12 Apple Tree Lane

listing price | $3,350,000
listing agent | lisa coulter and linda benoist of janet mcafee

This past summer, Katherine Weber bought 12 Apple Tree Lane in Ladue less than an hour after seeing it. Only she didn’t buy it to live in. Rather, she saw the potential to transform it into a clean, chic, West Coast-inspired home.

A native St. Louisan, Weber lives in California, but frequently returns to St. Louis to visit family and to conduct business as a shareholder in two family companies: Royal Banks of Missouri and National Real Estate Management. Renovating homes has become her hobby, and she now has overseen six renovations, including a 10,000-square-foot, 1896 Archibald MacLeish home in Chicago, where she raised her family.

In three short months, Weber turned her vision for the home on Apple Tree Lane into a reality. To achieve a “cool, updated energy,” Weber stripped the 8,971-square-foot home down to its essentials, and enlisted the help of Chuck Schagrin, the original builder. “It had an exorbitant amount of details, too much molding, and the floors were this ’80s yellow,” Weber says. She replaced red kitchen countertops with slabs of white Denby marble, got rid of the moldings, stained the floors a deep ebony and upgraded the carpet to high-quality wool. “I wanted to undress it, and now the house is clean and cool,” Weber says.

The home includes a conservatory, paneled library, a sunroom perfect for grilling, and a master bedroom suite with a fireplace and a walk-in closet that Weber outfitted with a funky leopard-print carpet. But of all the home’s features, the kitchen’s glass atrium is what clinched the deal for Weber. “When I saw the home had a glass atrium, I had to have it,” she says.

The 1.8-acre property in a prime real estate area was another selling point. “It has a really beautiful yard in the back, with very formal boxwood hedges, and a garden with peonies and lots of roses,” she says. The grounds also feature a pool, with fountains and a rolling water feature. “It’s relaxing and soothing, and makes you feel like you’re in a river or at the beach,” Weber adds.

The home’s location, size and move-in ready condition now make it ideal, says Weber. “This home is for someone who wants to be in the heart of Ladue, and who isn’t afraid to break out of a traditional, preppy look,” she says. “Someone is going to have a touch of California in St. Louis.”

Photos by Steven B. Smith Photography