Photography by Alise O'Brien
Annie Brahler in her living room
Annie Brahler turns the cast iron lever, gives it a slight nudge, and swings open the window of a second-story bedroom. Leaning out above a box brimming with cascading pink and blue flowers, she points in the direction of a tall evergreen, her blonde tresses tumbling down the back of her navy-blue blazer. Halfway up the tree is a wooden box with a small square opening. It’s one of two birdhouses that Brahler and husband, Charlie Smith, built for the barred owls that nest, hunt, and keep watch on the property. The couple recently discovered three fledgling owls on the cottage grounds. The neighborhood has embraced the owls as their own, listening and caring for them throughout the day. “A six-mile radius is about as far as the owls will go to hunt,” says Brahler. “But they don’t need to go that far because we have plenty for them to eat here.” Brahler, an interior designer with a high-end clientele across the country, isn’t the type to become overly excited about such matters, but she just can’t help herself: “I fell in love with them.”
Two years ago, when the couple closed on the sale of their beloved glass house designed by midcentury architect Robert Elkington, they moved into a Maritz and Young house in Webster Groves. “It’s the most inconvenient piece of property,” says Brahler of the brick-and-stone cottage built in 1929. “It’s up on a hill, so the only way to get to the front door is one of three sets of very steep stairs, but it had me in my gut.”
Photography by Alise O'Brien
Brahler is driven by the instincts of a historic preservationist. She can see past years of neglect and pick up the torch where a former owner ran out of steam, funds, or both. Whether for a client or herself, she loves to rescue old houses, and the Webster cottage has benefited from her considerable vision and energy. When the couple moved in, many of the home’s finest architectural elements had been covered with walls and Plexiglas, awaiting an owner with the patience and know-how to release its potential, to uncover the wonderful old windows, repair the cakey plaster walls, and revel in the discovery—aided by a second-floor cast iron tub that was falling through—of the original kitchen ceiling. “That was the universe helping us along,” says Brahler, laughing.
With a trusted team of local craftsmen, electricians, and treasure hunters based in distant locales, Brahler set out to renovate and decorate, “walking” Italian markets via FaceTime and text with a favorite dealer on the ground. “Italian markets that are lesser known tend to spring up in odd places and when she finds those, we have to shop in real time or risk losing something special,” says the designer. To create cohesion around the house, Brahler replicated the tongue-and-groove decking and beams–seen in the kitchen, living, and dining rooms–in the new two-story primary bedroom and dressing suite.
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
Brahler renovated the existing designer kitchen into an unfit kitchen, adding such quirky elements as a Spanish fish-cleaning sink, handmade butcher-block countertops, and stand-alone shelves that look like they’ve always been in the house. Those shelves hold the designer’s collection of Delft porcelain and opaline glassware, which she rotates in and out of the room on the basis of season or mood. A marble-topped carved wood console is Brahler’s idea of a kitchen island, but she first stripped it of its varnish to remove the shiny patina.
Compared with many of the kitchens that she’s been hired to design for clients, Brahler’s space is relatively small, but that suits her style. “Being Dutch and also having lived for seven years in Japan, I learned to cook and learned to work in small spaces, and so this, to me, seems plenty,” she says.
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
The adjacent garden room was originally an open-air porch, enclosed decades ago by previous owners. Now, wall panels designed by Smith surround the room, adding texture and dimension. Shells and coral, sought after by the sea-loving designer, are styled atop an ornate table purchased at an auction of furniture from the late Karl Lagerfeld’s Monaco apartment. “This is my only antique of real provenance,” says Brahler, “and I’ll never part with it.”
Photography by Alise O'Brien
Beyond the French doors is the new pool, which presented a real challenge for the workers, who lugged materials up that steep hill and into the backyard. Black-and-white checkerboard decking was built after the couple moved in. And the two life-size, carved limestone soldiers at the edge of the water? They’re French, and sourced by one of Brahler’s longtime antiques dealers. “This house, being so storybook, allows you to be a little silly—to have soldiers as lifeguards by your pool, for instance,” she says nonchalantly.
Photography by Alise O'Brien
Brahler revels in the fantasy that emerges from such a property, but she made the decision early on to steer clear of cottagecore interiors. Rather, the décor is a reflection of the designer’s favorite styles, arranged to guarantee comfort for all who visit. A spectrum of design eras coexist happily here, she says. The vaulted living room features vintage furniture by Vladimir Kagan and Jay Spectre, two giants of the midcentury, juxtaposed with 18th-century French water gilt mirrors, a pair of classic Italian columns, and one very large chandelier. “I wanted drama,” she says. “I thought the ceiling could take it, so I was up on a scaffold just piling on [the crystals].” The room’s cast iron window opens to a koi pond of crystal clear water that flows from the top of the backyard to the edge of the house. The original pond, the couple learned, was too small for the five fish that lived in its waters, and they were advised to sell one of them. But they’re a family—I can’t do that, Brahler remembers thinking. “So we built them a bigger pond.”
The renovation, the décor, and—yes—the friendly critters are important details of the story here. Brahler, though slightly self-conscious about how often she brings up the owls and the fish, considers them an essential part of her life in the cottage. “At the glass house, we had so much wildlife, but for some reason it’s more poignant in this tiny postage stamp–sized garden,” she says. “I feel like I know them better than I did the others on all that acreage.”
