The sleeper porch is the Johnsons’ ideal place to spend warm weather days, and Cirone turned it into an outdoor living area. “Jan’s got things that she’s had for so many years,” Cirone says of an armoire and crocks that she turned into planters. “It’s all about pulling in all of their beloved pieces and working it into the look throughout their whole house and also adding in new pieces into it, versus getting rid of everything and starting over and having everything just look a little too calculated. This is real.” Photos: Chris Emeott
Morningside home is a delightful cohesion of antiques and contemporary design.
Nestled in the heart of Edina’s Morningside neighborhood is a stately century home that has lived many lives but perhaps none so lovingly as its current chapter. Owned by Jan and Larry Johnson, the home is a thoughtful blend of past and present. “We’ve been married 57 years, and we started collecting when we first got married,” Jan says.
Jen Cirone
Though the Johnsons moved in eight years ago, their passion for antiques makes it feel as if their stories have long been intertwined with the house’s own narrative. It was done with the help of Jen Cirone from Cirone Design, who made the home a cohesive, harmonious and picture-perfect blend that embodies the personalities of the homeowners.
“Jan … has this contemporary house, and she wants to have a contemporary look yet still work with the things she loves,” Cirone says. “It still feels like her. It doesn’t feel like she’s in someone else’s home. I think that’s a really big piece for designers. Sometimes, you see a disconnect where it feels like a designer, but it doesn’t feel like the homeowner.”
“Any of my friends would walk in here and say, ‘This house is totally Jan.’ It isn’t like my look has changed,” Jan says.
One reason I like to hire a decorator is I avoid making costly mistakes. Because when we first moved here, I made some mistakes,” Jan says, noting missteps with selections for a rug and chairs, for example. Cirone replaced the antique wingback chairs with sandy-colored linen chairs. Cirone says, “It’s bringing a silhouette like this. It’s a supporting actor. It’s quiet, and it’s not stealing the show.”
The Johnsons’ home, known as the Simmons House, was built by Alfred and Jessie Simmons. According to Jan, every owner has left this photo of the house behind as a tribute to its history. Cirone added a modern touch with a lamp and vase by local artist Cym Warkov Ceramics.
The kitchen has a large breakfast nook that was divided into a seating area and an eating space with built-in booth. New recliners in a mid-century modern style accent the dry sink antique that Jan uses as a TV stand. The space also has a vintage pantry cabinet that Larry adapted as storage for their computer. Cirone then added the rug as a layering element.
A stencil was created for this hand painted and gold leaf mural that serves as the headboard for the primary bedroom. “It felt like her house; it felt like her and was contemporary enough,” Cirone says. She originally found the design on wallpaper, but it did not have the same color scheme as the room. The look is finished with a pair of light fixtures that Jan had bought from an antique shop in Nisswa, Minnesota several years ago. “It’s using what she has. Of course I can think of a million things we could buy, but we don’t have to buy something new,” Cirone says.
Clean lines and modern finishes provide the backdrop for pieces brimming with history. A handmade, 10-seater farmhouse table anchors the dining room. “When I saw this table in the store, they said the builder has a farm background. That’s all they had to say to me because … I was raised on a dairy farm in Iowa,” Jan says. The size was perfect because they have a family of 10. Cirone accented the table with planters that hold moss. “You can bring something that is alive into a space without having to manage it. It’s still something that is bringing life and color and vibrancy.”
A large painting of a barn is a call back to Jan’s farm roots. “It’s an artist from Denver [Jennifer O’Meara] who goes around the country to take photos of barns and then paints them,” she says. When she saw it,
she knew it had to be in her dining room.
Larry’s grandfather was a carpenter from Sweden. His workbench has stayed within the family and the Johnsons reimagined it as a sideboard, rich with patina and sentiment. “Larry’s very handy too,” Jan says. “I find pictures, and I ask him if he’ll make it.”
Behind the large table, an antique linen cupboard Jan had shipped to the home from New Jersey now serves as a charming china cabinet, and a butter churn sits in the corner of the room, looking entirely at home. “In 1967, we really couldn’t afford this, and it wasn’t that much. We had just started our lives together, and so it was the first time we went to an auction, and we had to raise our hand. I absolutely loved it,” Jan says.
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