It’s said that first impressions are formed within three seconds. In a home, that impression is all about color, light, sound and texture. So what is it about Richard Staab’s condo that dazzles from the first moment? The bold, challenging pieces grabbed us from the start: a six-foot-tall, rustic wooden crucifix hanging in the hall, a 10-foot-high oil painting of the Virgin Mary that fills one wall of the intimate dining room, a zebra skin laid out on the living room floor, a massive antique armoire in the bedroom. Passive, this place is not.

METRO Style Enforcer Todd Pinzuti, who owns the event design company Bungalow 6, tipped us off to Staab’s remarkable home. Staab owns Salon Rouge, a stylish salon tucked beneath Espresso Royale on 13th and Hennepin in downtown Minneapolis, a place that Staab describes as "a mix of modern and baroque, like your French grandma on crack.” Upstairs in Staab’s condo, you’ll find more of the same, and then some.

“I believe that when you think you’ve gone too far, you should add more,” says Staab of his decorating style. A collector at heart, he’s unearthed some amazing pieces over the years as he’s moved through his Goth, religious, French and natural decorating phases. It all mixes together in glorious harmony in his 1890s five-room condo. “I’m just not comfortable in a minimal, stark place,” he explains. “I like cozy and intimate.

Staab’s home is the kind of place where every piece has a story. The zebra skin in the living room? “Got it at Great Estate Sale in Minnetonka—that place is great.” The driftwood mirror? “Oh, I made that myself. I had a client who collected driftwood from Lake Superior so I asked her to bring me some. Then I got out my hot glue gun and stuck it all on the mirror frame.” The red floral wallpaper in the sitting room? “That’s my “Madonna” wallpaper! I love Madonna, and one day I’m watching a decorating show on TV and they showed this wallpaper and I ran to the phone and called the shop in New York that carries it. Seriously, they had to calm me down, told me to hang up the phone and go measure my space and call them back. I was afraid it would be gone before I could order it.”

“I think if you love something and put it with other things you love, it will work, even when all different eras are mixed together,” Staab says. “What do you think?” We think Richard Staab’s home has a compelling intrinsic style that draws you in and makes you want to stay just a little bit longer.—B.K.