When Daumier Mageswki thinks back on the renovation of his LaSalle Park townhouse, he says he would never do it again.
Not that he regrets it. He simply can’t fathom how he and his husband, Dallas Cupp, endured it: being ghosted by contractors, sleeping on an air mattress in the dining room, cooking on a hot plate in the bathroom, and worst of all, toiling for more than a year to restore the staircase.
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That staircase and its original walnut banister, both of which required refinishing, spiral all the way up to the third floor. Once the previous owner’s carpet had been removed, the couple plucked out every staple and sanded all 42 steps—on their own, which resulted in a perma-haze of dust that clung to the walls. All of this preceded the hydrating, staining, and varnishing of the wood. One sweltering summer day on the stairs, says Mageswki, a technology consultant at Accenture, he nearly wept.
“I was wearing a mask, so I looked like an alien,” he says. “I was like, ‘What did we do? Why is this happening? I don’t want to be here.’”
Mageswki, a native of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, moved to St. Louis in 2008 on a student visa and began dating Cupp, who works as an in-house attorney at packaged-food giant Post Holdings. In 2013, after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the recognition of same-sex marriages, Mageswki and Cupp wed in Des Moines. They returned to St. Louis and began searching for an old house to buy—something they could shape from the outset.
They found it just south of downtown, on a leafy street in LaSalle Park—that triangular slice of what used to be the city’s Frenchtown, before German immigrants moved in. The home they toured was a narrow, shabby Second Empire townhouse with a mansard roof and stone front. According to neighborhood lore, the house dates to the 1860s and was once home to a German-born surveyor and officer in the Union Army.
“I walked in and I didn’t see what it was,” said Mageswki, “I saw what it would look like. I just had a vision.” He feared that Cupp, practical by nature, would balk.
“I had no interest in taking on a project,” Cupp admits. But he appreciated the high ceilings and tall windows, the fireplace, the pocket doors, and that spiraling banister. By year’s end, the couple had closed on the house, and in February 2014 they moved in.
The first contractor they hired did half the job, then vanished. Others came to give estimates but then lost interest.
“Contractors want to feel like they’re helping you figure out a problem,” says Mageswki, “but I always had a strong idea of what I wanted.” Using software he mastered while studying chemical engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Mageswki designed the kitchen—with its industrial stove, range hood, cabinetry, and sliding ladder—“down to the millimeter.” For the flooring, he ordered custom-made encaustic tiles direct from Thailand. (He picked them up at a warehouse and carted them home in his overloaded Mazda3.)
Mageswki cut out the middleman on the staircase by designing and ordering the carpet direct from a Chinese firm. Such overseas manufacturers normally supply other businesses, not individual homeowners, Mageswki observed. So while wholesalers do charge lower prices, the consumer must show a certain level of expertise—and the willingness to put in some legwork.
The décor that the couple has assembled is multifarious. There’s a sofa by Jonathan Adler here, a lamp by Philippe Starck there, plus vintage items purchased online and antique finds, including a chandelier discovered in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Some items, such as a coat rack made with antique hooks or the buffet table painted robin’s-egg blue, Mageswki created himself.
“I’m never satisfied with just writing a check,” he says. “I’ve got to put my touch somewhere.”
Five years of nonstop projects caused some fights, disagreement, and strain, the couple concedes. But every third week, when Mageswki returns from two weeks of working on the road, he finds Cupp, their two dogs, and this old house they’ve made new again. And he loves it.
“We’ve talked about selling the house and living in an ultra-modern minimalist place,” says Mageswki, “but I’m probably going to die here—and I’m happy with that.”
