“But FEMA regulations for flood elevations forced some major modifications,” says Steve, an architecture and history buff whose great-great-great-great- grandfather was Federalist Party founder Alexander Hamilton and whose mother’s family goes back to a brother of Daniel Boone.
That said, it’s no wonder the
Steve formerly owned convenience stores, but a basement hobby restoring antique juke boxes and toys (“Sheila insisted I needed something to do when I retired”) has led to a second career as an antiques dealer. The result: international clients and the personality-plus pieces accessorizing every room in the couple’s new home.
The unadorned lines of the ’50s, influenced by Bauhaus and Arts & Crafts, are replicated in the ornament-free light maple cabinetry with minimal stainless steel trim.
Expanses of sustainable bamboo flooring are unencumbered, except for vibrant limited edition area rugs designed by artist Wassily Kandinsky for the
A mahogany Arts & Crafts dining room table (circa 1887) contrasts steel-framed chairs standing in for a set of bentwood Thonet classics undergoing restoration by Steve.
Though they brought most of their treasures from
A floating stainless steel mobile light fixture by Tech Lighting suspends from the ceiling with the pair’s choice of optional ornaments: a bug, a zeppelin and a dragonfly.
The home’s bright, toy-like painted walls are not so much a reflection of Steve’s antiques as they are a nod to the Memphis Group and its shockingly colored furniture.
Surrounding the steel staircase designed by Steve are rare antique juke boxes, toys and even Prohibition-era gambling devices camouflaged as candy and gum dispensers.