The Bucks Stop Here
After a two-year renovation, the house is chic, swanky and perfect for a nationally recognized couple of ESPN sportscasters, their twin sons and Delilah, their dog.
By Christy Marshall with additional reporting by Seth Schwartz Photography by Alise O’Brien
Joe Buck and Michelle Beisner-Buck’s previous house was plenty big, unquestionably lovely, and set on several rolling green acres.
But it had a flaw.
All of the bedrooms branched off a single hallway. As parents of then four-year-old twin boys, “that didn't lead to a lot of, let's say, alone time,” Joe Buck says. “So we were looking to kind of change that up.”
Alerted by his sister, Julie Buck, a real estate broker, that a house in the same Ladue neighborhood was going on the market, Joe and Michelle immediately checked it out.
“It took one second to drive through the driveway and we're like, ‘Oh, my God, we could get this house on this incredible lot,’” Buck says. “It made all the sense in the world.” Aside from having the primary bedroom on the first floor and all other bedrooms tucked upstairs, the back yard abutted a golf course — and Joe Buck is an avid golfer. Michelle signed on but says, “It truly was a project. We had to do a lot of work on this house.”
Two key changes the Bucks wanted were an open floor plan and they wanted to see the greens of the course. Instinctively and immediately, they turned to their friend, neighbor, Joe’s fellow MICDS alum, and accomplished builder/designer Bobby Slavin. He headed over to the two-decade old brick European-style manor house to check it out.
In the foyer, Bobby Slavin of Slavin Homes build + design created a focal point by adding a wine room. Glass and steel door beams open to the wine room that has reclaimed French limestone floors from Chicago and a walnut and steel ladder fabricated in Germany.
“I thought, ‘Yeah, there were just great opportunities here and a lot to work with,’” Slavin says. “The spaces were great — and I knew we could do what they needed done.”
Owner of Slavin Homes build + design, Bobby Slavin is a man of many, many talents. Not only does he determine which walls will get whacked down and what rooms to add, Slavin personally shops in stores from the Hamptons to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris. He picks out everything — from the oversized pot rack to all the furniture, flooring, rugs, lighting fixtures, accessories right down to the Baccarat glassware. Hardware? Made in Wilmette, Ill. Cabinets? From Minnesota. The ladder in the wine closet? Germany. The countertop on the bar? Brooklyn. He drops vendors’ names like football fanatics reel off game stats. He also knows the prices of it all because he’s actually keeping the books.
Facing the wine closet is the living/dining room. Designed with the feel of an exclusive boutique hotel, the bar was built in. The ceiling and millwork are original to the house. The television extends out on a motorized remote.
The Bucks and Slavin found the chandelier over the dining room table in Los Angeles. Then Bobby personally picked out the iridescent globes. The bowl atop the table is from a shop in Sag Harbor.
“Bobby is such a creative, big thinker,” Michelle says. “We definitely collaborated on a lot of things. He has great ideas. He has big picture thoughts about what we could do, how we could open things up, and things that we wouldn't have been able to even think of or conceptualize. I mean, this is why he's so good at what he does.”
“I think part of that is he travels a lot, he has seen a lot of great homes,” Joe adds. “We took trips with him,” Michelle says. “We went to LA, we went to Dallas, we went to New York. We picked out a lot of things together.”
For the design, Slavin was inspired by the five-star Hotel Costes in Paris, a favorit of both the Bucks and Slavin and his wife, Terri.
“It's darker, it's very rich,” he says. “It's got kind of a sexy vibe and it's very cool.”
The redo of the Bucks’ new house started at the front door — which Slavin had replaced. On the exterior, carpenters enlarged one window opening and closed another. Then they filled the spaces in with bricks laid in a herringbone pattern so you can’t tell which is the old, which is the new.
Inside, two hidden coat closets were kept intact as was the existing paneling, millwork and soaring ceilings.
“I wanted the outside to come inside,” Bobby says. “I didn’t want to completely change the look of the house. I wanted keep the traditional feel and the ceilings and paneling did that.”
But then everything else changed. Cherry floors were replaced with French oak. First floor walls came tumbling down. A front office was gutted and halved. In the front half and facing the living room, Slavin had a dramatic wine closet installed with steel doors, antique limestone floor, walnut cabinet, and a rolling ladder.
“I wanted to give them a focal point at the entry,” Slavin explains. (The back half of the once office was transformed in Michelle’s walk-in closet/laundry, a statement room well worthy of an actress and on-air sports reporter).
“I like to create as much interest as possible,” he says, pointing out the chevron pattern on the floor fronting the wine room.
The living room, a long, wide room, exudes the panache of an expensive hotel lobby. The furniture is by the Italian company Minotti, the rug by the Rug Company. A new surround made out of Indiana limestone was added to the existing fireplace. Bordering that is a bar Slavin designed with Classic Woodworking of St. Louis with a brass top with sink insert made in Brooklyn.
A master of detail, Slavin personally picked out the iridescent clusters in the chandelier that the Bucks found with Slavin at the Thomas Lavin store in L.A. and that now hangs over the dining room table and chairs (from Hudson in New York). The Kelly Wearstler drapes are hung on rods custom-made in Atlanta.
Everywhere he could, Slavin added French doors to let in the bucolic views of the adjoining golf course. Down a hallway is the primary bedroom.
“[Michelle] really wanted a sexy, cozy, cool vibe in the bedroom,” Slavin says. “So again, the first thing we started with was the fireplace.” The existing one was replaced and Slavin designed a new one of pewter limestone. Instead of paneling the room, he had some rift oak added to the wall behind the bed and Koch Bros “did a really great stain on it,” he says. “It took multiple tries to get the richness that I wanted.” The Bucks and Slavin purchased the Holly Hunt furniture on a shopping trip to Dallas.
Slavin designed the bedroom to have a cool, sexy vibe. He had a wall of stained rift oak added behind the bed. “The bench, which I think is incredible, was all Michelle,” Bobby says. “She picked out this color.”
The fireplace was the starting point for the design of the bedroom. An existing one was replaced with a new one made out of LANDON STONE.
In the adjoining bath, Slavin kept existing marble tiles on the floor but modernized the space with walnut vanities, new fixtures, mirrors, countertops and lighting. A freestanding tub was replaced with a Jacuzzi.
The house’s color scheme is all neutrals with the exception of the powder room, which Joe Buck calls “a piece of art.” The walls were lacquered by Koch Brothers’ painters in nine coats of a French blue Farrow & Ball paint. “The room was done, and I was like, ‘It just needs something else,’” Slavin recalls. So he had the ceiling covered in mirrored squares held together by rosettes. Then he added a vintage Italian light fixture he found at John Salibello in New York.
The kitchen presented its own set of challenges. “We had to get really creative to make that room really functional as a kitchen and a hearth room,” says Michelle, the chef of the house.
Originally, the room was a two-wall kitchen; now it’s three with a large island centered in the room. One product Bobby Slavin fought for was the oversized Ann-Morris pot rack in the center of the room. He had to have two structural beams constructed to hold it. “I thought that was very important,” he says. “We just had to figure out how to do it.”
The English scullery kitchen design was inspired by British designer Christopher Peacock. One wall is cabinetry, made by Plato Woodwork of Plato, Minn., that hearkens back to the old iceboxes of yesteryear with its nickel hardware.
Two girders were installed above the island to the timbered cathedral 16-foot ceiling in order to supporting the pot rack. The burnished nickel nautical light and pot rack is from Ann-Morris in New York. The scullery style cabinets are a mix of walnut and white poplar adorned with custom nickel hardware and finished with Calacatta marble. An oversized island with cabinets on three sides and a butcher top was made in Pennsylvania made by Grothuse.
The Viking 10-burner stove is backed by marble subway tiles. The bespoke hardware protecting the wood corners of the walnut butcher block was produced by Wilmette Hardware, Ill. Every drawer lights up when pulled out. Every detail box is checked.
“We wanted it to be done right throughout,” Bobby says.
And then there is the breakfast nook Michelle requested. Slavin had the food pantry moved. Then he added a banquette bench made in Chicago and covered in a Holly Hunt leather, and a classic Saarinen Tulip table. The walls were covered in a walnut cove paneling Bobby discovered the design in the St. Ambroeus, a restaurant in New York. Plato Woodwork fabricated it for the house.
While Michelle’s favorite room is the kitchen, Joe’s is the outdoor room. When they bought the house, the room didn’t exist. There was an existing fireplace (one of three that were removed). Now the glass doors opening into the space fold back completely to make the inside/outside one. The oversized furniture is from Restoration Hardware.
“We live in that room,” Buck says. “We spend most of our time in there, looking out at the pool, at the golf course. You just don’t feel constrained by architecture.”
The butcher block with cabinetry was designed by Slavin and fabricated by Playco Woodwork in Minnesota. Note the mixing of metal finishes — a Slavin trademark.
“The key to this was to make it look like it was never added on,” Slavin says. The room has dropdown screens on all sides, living area, tv, fireplace, dining room and an adjoining outdoor kitchen. It borders the pool, which was also redone. Then Joe called Bobby from Mexico to make yet another request: a cold pool plunge.
There really isn’t anything omitted in the house. The lower level holds a gym and quietly stashed away, Joe’s office (with a row of Emmys and additional awards) where he can work and air his podcasts. On the first floor, an existing laundry room was transformed into a guest room/playroom. The twins, now six, have their bedrooms upstairs with plenty of room to play. Outside the surfaces were repaved and a golf cart path to the neighboring course was put in, just for Joe.
The only detail Bobby Slavin didn’t do is the artwork (with the exception of the Rolling Stones’ cover, “Beggar’s Banquet”). The Bucks are fans of the British photographer and conservationist David Yarrow and have several of his works hanging on their walls. Then there are the telltale signs of their profession, past and present. Framed signed jerseys (including one from Buck’s broadcast partner Troy Aikman), a variety of sports memorabilia and Michelle’s uniform from her days as a Denver Broncos cheerleader.
The ultimate result of the redo actually exceeded the Bucks’ expectations.
“When you make a plan, you have hopes for it to come together,” Joe says. “And then when the actual execution of it is better than what you had in your mind, that’s the sign of somebody who knows what they’re doing. That’s really how this came together. Bobby not only helped reconfigure these rooms and make them feel as open as they could be but he also brings a great flair for decorating, for what the look should be.”
When asked how often they are actually in their home, the Bucks said they’re here all the time. “I love St. Louis,” Joe says, while Michelle (originally from Colorado and a longtime resident of Los Angeles) nods. The couple is also involved in the community; for example, Joe Buck has hosted the “Joe Buck Classic” golf tournament at Old Warson Country Club to raise money for St. Louis Children’s Hospital for the past 23 years.
“People see me at Starbucks and they're like, ‘Why are you here?’” Joe says. “I'm like, ‘Because I live here.’ We're here all the time. With six-year-old boys, traveling takes a village. We're happy to wake up and amble into the hearth room and hang out. So, we're here a ton.”