Alise O'Brien
Over the years, the landmark Unsell-Cabell House, in Kirkwood’s historic district, had fallen into disrepair, its deep yard a tangled web of overgrown trees and shrubs and portions of its wood siding, vulnerable to insects and weather, in a state of decay. Yet its telltale Victorian charms—triple-sash Jefferson windows, fancy brackets and scrollwork, louvered shutters throughout—caught the attention of Emily Hoffman, an architecture buff, in early 2015. Nearly every week on her run past the house, she imagined all the possibilities if only someone would make the home a passion project. That someone turned out to be Emily and her husband, Matt Hoffman.
“Emily wanted a historic house in Kirkwood, and she was in love with this one,” says Matt, a developer of rental properties. “We knew we had to move fast rather than let it go to market.”
After showing up at the county courthouse for an auction that was abruptly canceled and, a week later, watching as a Coming Soon sign went up in the yard, the Hoffmans bid on the property sight unseen. “We just kind of went for it without looking,” Emily recalls. The couple hired Ben Ellermann, of Blaes Architects in Webster Groves, to guide the renovation and design a 2,500-square-foot addition to replace an existing structure dating back to the 1960s.
Alise O'Brien
Besotted with the home’s architecture, the couple was committed to maintaining its historic integrity throughout the addition, which would hold a kitchen, family room, and two outdoor spaces for the family of six. Emily chose a channel-bevel siding to match the original shiplap, which mirrors ashlar stone, and the team replicated the distinctive corbels and door mouldings by fabricating molds based on the originals. Sourcing longleaf pine for the floorboards lent a seamless transition from the addition to the aged planks in the front rooms.
After the year-and-a-half renovation was complete, Emily waited 12 months before tackling the interiors. “I just couldn’t make one more decision,” she says. Eventually, she tired of being surrounded by white walls and beige trim and contacted designer Robert Idol, a family friend. “My thought at the very beginning was that they wanted a very white, airy, fresh take on Victorian,” says Idol, recalling the “vanilla box” that he walked into when visiting for the first time. He soon learned that Emily had a different plan in mind. “I was desperate for color,” she says.
For both client and designer, the dining room design provided an opportunity to iron out any lingering wrinkles in their vision, caused by a selection of furnishings that Emily shared with Idol, but left him somewhat puzzled. “While the pieces were cool, they were [made of] a faux wood and they all matched,” he says. Idol proposed that they either redirect or consider a similar look that would incorporate real antiques. The two took some time to think over the proposed plan. And a few days later, Emily called Idol with the news that she had canceled the furniture order and was turning the reins over to him.
Alise O'Brien
“I got what he was saying. The furniture wasn’t going to look collected,” she says. “I always thought you buy a whole room of furniture and everything has to match. Now I understand that it doesn’t have to.”
With the right touches and furnishings—like the room’s scenic Vervain wallpaper, American Empire sideboard, and Victorian “crank table”—Idol and Emily achieved that desired collected mood. The chairs, finished in an ebony paint color, evoke the feeling of having been lived in. And Emily’s collection of classic blue-and-white ginger and temple jars became the inspiration for the elegant window treatments and patterned wool rug. “I try to make all of my interiors feel layered so that it looks like maybe someone did collect the furniture over time,” says Idol.
Across from the dining room is the music room by way of the narrow entry hall, where the original staircase and the family’s cherished collection of religious and landscape art live. “The idea was that the piano was going to be the hero of the room,” says Idol. But once the furniture started to come in, the family’s dusty, beat up piano quickly gave way to a mahogany baby grand from St. Louis Vintage Piano Co. “The old piano didn’t look so nice anymore,” says Emily, laughing. To provide a visual break from the drama in the other public spaces, Idol painted the walls a subtle gray hue and papered the ceiling in a trellis pattern from Style Library. For an unexpected twist, he turned Schumacher’s Fern Tree fabric horizontal for the back of the chairs, which speaks to the notion of rooms coming together in a unique, unplanned fashion.
Alise O'Brien
The Hoffmans are fascinated by the stories of the people who once lived in their home. Built in 1873, the house is named for the Unsell and Cabell families. Elijah J. Unsell was a riverboat captain and manager of Davidson Boat Stores, a ship chandler. The Unsells had three children, and their daughter was married in the house in 1888. The Cabells lived there from 1898 to 1932. Their daughter Margaret Cabell, the 1907 Veiled Prophet Queen, was married there, too, by the bay window in the library, in 1910. Perhaps sensing the home’s special appeal to families, Emily had her own four children, ages 2–10, in mind when she bought the house. She talks about the kids hiding behind the curtains during games of hide-and-go-seek and turning the vintage canes, stored in an umbrella stand in the entryway, into old-fashioned swords during play time. The family spends evenings in the library, itself a cozy hideaway with its checked window seat, plaid wool–clad walls, built-in bookcases, and plush loveseat dressed in soft velvet. “There was a time,” recalls Emily, “when I used to sit in there alone for about an hour a day. My youngest was still napping, and my husband wasn’t working from home. I don’t know when that will happen again.”
Fortunately for the Hoffmans, the interiors were completed by February, just before the coronavirus reached St. Louis after having closed European fabric mills and forcing stay-at-home orders in the area. “It was good timing because they were really able to enjoy the house,” says Idol, who is now designing the family’s country home. “We were building forts in every room,” adds Emily. It’s just what one would expect from the stewards of this family-loved home.
