Victorian filled with mix of antique and modern
Gene Berube has been decorating homes and selling high-end antiques for about 40 years and has an obvious penchant for homes and furnishings that are unique and have interesting histories.
So it’s no surprise that he lives in an 1880 Eastlake Victorian with his partner, Matthew Neu, and that it’s filled with unusual pieces.
Their lower east side home has a full wall of windows in the front parlor, an impressive double door at the entryway, 11-foot ceilings, thick molding and glossy hardwood floors.
It was originally a single-family home but later was turned into a twofamily dwelling. When Berube bought the house about 10 years ago, he restored it to its original layout. Then he filled it with a mix of the antique, industrial and modern pieces that he loves.
On the fireplace in the front parlor there are 19th-century American candleholders called girandoles made of gilt bronze, marble, oblong pieces of crystal and statues of Roman soldiers.
The living room has a 19th-century steel ledger cabinet that once held many dividers inside for paperwork.
“In the 19th century, it would have been painted black,” he said. “It was in bad shape when I got it, so I stripped off the paint as it’s more beautiful now that the metal shows.”
There are also lots of small to very large plaster accent pieces and framed artwork that fill the home.
Berube is the owner of Virum Collection, a high-end antiques store in the Riverview Antique Market which is located in the West St. Paul Arts District, 2045 W St Paul Ave. He also does online business through a website called Chairish (chairishcom) through which he sells high-end antiques. He runs that business with interior designer Karalyn Ochalek. Neu is a senior data analyst at Manpower Group.
Berube said the 2,600-square-foot home originally was built by the Toepfer family.
“They had a factory called W. Toepfer & Sons, Iron Works that made dumping kiln floors. They were metal floors that were heated to toast hops. They supplied the floors to all the breweries.
“I found a poster advertising the business at an antique shop and had it copied and framed. One of the factory owner’s sons built this house.
“But in the 1920s two Italian brothers bought it and made it into a two-family and walls were put up in odd places. The only good things they did was to add a wood parquet floor in the foyer, and they took out a wood deck, steps and railings at the front of the house and put in a decorative concrete porch.”
Berube said that when he and Neu began restoring their home, they did most of the work themselves.
Walls and doors that divided various rooms were removed, openings between some rooms were widened, paneling in the dining room was duplicated by hand, and false ceilings on the second floor were removed.
“All the ceiling there were dropped and they were made of plywood,” said Neu. “There was random electric wiring between the ceilings. It looked like an octopus of cable. That was really a disaster,” he said
The kitchen also needed work.
“It had school bus yellow walls and ceiling with shiny white trim,” said Neu. “It also had plastic cabinets — the cheapest kind you could buy,” he added.
To return the room to how it may have looked when the home was built, Berube faux-painted the walls a greenish-gray color, installed travertine tile on the floor, added a black honed granite backsplash and countertop, and replaced all the casings around the windows and doors.
They also added new cabinets and a large island.
“They were stock cabinets and I double-stacked them and I painted and glazed them,” Berube said.
For the island bottom they used a large wood cabinet they believe came from a medical facility, then topped it with a large piece of commercial-grade stainless steel.
They also turned a small space between their home and two-car garage into a charming patio.
A small marble-topped table with chairs was set over pieces of Lannon stone that formed the base of the patio, then they hung a large mirror trimmed in tin from an old tin ceiling on the garage wall. A weathered wood plank supported by antique iron sink brackets was set in front of the mirror and now holds a bust of the Greek God Hermes.
The men recently talked about the home they share with their two rescued cats, Ava and Corelli.
Question: Where do you get your pieces?
Berube: From friends, customers, auctions, other dealers and consignment centers.
Q: Do you ever change or modify your pieces?
Berube: Yes. The cabinet in the dining room originally had a big mirror and decorative shelves. I had been watching that cabinet for two years at an antique mall. I kept going down in price and no one wanted it because it was so big. The top was ugly as sin, but I loved the bottom. I eventually got it for a good price but took off the top. It’s walnut Burrell from about the 1870s.
Q: Why should people buy antiques?
Berube: There is a richness about antiques, and the fact that they have a history. If you look into an antique mirror you can think that people have been looking into that mirror for perhaps 200 years. It connects you to the past. As lovely as a sofa from Crate & Barrel can be, it doesn’t have that depth.
Q: Can antiques from different eras be mixed?
Berube: People should mix periods, but there is an art to mixing. You have to ask yourself how does this go with the other pieces in the room? Things don’t have to match, but they have to relate to each other. They can share a similar color palate — that will also make it work.
Q: Can you describe the plaster pieces in your dining room?
Berube: I think the two large plaster pieces are from the Art Institute of Chicago. They care called plaster study casts. They are all very heavy.
One is a statue of a young man that is a copy of a piece by Michaelangelo that was on the Tomb of Lorenzo (de’ Medici).
I also have the large 19th-century Town Ley vase. The original was from a Roman villa, but was broken. It was put together and is exhibited in London in the British Museum. It was thought to have inspired John Keats when he wrote the poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
I also have a plaster frieze in the window. It was from a downtown hotel that was torn down in the ’80s, and this piece was probably above the bar because the figures are looking down.
Q: You have a lot of artwork. How long have you been collecting?
Berube: About 50 years. I mostly collect works on paper because they are more affordable. I love antique architectural drawings and academic figure drawings from life. I put them all in antique frames.
Q: Do you have a favorite piece? Berube: I think my best piece is an ink
drawing that is a copy of part of a famous mural by (Leonardo) da Vinci. The original was in the Doges Palace in Venice. The mural is called the Battle of Anghiari.
Q: What kind of stone is your home made of?
Neu: Cream city brick with a limestone foundation. There is a decorative piece of stonework on the front of the house and a larger one on the side.
Q: Are the windows in your parlor original?
Berube: The bottoms are, but the tops would have been stained glass.
Q: Did you make any changes to your fireplace?
Berube: I painted the decorative steel door gold and changed the color of the tiles on the front. The tile was bright green. I mixed up some brown glaze to change the color.
Q: What color palate did you use when you painted the home’s interior?
Berube: I used neutrals. I wanted the rooms to be light. But each room is different.
The lightest room is the front parlor. The living room in a shade darker, and then the dining room is another shade darker. The kitchen is the greenish grey.
After each room was painted I used glazes over the paint. In the dining room I used three different glazes. The second floor also is done in neutrals with glazes,
but they are darker colors.
Q: Did you strip all your doors?
Berube: We had them stripped. I like the lighter look. They were all faux-grained. I like the look of a little bit of wood mixed with the painted wood trim.
Neu: It took them six months to finish the doors. They couldn’t get the primer off under the faux painting. With all the doors off, living here was like urban camping.
Q: How did you change the bathroom under the staircase?
Neu: We chose to put a restored clawfoot tub in that
room.
Berube: We took two feet from the pantry space to put a sink in there. We used a faux antique cabinet for the counter. I wouldn’t have cut a hole in a real antique.
Neu: My favorite artwork is in there. We have colored engravings of the muses. They were originally all on one piece of plywood and we broke them apart. Q: Is there a story to your dining room table?
Berube: I sold it to a client 25 years ago. She was downsizing, so I bought it back. It can open to seat 14 people. It’s walnut burl.
Q: Are your light fixtures original?
Berube: No, there were none left. Every fixture is from the period of this house or a little later.
Do you, or does someone you know, have a cool, funky or exquisite living space that you’d like to see featured in At Home? Contact Fresh home and garden editor Nancy Stohs at (414) 224-2382 or email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.