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CINCINNATI MAGAZINE
House of Spirits
(Excerpts only; the article can be read in its entirety at cincinnatimagazine.com)
TAKE THREE STEPS INTO THEIR HOME and you can learn
so much about Debra Moreland and Neil Reck. Open the heavy, Elizabethan-inspired
front door and you’ll notice that the handsome original hardware
works as smoothly as when it was installed in 1920. Pause to check
your reflection in the foyer’s grand mirror and get a good
look at the chic yellow-and-red toile wallpaper. Then step into
the main hall and spot a small glass display case filled with tiny
figures. Bend down and you’ll discover that these are the eccentric
little creatures from… The Nightmare Before Christmas. Debra
laughs. “This is where our daughter stops and says to her friends,
‘My parents are so weird’.”
Actually, it’s there because Neil and Debra
loved the movie. And that is the organizing principle in this house:
find things you love. When the two bought the house a year ago,
they were looking for a place with architectural drama and room
to spread out. The house they found—a Tudor built on a private
lane in North Avondale—offered that and more. But it was different
from the 100-year old house in Pleasant Ridge where they’d
lived for 14 years, a one-time farmhouse with picket fence charm
and modest-sized rooms. The move forced them to make new choices
about style and sensibility.
***
Debra designs and makes couture bridal tiaras
and accessories that are sold at bridal shops across the nation.
Twelve years ago, when she was just getting started, she named her
store on Benson Street in Reading “Paris” because she
loved the idea of a Parisian millinery shop. Today she still loves
the French penchant for curlicue ironwork, rich fabrics and gilt-edge
ornament. Neil, on the other hand, is a cabinetmaker who has always
been drawn to the spare American furniture of the late 18th and
early 19th centuries. That has made furnishing their new home a
challenge. “We try to land somewhere in the middle,” Debra
says. “And we set a rule: Whenever we get something, we both
have to love it.”
***
Their house lies on the edge of a valley; heavy
woods concealing it from four other homes (different, but all Tudor
Revival) built by architect John Deaker 80 years ago. When it was
built, it was part of an estate that included a great deal of acreage,
and it is still so secluded that it’s a reminder of how pastoral
North Avondale must have seemed in the first quarter of the 20th
century. “We’ve found stuff” is how Neil describes
the process of furnishing their home. A seasoned forager (“He’d
go antiquing every day if he could,” Debra says) he’s
not daunted if a piece of furniture needs fixing. The size of the
dining room called for something a bit grand, so he found a handsome
Empire-style pedestal table and made replacement leaves to extend
it. The dining room has a pedigree that hints at the Hollywood movies
of long ago.
***
Neil and Debra have added their own Technicolor
touches. A small side window with glass shelves holds a sparkling
display of yellow and red art glass that dates from the 1920s to
the 1970s. The shelves also have a cast of “extras”- a
collection of vintage bride and groom cake toppers. The cinematic
piece de resistance is undoubtedly the drapery. Think back to the
movie Can-Can, if you please. You’ll recall a lively fin de
siecle Paris, a skinny Frank Sinatra, a stuffy Louis Jordan, a suave
Maurice Chevalier. And in one scene you have Shirley Mclaine swishing
across the screen in the most marvelous of dresses-bustled, runched
and ruffled, a glorious confection of yellow taffeta trimmed in
black.” I designed these after that scene in Can-Can,”
says Debra, surveying the room’s lemon-yellow silk taffeta
drapes accented with black braid. “I loved that dress.”
***
THE REFINED LIFESTYLE of the 1920s is drawn as
clearly as the blueprint of this house. The original owners might
have used the anteroom opposite the foyer as a spot where callers
could wait for their host or hostess. The spacious living room would
have been for entertaining, and gentlemen could stroll on the terrace
while they smoked their postprandial cigars. The husband and wife
may have spent much of their private time on the second floor, in
their individual bedroom/sitting room suites. Today, except for
a modern kitchen, the structure of this house is fundamentally the
same as when it was built. It still has a butler’s pantry,
a built-in cigar humidor, and hidden liquor cabinet, servant quarters-features
that speak volumes about how some folks lived in the Roaring Twenties.
***
Debra’s love of painting and sculpture was
transformed into a career designing tiaras as artful as Faberge
eggs. Neil works with the company’s advertising and serves
as the money manager for Paris, which has grown in 12 years from
a kitchen-table enterprise to a business that employs 18 artisans
and operates out of a 10,000-square-foot facility in Northside.
Building their business has kept them busy.
Cincinnati Magazine
November 2002
Text by Linda Caccariello
Photography by Ryan Kurtz
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