by Page Leggett
Brenda Schleunes’ home is a reflection of who she is: a lifelong storyteller with a dry wit.
“Everything in my house has a patina of age,” the 86-year-old likes to say. “Including me.”
Schleunes’ (pronounced SCHLOY-ness) background is in theater, and she continues to stage productions for her fellow Givens Aldersgate residents. The Greensboro transplant has called the east Charlotte retirement community home since 2021.
Every item in Brenda’s 1,600-square-foot cottage has a story. She traveled the world with her late husband, Karl Schleunes, a Holocaust historian who taught at UNC Greensboro, and she always brought treasures home. But objects don’t have to be expensive to be precious to Brenda. In fact, one of the most striking picture frames in her home came from Goodwill.
Karl’s rare book collection lines the custom shelves — Brenda had them built when she moved here to be closer to her daughter, Anna, and her two grandsons, who refer to her as “Bubbles.”
Alongside the books are travel mementos and photographs. One black-and-white image that commands attention is of the stylish young couple at the Winter Palace hotel in Luxor, Egypt, in 1989. Brenda found the Jugendstil frame at a flea market in Berlin. (Jugendstil, she explains, is the German and Austrian counterpart to art nouveau.)
In Brenda’s cottage, there’s no bookshelf “filler” — no “Live, Laugh, Love” signs from the clearance shelf at Marshalls or other mass-produced trinkets. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate a bargain — it’s just that she’s collected too many objects with interesting backstories to need a random gewgaw.
Black, white and The Red Collection
Brenda’s preferred color scheme is black and white. (Even her 14-year-old shih tzu, Moritz, goes with the décor and, she jokes, also has “the patina of age.”) She’s used the striking combo in each home where she and Karl lived. Many people would be too timid to paint their walls jet black, but not the woman who scoffs at beige. Brenda isn’t neutral on anything, including décor.
Her flair for the dramatic may stem from her theater career. For her master’s thesis at UNC Chapel Hill, she wrote about the value theatrical productions could have to elementary and middle-school students if the curriculum were reinforced. In 1981, she founded the Greensboro-based nonprofit Touring Theatre of North Carolina to do just that.
She often had to buy furniture on the cheap to use on stage, so she knew everywhere in Greensboro to score a bargain. Her go-to spot was, and remains, The Red Collection. It’s one of the largest consignment stores in the Southeast, and it’s where Brenda found a living room sofa for $350.
A collector’s eye
Brenda sums up her style as “collected.”
Mexican painter Juan Carlos Breceda is one of her favorite artists — Brenda appreciates his sense of humor. He often adds a whimsical, even nonsensical, element to his portraits. The woman featured in the Breceda print hanging above her living room sofa has a chicken on her head.
In the dining room, assorted Zulu baskets were brought home from two trips to South Africa. A collection of antique mirrors enlivens and helps visually expand the small space.
The antique china cabinet hails from England — Brenda discovered it in Chicago in 1968. Among the treasures inside are a set of goblets that were gifted by the staff at a South African game lodge she and Karl visited for their 40th anniversary. Each glass has a different animal — an elephant, a rhinoceros and others — etched on it.
The floor-to-ceiling column Brenda brought from her former home was given pride of place; you notice it when you walk in the front door. Her dear friend, Donnie Dorsett, painted it using a feather.
‘The thrill of the hunt’
Donnie, who died in 2024, loved thrifting and often accompanied Brenda on her shopping expeditions.
“He had an eye,” Brenda says. She describes her friend as an “odd-job man” who could “paint, sew and fix anything.” She and Donny once painted zebra stripes on a foot locker to use as a coffee table. He also made a zebra-patterned slipcover for a Lee Industries chair in her living room.
Brenda and her late husband, Karl Schleunes
“Donny and I loved the thrill of the hunt,” she says. “I still do. I don’t need anything, and I certainly shouldn’t buy anything at my age. But when I find the perfect something …”
Brenda doesn’t need to finish the sentence. She’d already pointed out a basket she bought from Slate Interiors simply because it looked African. She’s been to Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Morocco and Egypt. Just last year, she traveled to Meru, Kenya, for a niece’s wedding. As a ceremonial welcome, the groom’s family presented her with a white beaded collar, a wearable work of art that’s now hanging in her dining room.
Brenda believes in displaying, rather than hiding, one’s treasures. The beads she brought home from Jerusalem, where she and Karl lived while he was a visiting professor, are displayed on one of the small drink tables Brenda collects. (She loves their flexibility and maneuverability.)
You get the feeling Brenda has never followed rules or colored within the lines. And at 86, she’s not about to start. SP
