The Once and Future Past

A lot of people think they should envy Nancy Gross. Her job is to make sure that the shop at Walker Art Center is arrayed with ultra-gorgeous and ingeniously designed things—things that, above all, you’re unlikely to find elsewhere. “When you say you’re a buyer, people think it’s glamorous, like you just run around and shop all day,” she said. In fact, “buying for retail is part art and part science, a combination of creativity, analysis, and people.” Gross believes that she inherited a knack for the business from her parents. During her childhood in Detroit, her father was a buyer for Ford Motor Company and her mother a model for Hudson’s, in the days when department stores had tea rooms and runway shows.

One might imagine that a fair number of the items hunted down by Gross and her staff would end up in her home. Instead, though, she leaves them at the Walker Shop, a sort of living room-away-from-home for her. “I see a product here from birth to death,” she said, referring to the incoming, testing, pre-peak, post-peak, and outgoing phases of its life cycle. “I live with it here, so I don’t want to have it in my home.”

Gross’ classic 1910 Minneapolis four-square, which she shares with her husband, Ron Fergle, and their two-year-old son, Elliot, is furnished almost entirely with antiques. Portraits of her great-grandparents hang over the fireplace. A shortwave radio from the 1920s stands in one corner of the dining room, and in the living room, an icebox serves as a bar. Elliot rides a tiny, weathered wooden trike. What’s unusual about Gross and Fergle’s antiques is that virtually all of them, right down to the copper washtub in the hallway, were once used by family members; they were cared for, preserved, and passed on. Though they’re not necessarily precious or rare, they are meaningful. Gross’ great-grandfather—the man above the fireplace—was a coal miner in Pennsylvania who fathered eight children and died young; she describes her parents as “Depression-era savers” (another trait she says she inherited).

While her home serves as a living record of a family’s history, there are some modern touches, especially in a recently built addition designed by Fergle, who is an architect. The pair splurged on the kitchen, even installing his-and-her sinks, because they both love to cook. And the marble floors in the back hallway became a labor of love for Fergle, who selected, cut, and laid the tiles himself, carefully considering the interplay of their lines with the room’s refurbished leaded-glass window and a salvaged radiator that could be a minimalist sculpture. The overall result is strikingly simple, just shy of stark. Ultimately, it’s not so surprising that this home is furnished with things that are not just familiar, but lovingly worn. Back at the Walker, Gross has the whole day to contemplate the cutting edge.—Julie Caniglia