Lake Minnetonka Formal Living and Dining Rooms

As an opera singer who spent fifteen years traveling the country, Lola Watson, knows a thing or two about getting into character. Now, as an interior designer, she is taking what she learned onstage and putting it to use when getting into the character of a home and the mindset of a client.

The owners of this sprawling, three-story Lake Minnetonka home were among one of Watson’s first clients after returning to Minneapolis. She worked with the couple on their first home for nearly two years. “When almost everything with that design was finished, they put an offer on this twin home,” Watson says. The home was two identical houses connected at a seam. It was built in 1912 for a mother and daughter who each lived in their own side of the house. “One of the first things we did was figure out how to put it all together,” Watson says. “We had to integrate both spaces into a single family home.”

After the bones were in place, Watson applied a palette of blue, red, and yellow throughout the home and kept to an American Federal aesthetic. The Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue in the formal living room was chosen to highlight the space’s architectural details—a medallion on the ceiling, the curvature of the woodwork, scalloping on the fireplace. Layering in different combinations and dimensions of reds and creamy whites in the upholstery and window treatments create accents. With the addition of various family collectibles, found antiques, and heirlooms, the room was blanketed in history. “The mixture of old and new, high and low assures that the room is living and breathing,” Watson says. “Things are always being added and subtracted, but the basics of good design are there, so we never have to start over.”

Watson helped the homeowners achieve their goal of creating an old-fashioned family home. “Which,” Watson explains, “is totally against the sentiment and lifestyles of people today. But the family wanted a sense of history and roots, place and connection. Together we found a way for them to live among collected heirlooms and nice things.”