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Artist realizes dream of living in Town and Country - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

The exterior of the home of Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country.

When Arina Lanis and her husband, Steven Neumann, moved their family to St. Louis three years ago from Kansas City they found their new home in Town and Country. “It took us weeks to accept we actually got the house,” Arina says. “My husband and I have always wanted to live in Town and Country.”

Arina grew up in Ballwin and had often walked in Town and Country’s popular Longview Farm Park. “It’s got got horses, and it’s sweet. When I took my own kids to that park I thought it would be so great to live in Town and Country. I feel like I thought it, I manifested it, and it actually happened,” she says.

Lanis has left St. Louis and returned here four times in her 52 years. “It’s an obsession nobody understands. My husband has surrendered to the fact that there’s an invisible umbilical cord between me and St. Louis,” she says.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

The dining room where family and friends gather is the one room Arina redesigned top to bottom. From its eye-popping Kimono Blue walls to the hand painted watercolors over the buffet, she says it is the room that says “Arina lives here.”

She and her family immigrated directly to St. Louis from Ukraine when Lanis was just 7. “It was my first experience of the United States. People here were so kind. My parents had no money, but I remember people gave us clothes and many of the things we needed to make a home. We were refugees 44 years ago, and I still remember that kindness.”

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The move in 2020 came at the beginning of the pandemic. Unlike many whose families were torn apart by COVID, the timing of the move worked for Lanis and Neumann to bring their family together.

Prior to the move, the couple juggled disparate responsibilities in a complicated situation. They had lived in Kansas City for 10 years and had just finished a massive home renovation when Arina’s parents in St. Louis needed her support. She rented a place in St. Louis with their sons and traveled back and forth. At the same time, Steven had taken a job in Chicago and was required to live there.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

LEFT: Arina maintains a studio in St. Albans for her art business, but she also keeps this small office to meet clients at her home. She painted the artwork herself. RIGHT: An animal print rug adds texture to the sitting room part of the upstairs primary bedroom.

“It was chaos,” she says.

“Buying this house helped us regroup as a family,” she says. They decided to move to St. Louis and live together as a family again. Once they sold their house in Kansas City, they needed to find a home that met their needs.

A chance email from a friend about the Town and Country home led Arina to drive by with her son. She fell in love with the house.

“The last owners transformed this house from ordinary to extraordinary in terms of the curb appeal. At one point, it was just a red brick house similar to the other older homes. They completely painted the house gray, added a porch, and created a walk way of paver stones and gas lamps,” she says.

“My biggest concern about transitioning into this smaller house was that the stuff from our Kansas City house just wouldn’t fit, but it worked out. We sold or gave away the majority our furniture, and wound up buying much of the furniture from the previous owners, the Fikes family,” she says.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

A view of the kitchen looking into the dining room. The Roman shade hanging in the window features the blue and white vases and jars of Arina’s watercolors over the dining room buffet.

Her husband was happy to hand the reins to Arina when it came to the interiors and to add support and muscle as needed. “I can’t tell you how many pictures that man has hung. He’s a pro, and he does like art. One of the rooms has a gallery wall of art, and the design of that wall is his aesthetic,” she says.

Arina took a pragmatic approach to outfitting their new home. “I thought why reinvent the wheel when everything’s already here and the palette of the house is super-neutral? It was very easy for me to put up my artwork, and add colorful accessories like pillows. I moved some of the light fixtures,” she says.

But she wanted one room where family and friends gather to have a special feeling. “I had to do something that says ‘Arina lives here’ so I painted the dining room a very strong color — Kimono Blue,” she says. She painted the adjoining kitchen walls a strong golden yellow to complement the deep blue.

To further the Chinoiserie vibe, she hung watercolors she painted of blue and white qingua Chinese porcelain vessels and placed Chinese vases and lidded jars on the sideboard. She pulled the images from a textile she used for the Roman shade in her kitchen window, a textile she’d hung onto for seven years before discovering its just right use. She also introduced golden yellow complements in the chair upholstery and window coverings.

“When people come in and see that room, I think it’s the biggest reflection of me. It’s very bold but still very whimsical. It makes people happy. My intention when people come to my house is to, enjoy it, smile, have lots of food, and leave feeling like they’ve had a wonderful experience,” she says.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann pose for a portrait with their dog Newton on Friday, March 15, 2023, in their Town and Country home. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

The sunlit family room with its cozy conversational arrangement of easy chairs. Arina’s father, a curator of art and antiques, collected the Chinese tomb figures on the mantel and gifted them to her.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

An animal print rug adds texture to the sitting room part of the upstairs primary bedroom.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

A view of son Sebastian’s bedroom. Sebastian is a junior at West Point. The St. Louis bedspread is one of Arina’s designs. The stars and stripes pillows, star accents and world map add a patriotic touch to the room.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

The previous owner redesigned this powder room with the dramatic art nouveau patterned wallpaper and over-the-top sconces with beaded shades on each side of the mirror. Arina put her stamp on the room when she hung a painting from the same era, a gift from her dad, over the commode. “It’s a really cute family portrait of bunnies,” she says.

At Home with Arina Lanis and Steve Neumann in Town and Country

The strong black and white formal arrangement of furniture and planters accented with bright pops of lemons dominate the patio.

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Artist realizes dream of living in Town and Country - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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