Photography by Alise O'Brien
You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, yeah, You just might find you get what you need!”
—The Rolling Stones
A couple in Ladue can croon that classic Stones ditty with conviction.
Once their three children had moved out and on, the pair (who declined to be named) decided to downsize. They bought a new house. But by the time they were finished adding on, they went from the 5,100 square feet of their old house to 4,900 square feet of the new. Two hundred square feet isn’t all that much smaller.
But they’re not complaining.
“This is the house we hoped for,” the wife says. “We thought about what we didn’t have in the other house that will help us live better.”
So they reworked the new house accordingly. Over 18 months, they added a master suite and rebuilt every room—with the exception of one bathroom. The house had been L-shaped, but it became a U wrapped around a terrace. An architect, landscaper, cabinetmaker, closet designer, audio-systems expert, contractor and painter all contributed to the outcome, but not before decorator Carter Noel laid down the ground rules. She had worked with the family before; she knew their taste.
The house had its quirks—like a 1950s bomb shelter under the garage. Ms. Noel used it as a staging area for furniture, where they determined what to keep, what to give away.
As the couple was rebuilding, the wife inherited a family estate. Along with magnificent pieces like a 16th-century Flemish cabinet, she found treasures hidden away in closets, including a set of china that her grandparents had bought on their honeymoon in 1877. Ms. Noel used it to set the color scheme for the family room.
Frequent auction attendees, the homeowners had already built up an impressive collection of antiques, including a 1772 George II herringbone walnut secretary. And then there’s the furniture handmade by the husband in his state-of-the-art workshop in the basement. “It’s his passion and his hobby,” his wife explains. Among other masterpieces, he built her a secretary with the copperplate of their wedding invitation inlaid into a pigeonhole. Because the homeowners had considerably more furniture than could be used, they traded up and weeded out—and their children stood waiting with open arms.
Ms. Noel came up with a color palette that’s basically neutral with accent colors, such as coral, yellow and green.
The entrance hall is all warm beige. The furniture in the family room off the kitchen is covered in brick-red fabrics, while the dining room walls are green, the crown molding and baseboards faux-painted a creamy marble. In the living room, the rug carries the neutral, and the coral of the fabrics is the accent shade, while in a small den, the dominant shade is a warm beige.
In the master suite, the walls are neutral; the carpeting is a soft green Stark plaid with a Jim Thompson green floral fabric used in the bedspread, bed skirt, upholstery and window treatments.
“It is so civilized,” says Ms. Noel. The bedroom has a cove ceiling with French doors that lead out to the terraced garden. Plantation shutters are softened by inverted box-pleated valances. A chaise longue by a west window awaits a lazy afternoon with a good book.
While he works with the wood in his shop, she cooks in a kitchen that takes into account what she did and didn’t like at the previous house. She has a meticulously organized pantry with a motion-activated light. The laundry room is located right off the kitchen.
On the second floor, he has a den for watching sports and smoking cigars. She has an office complete with desk, cabinet drawers, bulletin board and under-cabinet lighting. In the three guest rooms, extra storage was built into the eaves with invisible, push-panel doors.
Everything suits this couple’s life as it is now. The main living space is on the first floor, but the bedrooms upstairs mean all their children can visit at once. The yard, one acre as opposed to their previous two-and-a-half, is much easier to handle.
This house is about the next stage of life, beyond raising children. The couple can live with priceless antiques, porcelain and light-colored rugs. They can listen to music; he can smoke his stogies; she can throw her parties.
“This house is not about anybody but us,” she says.
They didn’t so much downsize as right-size.
brilliant. steal it.
From the homeowner:
- Among all her fine antiques, she throws in some great reproductions.
- She puts little bowls of water inside drawers of very old furniture to keep humidity constant.
- When she liked the way a bull's-eye window looked on the exterior but not the interior, she had it drywalled over inside and fitted with black reflective glass outside.
- "No matter what your contractors bid, be prepared to spend more. Change orders always jack up the price."
