Interior designer Andrea Schumacher’s move to a new office and showroom was spurred by an annoyance many of us have experienced: Her landlord was going to jack up the rent. So she did what you might expect from one of Denver’s most enterprising creative minds: She cut and run—and purchased a 3,500-square-foot storefront in a 1924 building in the Art District on Santa Fe. She turned it into her ultimate design lair, with an upstairs office and vibrant mural-lined showroom stocked with everything from a brass-and-mica praying mantis coffee table (with a light-up tail) designed by Jacques Duval-Brasseur in 1970s Paris, to an 1870s West Indian four-poster bed Schumacher inherited from her grandmother’s home on St. Thomas.

Photograph by Emily Minton Redfield
The space opened in early October (call for shopping hours) and houses both Andrea Schumacher Interiors and the designer’s other business, Simply ASI (an à-la-carte design service for smaller projects). And the building comes with a colorful history: “Someone was telling me that [long ago] the mayor of Idaho Springs or Georgetown was also a prostitute and used to live upstairs,” Schumacher says. “Trust me, we got the sage out and burned it bright!” Sage-smudging or no, after Schumacher’s renovation, the resulting interior is a paean to her residential work: vibrant, timeless, and curated.  “I like it to feel like your home’s been collected over time, and not just bought from one showroom,” she says. Unless, of course, it’s this showroom. 870 Santa Fe Dr.; andreaschumacherinteriors.com