Designs Built to Belong: Furniture that lives alongside family treasures with Julie Anne Baur

About that piece of furniture your grandmother passed down to your mother and your mother gifted to you; do you adore it, or do you feel obligated to keep it? That’s a delicate discussion for an interior designer to have with a client, but one Julie Anne Baur has navigated numerous times.

Her boutique firm, Winding Lane Interiors, is located in Cincinnati’s stately Hyde Park neighborhood. Century-old tudors and colonials, quaint shops, towering trees, shaded sidewalks ... you get the picture. “Many of our clients are in older homes. They don’t need character added. Often, they need some removed so the truly exceptional character can shine through,” said Baur.

Designer Amanda Rasche, who also manages client intake for the company, added, “These are modern families living modern lives in these beautiful old homes. It’s our job to curate and help our clients identify pieces that are beautiful and functional and that serve them well. If that passed-down treasure doesn’t meet those criteria, maybe it’s time to part with it so that others may enjoy it.”

After guiding clients through this process, Baur and Rasche can get down to the art of making the individual treasures work with the whole.

Winding Lane Interiors has carved its estimable reputation around fresh takes on traditional and transitional designs. While “traditional” may conjure notions of expertly arranged items collected over time, Baur argues against sameness that can result in a home that feels “like walking into grandma’s house.”

“When working with inherited pieces, or even when starting from scratch, we find it essential to create balance,” Baur said. “Say you’re in a foyer that has this beautiful painting, ornately framed. We’re going to put a piece with clean, simple lines underneath to find that balance. When you match ornate with ornate, both pieces get lost and you don’t honor the detail of the art or the furniture piece. You just feel as though you’re in a museum and not a well-put-together home.”

In bringing their aesthetic to life, Winding Lane Interiors has found a valued partner with Gat Creek. “Their look isn’t modern, but clean and so well made,” Baur said. “Gat Creek is our first go-to, especially when we are looking for case goods. They are building heirloom quality pieces. And the fact that we can customize the paint, the hand-glazing, the stain, the wood species ... our clients love that. All these options create the perfect balance with the client’s inherited pieces.”

Baur went on to cite an under-appreciated, downstream advantage of partnering with Gat Creek. “It’s an amazing value. Gat Creek’s quality, beauty and customizability would cost much more if we were going to (a high-end retailer). Often, the value creates room in the budget to look at higher quality products elsewhere in the project, like expensive fabric for the drapes.”

And in the end, the client’s handed-down treasures coexist beautifully with Gat Creek pieces that will someday be handed down themselves.