When Vinton moved in, the home’s stained glass windows had been stolen. A combination of luck and determination led him to an antique shop on Cherokee Street where, after a long search, he found them. Vinton used photos of the interior of the house from the Zillow listing to verify that they were the right ones.
Photography by Alise O'Brien
The master bedroom’s muted palette picks up the colors of the river outside the window. Behind the room’s bed sits an early 20th- century Japanese hand-painted gouache on paper. “It’s a garden scene with exotic birds,” says Vinton. “It came out of an estate in Ladue. The gentleman was a student of Bernoudy.”
Photography by Alise O'Brien
Vinton wasn’t crazy about the previous owner’s attempts at interior design: “They tried to match the royal blue in the windows, and they loved to do accent walls.” On the fireplace mantel rests a Picasso. “I found that at an antique shop and reframed it,” he says. “I collect things with faces, so you’ll notice a lot of faces throughout the house.” Vinton is constantly switching out items to better fit his home. Right now he’s in the market for a longer coffee table to pair with the sofa, which, he says, “was designed by Arthur Elrod, a prominent designer in the ’60s. It came out of the Bond Estate in San Francisco and was featured in House & Garden’s 1974 Spring/Summer issue.”
Photography by Alise O'Brien
The color of the dining room pulls out a color in the stained glass windows. “I don’t know how to do a lot of stuff,” Vinton says, “but I’m pretty good with color.” After three tries in the entry hall—“The light coming through changes all the time,” he says, making paint selection a challenge—Vinton finally got the color right. The gallery wall in the entry hall reflects the homeowner’s eclectic taste: A Gustav Klimt print, a gold-accented mirror, and an original self-portrait of Siegfried Reinhardt are among some of his treasures. “If I see something and I like it, I buy it,” Vinton says. “If it doesn’t work here, I can take it to my store.”
Photography by Alise O'Brien
The family room is where Vinton likes to spend time relaxing in his 1966 Mr. Chair and matching ottoman by George Mulhauser. “I like to sit in here and just watch the river,” he says. To keep the emphasis on the river, Vinton chose a gray hue for the walls in the family room.
Overlay
Photo by Jon Gitchoff
When Vinton moved in, the home’s stained glass windows had been stolen. A combination of luck and determination led him to an antique shop on Cherokee Street where, after a long search, he found them. Vinton used photos of the interior of the house from the Zillow listing to verify that they were the right ones. Photography by Alise O'Brien
The master bedroom’s muted palette picks up the colors of the river outside the window. Behind the room’s bed sits an early 20th- century Japanese hand-painted gouache on paper. “It’s a garden scene with exotic birds,” says Vinton. “It came out of an estate in Ladue. The gentleman was a student of Bernoudy.” Photography by Alise O'Brien
Vinton wasn’t crazy about the previous owner’s attempts at interior design: “They tried to match the royal blue in the windows, and they loved to do accent walls.” On the fireplace mantel rests a Picasso. “I found that at an antique shop and reframed it,” he says. “I collect things with faces, so you’ll notice a lot of faces throughout the house.” Vinton is constantly switching out items to better fit his home. Right now he’s in the market for a longer coffee table to pair with the sofa, which, he says, “was designed by Arthur Elrod, a prominent designer in the ’60s. It came out of the Bond Estate in San Francisco and was featured in House & Garden’s 1974 Spring/Summer issue.” Photography by Alise O'Brien
The color of the dining room pulls out a color in the stained glass windows. “I don’t know how to do a lot of stuff,” Vinton says, “but I’m pretty good with color.” After three tries in the entry hall—“The light coming through changes all the time,” he says, making paint selection a challenge—Vinton finally got the color right. The gallery wall in the entry hall reflects the homeowner’s eclectic taste: A Gustav Klimt print, a gold-accented mirror, and an original self-portrait of Siegfried Reinhardt are among some of his treasures. “If I see something and I like it, I buy it,” Vinton says. “If it doesn’t work here, I can take it to my store.”Photography by Alise O'Brien
The family room is where Vinton likes to spend time relaxing in his 1966 Mr. Chair and matching ottoman by George Mulhauser. “I like to sit in here and just watch the river,” he says. To keep the emphasis on the river, Vinton chose a gray hue for the walls in the family room.Photography by Alise O'Brien
Ronnie Vinton’s home, a Mediterranean Revival that sits on the South Broadway Bluff area of the Mississippi, offers sweeping views of the river from most of the rooms in the house. The 4,500-square-foot property also provides Vinton plenty of space in which to showcase his collection of art, furniture, and decorative objects. Buying the house had long been a dream of Vinton’s. “I’ve been stalking this house my whole life,” he says. “I’ve been to it many times, and I’ve always envisioned what I would do with it if I ever owned it, not thinking that I would ever own it.” Last December, Vinton bought the house out of foreclosure. When he’d first inquired, the bank had told him it was uninhabitable. “It’s a work in progress,” Vinton reports.
