Floating bookshelves, framed family photos, earth-tone walls: Mark Andersen’s living room is an inviting space, its theme not immediately detectable.
You could call this a crowning achievement on the part of Andersen’s design-minded partner, Chris (who built the custom shelving): It doesn’t overwhelm.
Yet within these walls are hundreds of books on European royalty: Romanovs and royal jewels, accessions and scandals. Those framed photos?
“They’re the royal families of Europe,” Andersen says. “Either photos they’ve sent me or postcards.”
Look closely: Even the pillows on the sofa are patterned with fleurs-de-lis.
Andersen developed his royal obsession in high school.
“I was working on my genealogy and getting nowhere, then read a book that had the royal family genealogy going back all these years.”
The well-documented bloodlines fascinated him, and now, 30 years later, he has built a library of more than 2,000 volumes, meticulously organized in his Lakeview home. A collection fit for a king.