The Mary Tyler Moore House

Beneath a canopy of oak trees just steps from Lake of the Isles, 2104 Kenwood Parkway is one of Minneapolis’s most recognizable homes. Once owned by Evan Mauer, former director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, its cameo in the opening sequence of the Mary Tyler Moore Show immortalized the Queen Anne–style home.

The most recent owners bought the home eighteen months ago, never moving in, but instead modernizing the amenities and adding to the kitchen to increase the home’s value. Since the interior was void of any furnishings, realtors Debbie McNally of Re/Max Wayzata and David Azbill of Coldwell Banker Burnet asked Jay Nuhring of reSee Design to stage the home for sale.

For Nuhring, staging a home with such strong architectural personality presented an interesting challenge. In a typical staging, existing furniture is rearranged and sometimes supplemented with a few rented pieces. For this project, Nuhring resourced a variety of local designers and vendors to pull the home together. “Because the house is as stylized as it is,” say Nuhring, “I wanted to pay homage to the period of the home, utilizing more period-appropriate furniture, while still keeping it classic, crisp, fresh, and updated.”

Though Nuhring applied a more current color scheme, he used a mix of vintage and new furniture—giving a nod to the house’s age. “When a house and furniture all have dialogue, the result is a beautifully orchestrated work of art,” says Nuhring. The goal when staging this particular home was to make it seem as if people were present, so Nuhring thought of the furniture as having personalities. “When you put together a great guest list of furniture, you end up with a room full of personality and warmth,” he says. The furniture and accents add another layer of character to the home, rather than fight with it for attention. At first “potential homeowners fall in love with what they see,” says Nuhring, “but ultimately, they fall in love with the house and its design. The furniture is just a means for people to understand the architecture of the house.”