Midcentury Influence Makes This Gordon Square Townhouse Feel More Like Home

Adrienne Lee knew she needed help.

She and husband Aaron Moller hadn’t finished decorating the greige living-dining area of their contemporary Gordon Square townhouse, even after two years of residing in the 2,000-square-foot unit.

The busy healthcare professionals had the basics — a brown leather sectional, maple dining table and black-cane wishbone dining chairs. But they simply didn’t have the time to shop for additional furniture, accessories and art in the midcentury modern style to which Lee gravitated. More problematic was the fact that she just didn’t know how to achieve the desired interior-design “flow” in an open floor plan used for casual daily living and elevated entertaining. 

“I like things to match,” she adds. “And sometimes when things match too much, (the result) doesn’t look good.”

Whitney Anderson Rooney, owner of Cleveland-based WAR Art & Interiors, discovered that, like a lot of her clients, Lee was struggling “to put a full concept together and execute it.” “It wasn’t so much not understanding what her style was,” Rooney says. “It was about finding someone who understood her style, able to bring new ideas and execute them.”

Lee hired Rooney to do just that. At the top of Lee’s wish list was turning a dining-area alcove she’d furnished with a freestanding marble-topped maple cabinet into a dedicated bar area.

“I wanted it to look different and separate, but still fit in with everything,” she explains.

Rooney, inspired by a brass-accented, black-metal chandelier already hanging over the table, installed custom floating shelves with brass-inlaid edges over the cabinet; finished the walls and shelves in a charcoal-colored lime wash ordered online from California-based JH Wall Paints; and illuminated the area with a trio of Kelly Wearstler brass sconces.

“The application is quite a bit more intense (than painting),” Rooney says of the lime wash. “You have to do multiple layers to get that uneven, organic look.” 

Rooney then filled the shelves with an eclectic mix of items, everything from green-stemmed champagne flutes to a secondhand hot-pink acrylic goblet repurposed as a vase and matching candlesticks. The space was brightened by an artist’s colorful interpretations of Medellin, Colombia streets as viewed from the air; the couple had picked up the artwork as souvenirs during a trip there.

In the living area, Rooney covered the luxury vinyl plank floor with a beige wool rug in a pattern created by varying pile levels and augmented the couple’s sectional with throw pillows in fabrics ranging from faux sherpa to a brown-and-cream tie-dye stripe. A marble-topped metal cocktail table and arching brass floor lamp, shaded in a smoked glass globe, completed the setup. A walnut-veneer media console was added to provide storage under a flatscreen TV.  

Rooney’s biggest challenge was incorporating another souvenir — a fiberglass replica of an 8-foot-8-inch-long marlin that Moller caught during a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico — into the decor. She decided to position the fish over brass-trimmed walnut shelves that displayed other aquatic-themed finds: a piece of coral, a ceramic shell-shaped dish, a spiky brass trinket box resembling a sea urchin, and a sea-glass pendant hanging in an open brass sphere fashioned by Rooney’s father, Mark Anderson.

“I found ways to work with the fish instead of ignoring it,” she jokes. 

Ashley Krantz of the Cleveland-based online vintage shop Tragic Objects met with Lee to discuss her preferences in reading material, then curated vintage books about her favorite artists in green, blue and neutral covers that supported the space’s color scheme. The entire palette is represented in an abstract painting by Cleveland artist Laura Naples, hung in a corner over a faux-sherpa pelican chair that approximates the sectional in scale.

READ MORE: 6 Locally Sourced Products To Start Your Midcentury Modern Mood Board

A green marble side table adds another punch of color; its brown-marble tripod counterpart is low enough to serve as a stool. Perhaps the best indication of how well Rooney designed is the compliments Lee gets from guests when that side table pulls double duty during gatherings.    

“I might have rearranged or added a couple of things,” Lee says. “But it’s pretty much the same from how (Whitney and I) styled it.”

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