Not too long ago, I took a trip to St. Louis, MO, for a stone industry event. The day that I left for the airport, I was telling our editor, Jennifer Adams, that it would be great if we could try something different in our “Classics” section. Rather than focus on an historic piece of architecture, such as an Italian villa or a venerable America monument, it would be interesting to report on a landmark building that has been repurposed. I remember saying, “It would be great to write about a classic structure that was redone for use today.”
Every so often, we editors stumble on exactly what we are looking for without even trying, and this was the case here. That very afternoon, a co-worker and I met up with an old colleague of one of our tile publications, a gentleman named Mark Pitliangas of Antique Architectural Décor in St. Louis. As it turns out, Pitliangas had purchased and restored two landmark buildings in Downtown St. Louis, and he eagerly gave us a tour of the two properties — both of which had been repurposed for 21st century use.