
When Annie Brahler’s husband and business partner approached her with the idea of purchasing an enormous English Gothic church at the corner of Delmar and Union, “I thought he was off his rocker,” she says.
Brahler’s firm, Euro Trash, is known for designing inspired spaces in St. Louis and across the country. For years, it had operated its studio and corporate offices in a separate location from its rented warehouses used to store containers of merchandise–including art, antique furnishings, and more–destined for St. Louis from cities across the globe. With high warehouse rental fees and Brahler’s staff traveling back and forth to catalog and select items for installations, Charles Smith, Brahler’s husband and partner, was in search of a better solution.
“He’s quite talented about thinking in different ways,” says Brahler. Trusting his instincts, she took a deep breath and agreed to take a look at the Westminster Presbyterian Church and its expansive adjoining school building, which was on the market after the small remaining congregation agreed to be absorbed into another area church.
“As soon as I stepped foot in the buildings, I was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ It’s so much more functional than a regular warehouse because it’s already delineated and my brain just works that way–I will have a textile room and a chair room and a painting room. I could already see where everything would go,” Brahler says.
The church was designated an official St. Louis City Landmark in 1975. Designed by Albert Groves in 1916, it was fully completed by 1925. Marx and Jones designed the sanctuary’s soaring, stained-glass windows. The fact that Euro Trash planned to keep the building fully intact was hugely influential in the sale.
“Preservation is number one to us, because we are extremely sympathetic to the very real fact that this was somebody’s religious home for decades and decades, so we’re not about to do something disrespectful,” Brahler says. “We want to preserve it for the history that it is and make use of it.”
Brahler and Smith met with the parishioners and the heads of the church–some of whom were in their 90s and part of the congregation since birth–to assure them that the design firm would preserve and respect the building. Their primary concern was the stained glass, which Brahler and Smith made clear they planned to keep and light from the inside and out to be enjoyed by the surrounding and burgeoning Delmar Maker’s District neighborhood.
“Because it’s right on the corner, you can see it from all sides and it’s just amazing. We want to do things like that, not just to preserve it, but for people to see that architecture in St. Louis as something that’s kept up and not dilapidated. We want to show them that it could still be wonderful,” says Brahler. “They were amenable to this plan and it was the best thing that happened to me in a long time because their shoulders relaxed and they got all excited.”
Euro Trash purchased the church in February of 2024, and the team got to work assessing and planning how they would use the various spaces. The church had been well maintained and was structurally sound, up to code and ADA compliant. In June 2024 they took occupancy and, between projects, Brahler has been working to redecorate and put her unique stamp on the space.
“It’s not a remodel,” she insists. No walls will be removed or spaces torn out. They are simply repurposing what is there, updating it with fresh paint, new carpet, furniture and art. A massive, open room, where the school was once housed, functions as a shared office space and features enormous windows, crown molding, and a striking brick fireplace surrounded by original millwork.
“We all had our own offices in our previous studio and we’d always end up in the same room– it’s sort of how we function as a group anyway,” Brahler says of the shared space, which is still large enough to “escape” into a corner for a private phone call.
The stunning sanctuary is currently being used to house larger items, such as a group of weathered doors imported from France. Down the road, Brahler sees it working in other creative ways. In addition to the stained glass, the sanctuary features a fully intact and working pipe organ. One possibility is using it as a gallery space for sizable art installations, showcasing artists the firm works with from around the country.
“We want to do things like showcasing art and doing events because we want people to think differently about these spaces and saving them and what they could be,” says Brahler. “There are a handful of churches like this throughout the city and the county that people have come in and retrofitted to an office space or a living space; and you can see that they’re done really well, but more times than not they destroy the architecture by completely redefining the space. For us, what’s exciting is that we get to really accentuate what’s there.”
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