Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Amy Studebaker Milonas and Nick Milonas
If vision is the ability to see what others can’t, what happens when you have so much vision, you can’t stop looking? Does good food taste better and bad food taste worse to a fine dining chef? Does a Monet inspire more awe in an artist, or intimidate him? Is it easier for an interior designer to find a new home because she knows she can fix any problem, or harder because she has higher standards?
For designer Amy Studebaker Milonas (Studebaker professionally), finding the right new home for her family wasn’t easier or harder because of her profession (she’s the founder of Amy Studebaker Design and creator of Interiors in a Box by ASD). It was difficult in part because her husband, Nick Milonas, was set on securing their forever home. It took them nine months, she estimates, to look at a little more than 100 houses.
“Everyone would tease me. They’d say, ‘Oh, being the designer, of course you’re taking so much time to find a home,’” says Studebaker, “and I was, like, ‘No, I was fine 60 homes ago.’ I could have even taken some of the first few. But Nick is very particular.”
Still, the designer admits, she was probably more open because of her knowledge: “I can work with anything. Just give me a house, give me a style, and we’ll go with that style.”
On their punch list: an office space for Milonas, who works from home; four bedrooms; a playroom for Studebaker’s 5-year-old son August. Studebaker also wanted to be in the Ladue area, close to her clients. Milonas wanted a movie room. Studebaker wanted a screened-in porch. It was on this last item that the vision (and compromise) her profession requires shone through. “I didn’t have to have a house that had a screened-in porch. I had to have a house with space for an outdoor area for me.” She knew she could always add one later.
But Studebaker lucked out: The house she and Milonas chose, a Colonial in Ladue (check), has a screened-in porch off the kitchen. In their backyard is a park, perfect for Studebaker’s son. Milonas got his office (check) and movie room (check).
The other reason house-hunting for Studebaker and Milonas took a while: They both saw this home earlier in their search. Milonas said he could envision living there; Studebaker didn’t want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. “It was a really bad addition,” she says, likely the one thing that turns her off a home. “I said, ‘Absolutely not. I don’t even want to think about dealing with this. It’s a disaster.’” The whole master suite was an addition, and the structural changes were made without attention to the aesthetics. “They just kind of threw it in there and then drywalled around everything,” says the designer. She also didn’t love the Colonial’s exterior…at first. But then, she says, she came around to it. “I realized I could bring the columns down from the upper portion.” They also plan to paint the house white, take down the shutters, and add gaslights. “I thought, ‘This actually really can be beautiful and darling on the outside, and then I can fix the renovation with PK Construction’s help.’” One room that doesn’t need much of a redo is the kitchen, with its modern inset cabinets and Wolf range. Studebaker removed the upper cabinets to create more space and ordered a new built-in refrigerator. They plan to convert the hearth room across from the space into the dining room (Milonas’ idea).
In the end, Studebaker says, because she’s often looking at homes with her clients, house-hunting for her family was more about learning to work as a team with her husband. “It was very interesting,” she says, “trying to understand what he wanted. It taught me to communicate.” She says she often asked: “What can we live with? What can we live without? What will make us all happy and be good for my son?”
Was there any box this new house didn’t tick? One. Early in the house hunt, Studebaker decided that she wanted a luxurious laundry room. “I ended up with 3 feet for a laundry room,” she says, laughing. “I was, like, ‘Whatever—I’m going to design the heck out of this laundry room. It’ll be great.’”
