Alise O'Brien
Naming the farm was easy.
Finding it wasn't.
This St. Louis couple longed for a place less than an hour's drive from their home in Ladue but close to the husband's company in Union. They wanted a spot where their kids, grandkids and friends could congregate and relax.
They'd call it Broadview Farm.
In truth, it would be Broadview Farm II. The first, located at Mason and Conway, belonged to the husband's family, and it was where he grew up. In fact, the couple's most prized possession is a painted, wrought-iron bracket in the shape of a tree, holding a wooden sign bearing the name: Broadview Farm. "My grandparents put this sign up in the 1920s," the husband says.
One autumn day in 2004, the couple (who requested anonymity) drove out to this property. He had seen it two years prior but wasn't really interested in it; he wanted only land — not a farm with a lake, two houses and a barn.
"I said, 'What's wrong with this?'" the wife recalls. "It was a no-brainer."
Redoing the house, however, required lots of thinking and planning.
"It started as a little project to replace the windows," she says. "In the end, I don't think there was anything left of the original house."
Workers took the house down to the studs, reconfiguring the space and using finishes that gave the house a rustic, antique feel, while still offering modern comfort and efficiency. The husband stopped by regularly at 8 in the morning, on his way to work, to check on the progress. By 10:30, he'd find himself calling the office to let them know they wouldn't be seeing him that day. "They weren't surprised," he says.
The couple had very specific goals for the redesign. The wife did not want to be stuck in a kitchen that was separate from the rest of the house, so the builder took out walls to create one big kitchen–dining room–living room. To ensure a great view of the lake, they opted for a bank of French doors. To show off the trusses, the low ceiling in the great room was ripped down. To give the house the look of authenticity, the walls were faced with a 2-inch log veneer salvaged from an old cabin in Idaho. The two-story chimney and fireplace is constructed from stones German settlers quarried in the early 1800s for a smokehouse nearby.
Next to the old logs and stone, the kitchen looks like a natural conglomeration of antique pie safes, jelly cupboards and hutches. In reality, it's a salute to the art of reproduction. David Smith, a cabinetmaker, came from Ohio and planned the kitchen in a day on his laptop. "I really like the cabinets and their old pine colors," the wife says. "The paint looks old and worn around the knobs."
Collections abound in this home away from home. For the past 25 years, the homeowners have haunted antique shops and shows across the country from New Jersey on down to Kentucky. "The most fun of all was collecting these things on our trips," he says.
"Each collection just starts when I find something I like," she says. "These are oddball things." To be specific: folk-art whirligigs, black toleware, black-and-white transferware, hand-painted chess and checkers boards, painted mirrors, quilts and patterned carpets. Most recently, she has started amassing mice — stuffed, wooden, even plastic ones with wheels. She hides them in various rooms; when the cleaning lady comes, she re-hides them — most recently, a few ended up in the refrigerator. "It's great fun to see who can find the mouse," the wife says.
Then there is the husband's booty, ensconced in the barn: a refurbished 1929 Model T truck and three old tractors, including a 1950s John Deere known as a Poppin' Johnny. Antique gas tanks are also scattered about.
"Boys and their toys," she mutters.
Antiques are mingled with reproductions. New chairs — which look old — surround the 100-year-old English dining table. Shaker chests in the bedrooms stand near reproduction queen-sized beds. Antique tea caddies have been converted into lamps.
Out in the back yard stands the ultimate collectable — a 150-year-old log cabin. "She looked out the kitchen window and decided she wanted a view of a log cabin," he says. "Is that frivolous?"
"My grandmother had a little log cabin behind her house on Carrswold," she explains. "Her children played there when they were growing up. She let my brothers and sisters and I have parties there. It was a real cabin, no heating or plumbing, but it had a fireplace and electricity." A friend told them about a cabin being torn down near Wentzville. "They took it down log by log and tagged them as they went along," he says. The builder who had been working on the farm, Bob Tuepker of Tuepker Bros. Construction, reassembled the logs on Broadview Farm II with new chinking. "The cabin was built after the Civil War, when they used a cast-iron stove," the husband says. "They're much more efficient." The couple added two fireplaces (one on each floor), heating and cooling. Then, deviating from the model of her grandmother, they put on an addition for the kitchen and bathroom. Counting two in the cabin plus three more in a smaller house the previous owners built across the 3-acre lake, Broadview Farm boasts 10 bedrooms in all, including a five-bed bunkroom attached to the main house.
The couple calls their farm "The Great Escape." Their daughter and her husband and toddler son stay over in the second house; their son and his wife take the cabin, while the couple lives in the main house.
For her, the joy of the place is that it is so peaceful and relaxing. For him, it is all about the projects. "We always had a couple of projects going," he says. "Well, it was great when we had all these projects. Now what?"
