just love, but for a moment I thought it was the big one."
That came later; vows will be exchanged this year and Webbe will be married for the first time at the grand age of 49. But already settled like a couple married for years, Webbe and McCay frequently entertain.
"It's a great house for parties," Webbe says. "But nobody ever wants to go home."
And everyone who comes wants to stay. "When my friends visit, they always tell me, 'I feel like I'm on vacation,'" Webbe says. "Everyone feels that." McCay chimes in: "It's like we live in the country with everything nearby."
Their house—so well hidden and one they nearly never saw—turned out to be just another surprise for a couple who believe strongly in the unexpected.
