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Photo by Alise O'Brien
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Photo by Alise O'Brien
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Photo by Alise O'Brien
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Photo by Alise O'Brien
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Photo by Alise O'Brien
Susan Emerson doesn’t like to waste much of anything: her time, her talent, or her money. There was a phase in her life, she says, when she made everything that she owned, from her swimsuits to her winter coats. Even now, she feels the same way about paying full price for the pair of Céline flats she favors as she does a sofa or a chair.
To visit Emerson’s 1930s cottage, Twin Oaks—named after the pair of oak trees that once shaded the front yard—is to bear witness to her creativity. She styled the interiors of the brick house with furnishings and decorative objects purchased mostly from estate sales, outlets, and resale shops.
“I like to repurpose things,” says Emerson, 65, who volunteers at Miriam Switching Post, pricing inventory. “I’m a big believer in recycling. I would rather buy something used and breathe new life into it.”
Emerson’s inventiveness, and her ability to give gently used items new life, is apparent throughout the house. “You won’t walk in here and think, ‘Oh, Susan’s been to Restoration Hardware!’” she says. She loves antique bottles, which she repurposes to hold mouthwash, and anything related to the garden and the outdoors, such as her collection of walking sticks and cabbage leaf–pattern dishes. She has a knack for spotting rare furniture, including the original Vicente Wolf sleigh bed that she saw at the Henredon outlet but hesitated to buy. “One year later, it was advertised in the classified section of the newspaper, and I knew it was the same bed. I bought it from the owner, who had never used it.” The bench in the home’s entry, upholstered in a turquoise-and-white–checked silk, was another great find. “It was a COM [customer’s own material], but for whatever reason it was never picked up, so it went to the outlet,” she says. More recently, Emerson was at a resale shop when she found an accent chair whose lines and deep seat she liked. She had it slipcovered in a white Ralph Lauren fabric from Anatol’s and placed it under the skylights in her sunroom.
“I prefer to spend less money rather than more money,” she says, “and I think the reason why people get so stuck, whether it’s decorating their home or buying for their own closet, is that they’re afraid of making a mistake. Mistakes are expensive, and you have to look at them and live with them.”
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Photo by Larry Emerson
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Photo by Larry Emerson
Almost 20 years ago, Emerson and her husband, Larry, an advertising executive who now works as a professional photographer, decided to downsize from a large Ladue house and purchase the 2,500-square-foot cottage, located just a few miles away. The house was missing a garage, which Emerson began to work on soon after moving in, and she spent hours thinking about the garden and researching the work of its original designer, Harriet Rhodes Bakewell, who was a previous owner and spent her final years in the house. (Bakewell was the daughter of George T. Moore, the second director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and grew up on the grounds of the Garden. She was also the first woman to earn a landscape architecture degree from Washington University.)
“Bakewell was very purposeful in everything she did,” says Emerson. “She was ahead of her time in the way that she laid out the garden. This was the early ’80s. There are waterfalls and reflecting pools, which are common now, but they weren’t back then.”
Over the years, Emerson has remained true to Bakewell’s vision. “There’s a micro-climate out there,” says Emerson, adding that she and Bakewell encountered some of the same challenges. “What I’ve learned as a gardener is, if it doesn’t work, don’t force it.” She finally hit on a plan with gravel, flagstone, and ajuga that seems to thrive in wet and sunny conditions. There’s a Japanese maple tree, five difference kinds of Magnolia trees, Wisteria, and plenty of herbs—chives, thyme, fennel, and rosemary—to add as much flavor as possible into the couple’s favorite quinoa dish. The garden has been designated a Garden of Merit by the Smithsonian Institution and is in its permanent archives.
As is the case with many homes with gardens as a centerpiece, the property’s greenhouse/potting shed offers another window into Emerson’s world: There’s the collection of birdhouses built by her father; hawk feathers rescued from the yard and mounted on the wall as art; birch branches dried in the sun…
At this cottage, the collection of perfectly imperfect finds goes on and on.
