Nate Lucena fills his South City home and closet with what he loves

Nate Lucena says he’s often asked about his style. “I really don’t have a good word for it,” he says. “The best word I can come up with is bohemian—but I hate that word.” In his South City home, his taste, largely informed by his mother’s, is illustrated by a mélange of pieces he’s collected over the years. “It’s definitely not minimal,” he says.

Lucena, born in Hawaii and raised in Southern Arkansas, moved to St. Louis for graduate school and decided to stay. He now balances his position as the head of Centene’s analytics and data science department with tending to his plants (mostly cacti; they’re easier to keep alive) and his backyard garden’s herbs (a weekend project as he social distances), and playing with his husky-shepherd-pit mix, Koa.

“I like to keep things around, especially when we’re talking about little objects of art, that are less based on the look and more what that item means to me,” Lucena says, “whether it reminds me of a time or has an aesthetic that really appeals to me.”

He’s a fan of mixing colors and patterns, both in his wardrobe and his spaces. When he buys something, it’s because he’s leaned into the feeling it gives him; he often doesn’t know where it’ll end up in his home. 

“To look at the stuff around me and ask ‘Why do I love this?’ I guess I’ve landed on the idea that I want my home to be a place of safety and comfort and beauty,” he says. “Most of the items that make it long-term in my décor are beautiful to me because of the story or the person behind them, and collectively I think the energy they give to my spaces makes me feel safe, calm, and comfortable—like I have a sanctuary where I’m surrounded by visual evidence of great experiences and memories and history.”

1. Pants: “They’re ladies’ pants from Old Navy from about seven years ago. I think I paid maybe $6 or $10 for them. I wear them sparingly, but every time I do, it tends to be a big hit.”

2. Shirt: “I don’t even know where that’s from. It’s just soft, loose, and baggy. It’s for sure a part of my uniform in the summertime.”

3. Rug: “It’s one of my prized possessions. It’s pretty big, about 6 by 9. I connected with this woman on Craigslist—I’m a big Craigslist shopper, depending on the item—who curates antiques. That rug is Persian; I think she said from the 1830s. It has really cool botanical elements and periwinkle blue horseheads woven into the corners. When I picked it up, she told me the horsehead motifs are how you can date it.”

4. Framed beetle: “My mom and I vacationed a few years ago in New Orleans together. For some reason she was fixated on buying me a souvenir from our trip; she wanted to be the one to buy it. We went into an antique/resale shop in the French Quarter. I guess there’s a local person who gets these bugs. It’s a species of beetle that’s really beautiful and is native to somewhere in Africa.”

5. Plate: “My grandfather was a pipeline welder and was also in the military. He spent some time in India and Burma. He brought back that tray at some point, probably in the 1940s or 1950s. My grandparents always had it in their house when I was growing up. My grandma gave it to me when I first moved out.”

6. Artwork: “I got it at a silent auction for an organization my friends volunteer with that helps people who were incarcerated after they get out. It’s a print of a collage from local artist Carol Corey. It’s a brain and nervous system on a solid background.”

7. Tables: “I got them several years apart—the back one’s from Target—but they fit together really nicely. My house is actually pretty small, so I find that they work for me much more than a coffee table would.”

8. Scents: “I have a lot of candles around. If I can find it, I really like a scent that is kind of almost like smoky. I don’t like floral, and I don’t really like anything that might smell like potpourri. But anything that kind of smells like charred wood or something like that, I’m pretty into that.”