https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-missouri-an-artist-molded-a-contemporary-studio-from-a-1926-slaughterhouse-11625688000

Don Wiegand was just 17 years old when he made a handshake agreement with his father to buy his future home: an abandoned slaughterhouse his family owned in Chesterfield, Mo.

But even he couldn’t have imagined then how big a role the decrepit building would play in his life and career as an artist. That day in the summer of 1965, he agreed to pay $30,000, plus interest, to own the building and 2 of the 5 acres that made up his family’s estate.

The decision to own came after his father had told him to board up the structure. A friend suggested to the then-amateur artist that he should instead make it into a studio.

More friends joined them, using house jacks and chain saws to construct arches and install beams to raise the roof and let in more light. Fresh concrete was poured to level the old floor that had been tapered to drain animal blood. The creative Mr. Wiegand then added inlaid colored stones to form a mosaic design. Two wagon wheels were used to make chandeliers.

At the time Mr. Wiegand made the deal, the building had been in his family for some seven years. His parents, Frank and Claire Wiegand, moved their five children from nearby St. Louis to Chesterfield in 1952 and six years later bought a property: the 5-acre plot of land with a three-story building plus the slaughterhouse. The couple ran a popular country store called Smoke House Market on the first floor, selling mostly smoked pork products and homemade pies. The seven of them lived on the upper two floors, along with a grandmother and an aunt.

The slaughterhouse was a quarter-mile down the road. It had been built in 1926 by German farmers who wanted to share resources. It was later used as an auction barn and then a horseshoeing school. The Wiegand family never had much use for it, preferring a smaller smokehouse nearer to the store.

Mr. Wiegand’s sculpture of Bob Hope for the Bob Hope Burbank Airport in Los Angeles.

Don Wiegand teaching his intern, Clare McAuley, a crosshatching technique on a Tennessee Williams piece.

The upper studio. The profile of the girl, at right, is part of an organ- and tissue-donor monument in St. Louis. A Tennessee Williams piece is in the background.

The Market became a destination retail store, drawing locals and tourists. Don Wiegand worked in the store after school since the second grade, and began selling $1 sketch portraits of the customers.

Later, some of the store’s customers would also make their way to the converted studio. The young Mr. Wiegand then lived in the one-room structure while he commuted to Washington University in St. Louis, where he received an undergraduate degree in fine arts, majoring in sculpture.

In 1967, while a student, he decided to update and expand his home in a contemporary style. “I wanted abstraction and realism together,” he said. “I designed the shapes to become more free-form.”

From aspirational residences to major commercial deals.

He made the building more comfortable as a home and more practical as a workspace and showroom, adding a new bathroom, kitchen and a 100-square-foot sleeping loft that expanded the space to 4,500 square feet from its original 1,000 square feet.

More than 100 salvaged utility poles were used to hold up the roof for the new space. Some were brought via the adjacent creek, which flows into the Missouri River a mile away.

The studio area that was reimagined in 1967 evolved through the 1980s. A rope outside the entrance allows visitors to ring a 150-pound railroad train bell inside a reconstructed cupola. The roof has white shingles.

An 80-foot glass wall Mr. Wiegand designed as a series of rectangular shapes encloses an atrium, where tropical plants grow year-round.

The interior otherwise is open, with every room integrated. Two studios separated by a one-step stair take up nearly half the space.

The home has a European ambience, with furniture from France, England and Germany. A 12-foot oak table made in the late 1800s has been used for years for large dinners.

The artist has copyrighted the entire building, along with his geometric-design windows and his mosaic floor.

Mr. Wiegand was an adjunct professor at Washington University from 1968 to 1979. During that time, he welcomed professors, students and an eclectic mix of artists into the home’s great room. The public also was welcomed. Mr. Wiegand estimates more than 200,000 people have viewed his studio-home.

The artist launched a successful career from the space. He started Wiegand Studios in 1970 to sell his sculptures, then in 1981 joined Jack Scharr to start Limited Editions Inc. He has produced more than 1,000 limited sculptures.

In 1982, Mr. Wiegand presented a portrait-sculpture of Charles Lindbergh to the aviator’s widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Additional casts of the piece were unveiled in 1984 in Paris and at the Smithsonian Institution, earning him an international reputation.

At times, the artist had to battle to save his home. A Christmas Eve fire in 1971 caused significant damage. Then, a flood in 1993 inundated the home, which survived thanks to the structural support of the utility poles. In April 2009, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers wanted to tear it down to build a levee, but a public outcry resulted instead in a floodwall being built 40-feet to save the structure. The following year, a local bank carrying the mortgage called the note.

Eventually, donations to the Wiegand Foundation allowed the property to be purchased in June 2019 for $650,000.

Since then, Mr. Wiegand has put in new walks and a 40-by-60-foot outdoor patio, and painted the interior. Contractors used 40 gallons of linseed oil stain to restore the salvaged wood—some of it 100 years old—on the exterior of the additions. An elaborate tool shed has also been added.

In the spring of 2020, Mr. Wiegand returned to daily work at the fully restored studio. Today, he also shares a nearby condo.

“The Chesterfield Valley has gone from all farming to commercial buildings,” said Dee Ann Wilson-Wright, a real-estate broker for 48 years. Agents estimate the property’s value to be between $1.5 million and $3 million.

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Appeared in the July 9, 2021, print edition as 'As a Teen, He Started on His Home.'

Copyright © 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved