The dining room walls are lined with blue-and-white French transferware plates. That collection started with a few pieces left by Heidbreder’s grandparents and was expanded by her mother, who found more plates and shipped them from France.
Photography by Carmen Troesser
The dining room walls are lined with blue-and-white French transferware plates. That collection started with a few pieces left by Heidbreder’s grandparents and was expanded by her mother, who found more plates and shipped them from France.
Photography by Carmen Troesser
Heidbreder calls collecting a “family disease.” It started with her great-grandmother and made its way on down the line to her mother, sisters, and, of course, Heidbreder herself. Shelves and cabinets around the home are laden with antique dolls and miniatures. “My interest in dolls and toys started when my sister told my mom she wanted one antique doll,” Heidbreder says. “My mom found that doll for her, and I remember riding in the car with that doll on my knees. It was a total passion that had to do with childhood and life in miniature.”
Photography by Carmen Troesser
One of Heidbreder’s favorite heirlooms is a black 1850s secretary, inlaid with ivory, that belonged to her mother. On the wall surrounding the desk hang small framed silhouettes—of her daughters, herself, and even total strangers, picked up at flea markets. “I adopt people,” she says.
Photography by Carmen Troesser
Another massive collection: porcelain favors, or fèves—tiny charms that, in a French tradition, are baked into small cakes to celebrate Epiphany. Heidbreder has hundreds displayed throughout her home. “It’s not the possession that’s important,” Heidbreder says. “It’s the hunt.”
Photography by Carmen Troesser
Every piece in Isabelle Heidbreder’s Central West End home has a history that she feels is worth preserving—though she recognizes that she has more stuff than many people would choose to keep. “All of them have memories of when I found them or why I bought them,” she says.
Photography by Carmen Troesser
The master bedroom is lined in a border of carefully hung vintage handbags in all sizes, styles, and materials and furnished with a beautifully carved wooden bed and matching nightstand—Heidbreder’s grandparents’ wedding set.
Overlay
The dining room walls are lined with blue-and-white French transferware plates. That collection started with a few pieces left by Heidbreder’s grandparents and was expanded by her mother, who found more plates and shipped them from France. Photography by Carmen Troesser
Heidbreder calls collecting a “family disease.” It started with her great-grandmother and made its way on down the line to her mother, sisters, and, of course, Heidbreder herself. Shelves and cabinets around the home are laden with antique dolls and miniatures. “My interest in dolls and toys started when my sister told my mom she wanted one antique doll,” Heidbreder says. “My mom found that doll for her, and I remember riding in the car with that doll on my knees. It was a total passion that had to do with childhood and life in miniature.”Photography by Carmen Troesser
One of Heidbreder’s favorite heirlooms is a black 1850s secretary, inlaid with ivory, that belonged to her mother. On the wall surrounding the desk hang small framed silhouettes—of her daughters, herself, and even total strangers, picked up at flea markets. “I adopt people,” she says.Photography by Carmen Troesser
Another massive collection: porcelain favors, or fèves—tiny charms that, in a French tradition, are baked into small cakes to celebrate Epiphany. Heidbreder has hundreds displayed throughout her home. “It’s not the possession that’s important,” Heidbreder says. “It’s the hunt.” Photography by Carmen Troesser
Every piece in Isabelle Heidbreder’s Central West End home has a history that she feels is worth preserving—though she recognizes that she has more stuff than many people would choose to keep. “All of them have memories of when I found them or why I bought them,” she says.Photography by Carmen Troesser
The master bedroom is lined in a border of carefully hung vintage handbags in all sizes, styles, and materials and furnished with a beautifully carved wooden bed and matching nightstand—Heidbreder’s grandparents’ wedding set. Photography by Carmen Troesser
Just about everything in Isabelle Heidbreder’s condo has a story. In her collections of vintage handbags, hand mirrors, dolls, miniature toys, antique furniture, and art, Heidbreder has built a virtual museum of her own family history and French culture.
Born and raised in Toulon, on the French Riviera, Heidbreder moved to the United States in 1981 and has lived in the St. Louis area for 20 years, the last 10 of them as executive director of the Alliance Française de St. Louis. (She was given a knighthood by the French government in 2017 for her work spreading French culture in a foreign country.)
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After a divorce, Heidbreder was ready to move to the city and find a walkable neighborhood that reminded her of her European roots. In a light-filled historic building near Forest Park, she started unpacking her collections.
