Just shy of $2 million, this French provincial home in Kansas City has glitz, closets

Need storage? Love glitz?

Then the French provincial five-bedroom home at 1236 W. 57th St. in the Sunset Hill neighborhood might be for you.

Thanks to a mother of five who also happens to be an interior designer, the once purple and teal rooms of this mansion — on the market for just shy of $2 million — are done up with soothing neutrals, touches of metallic and closets. Lots and lots of closets.

Colleen Patterson recently gave me a tour. When she and her husband, Mark Patterson, bought the home in 2002, it was a hot mess. Besides the paint palette, the foyer floor had holes in it.

She and her husband set about revamping the 1962 home, calming things down from its 1980s decor to a European country style that matches its brick exterior and is more to their tastes.

In the process, they spent more than $1 million updating the house with high-end fixtures, appliances and architectural features. But now that their youngest child is headed to college, the Pattersons are downsizing.

A brick courtyard leads visitors to the front door and into a foyer with slate tile floors.

Every color in the house is the same base color, Patterson explained, but with different effects, ranging from stripes to glazes.

They were able to save a lot of the home’s original features, including wood paneling in the den and pocket doors separating the sitting room and dining room. They also had the original parquet floors in the sitting room refinished.

French doors at the rear of the huge sitting room lead to the backyard, which has a water feature, a large in-ground saltwater pool and a grill area with a sink, fridge, fire pits and fireplace.

The dining room has metallic wallpaper that Patterson hand-mottled with a scrub brush to give it an aged appearance. She left slivers of the previous owners’ purple paint inside dining room cabinets. The color blocks play off the room’s colorful drapes, which hang from custom curtain rods that Patterson had bent into whimsical squiggles.

The kitchen has granite counters, a large island and stainless steel appliances, including a six-burner, double-oven Viking range. The custom cabinets have a soft, aged-silver finish. Patterson had an artist in the Crossroads Arts District create a custom mosaic backsplash behind the stove that depicts the kind of still life you’d find in a winery.

“I like to pretend I’m in Italy when I’m cooking,” she said.

A long, narrow butlers pantry just off the kitchen serves as a prep area and eye-catching storage for crystal and fine china.

The Pattersons added a large hearth room behind the kitchen. In the process, they made what was an exterior brick wall with a leaded glass window part of the room’s architecture, adding to the rustic charm.

The hearth room’s fireplace is double-sided, so it also faces a back patio near the pool.

The master suite is done up in soothing neutrals. So is the master bathroom, which has a long double vanity beneath a skylight, a walk-in shower, soaker tub and two walk-in closets.

Then Patterson led the way upstairs.

“And because I am a crazy person who punches holes in walls to see what’s there, I found this space with dark navy carpet,” she said, walking into a room off a landing between the first and second floors. She had no idea what the previous owners were using it for.

She installed built-in bookshelves, closet space and light carpeting and painted the room neutral colors. She also installed a full bathroom. That’s when the quibbling began. All five kids wanted the room. So Patterson set a rule: Oldest kid in the house gets the space.

She found additional space on the second floor that she converted to a laundry room/locker space. Doors along one long wall open to five “lockers” — one for each child — all outfitted by California Closets. Another nearby hallway has four more closets.

Each of two bedrooms on the second floor has its own full bathroom.

Patterson found more space over the garage behind a wall. She opened it up and converted it into a cozy office nook that looks out over the kitchen.

The Pattersons also remodeled the basement into a media/game room. A nearby pantry could be converted into a wine cellar and, of course, there’s plenty more storage space in an unfinished part of the basement.

The home does not come furnished, but the Pattersons will hear offers on the furniture and decor currently staging the house.

This story was originally published March 18, 2017 at 6:58 AM with the headline "Just shy of $2 million, this French provincial home in Kansas City has glitz, closets."