Photographs by Jeff Johnson
Study
In the study, an art deco dresser by designer Norman Bel Geddes pairs with a print of Nefertiti.
Almost everything in William Rees’s home has a story—and if it doesn’t, the filmmaker turned budding designer comes up with one. Take, for instance, a print hanging in the guest room. “It’s a testament to how goofy I can be, because it’s just this brown circle on a rustic piece of paper,” Rees says. “But I made up a pretend Japanese artist, along with the year ’64.”
He attributes the imaginative design quirk, in part, to his background in filmmaking. “It’s like how you’re trying to create this world, this space, these people, these relationships—things that didn’t actually happen,” he says. “Just like how there never really was a Japanese artist with this name. But I thought it somehow made the piece feel more authentic.”
Throughout Rees’s 1925 home in Minneapolis’s Lowry Hill neighborhood, pieces like the playful-backstory art combine with collections amassed over time and with stories closer to the actual truth, from vintage Ukrainian landscape paintings he found on Etsy to a Tibetan singing bowl similar to one he first spotted at a yoga retreat. And it’s there—in putting it all together—where Rees’s distinctive design style really shines. “I like mixing everything—mixing eras, mixing materials, making sure there’s something reflective, something earthy and textural, not too much black, not too much white, not too many tall things, not too many short things,” he says.
1 of 7
Foyer
Homeowner William Rees sets the tone starting in the foyer, where a harmonious mix of shiny and subdued furniture pieces combine with short and tall accessories.
2 of 7
Living Room
The living room’s angled fireplace wall (repeated in the master bedroom upstairs) and window seat (one of four in the house) create a cozy character. “I almost never sit on them, but they’re great for extra seating, and Derby [his pet corgi mix] likes them,” Rees says. The leather sofa is from Restoration Hardware, the chaise is from West Elm, and the coffee table—topped with a quartzite remnant—is from Room & Board. The modern bust was a splurge from a Tastemaker Tag Sale at One Kings Lane.
3 of 7
Storied Shelves
The compact library space—Rees calls it the menagerie—boasts floor-to-ceiling built-ins teeming with treasures (opposite). “It’s been one of the more challenging and puzzling things to decorate in this house,” Rees says. “It’s like aesthetic Tetris or something, where when you find a new piece, it creates a domino effect, and it changes everything.” The bust on the top shelf, which belonged to an uncle, is among the items that will always have a place.
4 of 7
Cozy Classic
Rees dressed up a corner of the dining room (above) with a small seating arrangement centered on a chair from Restoration Hardware, a $10 glass and brass thrift store table, and a wall hung with art. The vintage Ukrainian landscape painting, found on Etsy, is one of several hanging in the house. As with other groupings, the mix pairs pieces with reflective and muted finishes. “It may not be how you would typically style a dining room, but because there’s a little formality to the house, I didn’t want it to be stiff,” Rees says. “This is classy and elegant but also casual and comfortable.”
5 of 7
Office Perks
The office includes a World War II–era plane chart and a pillow made from a vintage U.S. Navy blanket purchased at Minneapolis’s Hunt & Gather.
6 of 7
Office Perks
For his office, Rees updated a metal-and-wood desk with a glossy white quartzite top and new knobs. A framed still from one of his favorite TV shows, Twin Peaks, and a statue of the Roman god Mercury, from Isles Studio in Minneapolis, further personalize the space.
7 of 7
Guest Suite
A landscape from the same Ukrainian Etsy shop as the one in the dining room hangs above the bed in the guest suite. Rees customized an IKEA cork tabletop with a steel base in the room’s niche overlooking the front yard.
His principles apply as much to groupings of furniture as they do to walls of art and shelves of favorite objects. He’s a self-appointed treasurer of sorts, “of everything happy and anything handsome,” reads his Instagram profile, @atreasuryof. His artful assemblages begin at the front door, where a mirrored console table pairs with a weathered-looking wood stool. Both came from Target, but Rees tempered the table’s glam by adding glossy gray wood knobs.
That balance is evident in the home’s interior architecture, too, thanks to a top-to-bottom renovation by previous owners Stacy and Michael Sullivan of The New Old House Co. Although most of the home’s wood trim had been painted white before the Sullivans arrived, the couple took the bright look a step further by painting nearly all adjoining walls in three shades of pale gray by Benjamin Moore—London Fog (main-level spaces), Revere Pewter (the master suite), and Classic Gray (the office and guest suite). New windows from Minnesota manufacturers A-Craft and Marvin fill rooms with light.
Still, a balance remains. New, darkly stained oak floors (all with in-floor radiant heating, which allowed the Sullivans to do away with the radiators) keep rooms cozy, as does a span of original woodwork on the foyer’s staircase wall. “It has a nice warmth to it that offsets the painted walls,” Stacy says. “And somebody painstakingly stripped it at some point, because we could tell it was painted—and we felt good leaving a little of somebody’s hard work there.”
Rees considers it and every inch of the home his canvas, all the way up to the third-story guest suite. “A lot of times, the guest room is the last space people think about,” he says. “But this is a nice little suite.” Indeed it is—print attributed tongue-in-cheek to a fictitious Japanese artist in 1964 and all.
1 of 5
Guest Bath
A teal-green metal cabinet from Urban Outfitters adds color and character to the simple guest bath. The pedestal sink and plumbing fixtures look vintage but are new.
2 of 5
Master Suite Sun Room
White zigzag chairs from online source Chairish pull up to a simple Parsons table in the master suite’s sunroom. “I’ve always liked Thomas O’Brien as a designer and how he’d have an upstate New York kind of place that was old and furnished with both classic and modern, edgy pieces,” Rees says. “In one of his houses, he had this little zigzag chair, and these reminded me of that.”
3 of 5
Console in Guest Room
The framed print that Rees gave a story all its own hangs above a console in the guest room.
4 of 5
Master Bedroom
Dark accents, including framed photos and an African tribal chair, add visual weight to the feathery gray walls in the master bedroom.
5 of 5
Masterful Mix
The bed in the master suite (above) came from Rejuvenation, the rounded-corner nightstands came from a Tastemaker Tag Sale of Kelly Wearstler items at One Kings Lane, and the conical concrete-base lamps came from Gabberts—all amassed over the course of seven or so years. “I’ve never had the money to be like, ‘I’m going to do this room—this is my vision, it’s going to cost $18,000, and now it’s done,’” he says. “It’s more like gradually chipping away.”
Interior Design: William Rees, 612-721-3190
Build and Design: Stacy and Michael Sullivan, The New Old House Co., 612-282-8428; thenewoldhouseco.com; and Stacy Sullivan Home, 612-282-0810; stacysullivanhome.com
