Rachel and Jay Closson fell in love with the Webster Groves area many years ago and dreamed of raising their family there. But with five kids, finding an affordable house with enough space for everyone was a huge challenge. Instead, the couple opted to design and build a house that fit their needs in New Melle in St. Charles County. Still, they never gave up on their Webster dream.
A beautiful new chef’s kitchen includes marble countertops and backsplash and a huge center island. The kitchen opens into a banquette breakfast area and a huge, light-filled family room.
Eventually, they found and purchased a smaller fixer-upper in Webster with enough bedrooms. It wasn’t exactly what they wanted, but it got them in the neighborhood. They renovated it — with Rachel injecting her design sense and Jay doing the work — all while continuing to search for their perfect home.
“We were looking for a big old house to gut,” Rachel says.
The Clossons finally found it in 2019. They had been working with a local Realtor and someone in the real-estate office tipped them off to a 1902-built home in a Webster Groves historic district that was going on the market. It was exactly what they’d been looking for at the right price. The Clossons purchased the house before it ever went on the market.
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The house hadn’t been updated since the 1980s and needed a top-to-bottom renovation, but it checked all of their boxes, and the Clossons were ready to put their previous rehabbing and design experience to the test.
“It was a massive project, but we knew it would work,” says Rachel.
After spending several months getting the proper permits in place, the Clossons and their kids moved into the house and all camped out in the living and dining rooms, divided off with sheets, while they began the demolition. “My kids will never forget it,” Rachel says with a laugh.
In the living room, the Clossons added arches to the built-in cabinets and painted the fireplace brick white. White oak engineered hardwood floors and new windows further brightened the space.
Rachel provided the overall design vision while Jay worked side by side with carpenter Alex Thonen of Ethos Builders to do all of the work during the height of the pandemic. With few of the home’s original details in salvageable condition, they started from scratch to create exactly what they wanted.
“We just dug in and started ripping things apart,” Jay says. “I’m good at visualizing what will be.”
The Clossons wanted a home that felt light, open and functional for their large, modern family while respecting the historic nature of the house and neighborhood. The house they had built in New Melle was very modern. Rachel knew she had to strike the perfect balance.
“I wanted to incorporate some more traditional elements, but I still love modern, so I tried to do a little bit of both,” she says.
The Clossons opened up and extended the once fully enclosed front porch, adding a ceiling fan and a huge couch swing where they love to sit and enjoy coffee or a cocktail while overseeing the neighborhood.
The house was very dark when they purchased it — filled with scratched-up dark wood and layers of old wallpaper. The front porch had been fully enclosed. Opening up the porch and replacing all of the home’s old windows brought in more light. Getting rid of the dark wood and adding white oak engineered hardwood floors brightened things up even more.
While the basic layout of the living and dining rooms remained the same, white paint and fresh finishes added to the rustic modern look. Both rooms had original arched doorways. Rachel played upon the theme by adding arches to the living room’s built-in cabinetry, as well as repeating arches in various places throughout the house.
A brick fireplace wall separating the dining room from the kitchen had been hidden behind layers of plaster and drywall. Jay chiseled it away to reveal the brick, adding a charming nod to home’s history. On the kitchen side, he created an arched cutout to show the brick and added brass and wood display shelves.
On the opposite side of the dining room fireplace wall, Jay created an arched cutout of the original exposed brick and added wood and brass display shelves.
The chef’s kitchen was fully renovated and expanded to include a huge center island and adjacent eat-in banquette that opens into a spacious and sunny family room. Rachel selected crisp white cabinetry complemented with elegant white and gray marble for the countertops and backsplash.
At the back of the house, they added a much-needed mudroom with custom cabinetry lockers for all of the kids’ belongings. The mudroom leads to a new covered deck overlooking the expansive back yard, where the Clossons keep chicken coops and bee hives.
On the second floor, they remodeled the primary suite into a serene retreat, taking a bit of space from the bedroom to accommodate a huge bathroom with a separate soaking tub and shower. In the girls’ bathroom, Rachel repurposed an antique buffet, painting it dove gray and topping it with marble to create a beautiful, one-of-a-kind double vanity.
Wallpaper and tile decorate one of the bathrooms for the children of Rachel and Jay Closson in their 120-year-old Webster Groves home, photographed on Thursday, April 28, 2023. Photo by Robert Cohen, [email protected]
Dormer windows were added to the former attic space on the third floor to create cozy bedrooms for the two boys in the family with a Jack-and-Jill bathroom between them.
The Clossons love to kick back and relax on the couch swing on their spacious front porch, sipping a cocktail and enjoying the fruits of their labor.
“We had the opportunity to buy this house and we saw a lot of potential with what was here,” says Jay. “We love what we ended up with.”
Rachel and Jay Closson are photographed on the porch swing of their 120-year-old home in Webster Groves on Thursday, April 28, 2023. Photo by Robert Cohen, [email protected]
Ages • She’s 42; he’s 44.
Occupations • Rachel is a real estate agent/photographer for Land|Litwack & Associates, and Jay is a corporate pilot.
Family • The Clossons have five children: Grace, 18; Gavin, 16; twins Sylvia and Asher, 12; and Ruby, 11 as well as two dogs, one cat, 10 chickens and bees.(tncms-asset)ce8f7848-e84f-11ed-a82e-e37fc7161142[6](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)fd364797-b115-5e04-bf1a-59a8ba10562a[7](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)d65ac2c7-9ab9-508a-844a-99d99885f196[8](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)1b8ea044-4507-55a6-8b1e-c5aa04bfa18b[9](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)7d42ceca-4bcf-5909-9da2-78118678becc[10](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)8414f3f5-3c56-579b-b00f-4dfe37e7c158[11](/tncms-asset)
An arched doorway off the family room leads to a new mudroom lined with cabinetry lockers for each of the kids’ things. The mudroom leads to a new covered deck overlooking the backyard.