Walking through the beautifully preserved 1922 home of Joe Duggan and Lucía Landa on Flora Place in south St. Louis is like taking a trip around the world. Filled with antiques, art and artifacts from Lucía’s native Mexico, as well as Saudi Arabia, where the couple lived for six years, and other countries they’ve traveled to, a piece of history lies around every corner.

The house itself has a bit of history as well. It was designed by local architect Ernest P. Hess, who was best known as the architect of the recently demolished Pevely Dairy building at Grand and Chouteau avenues. Hess designed this house for Harry P. Riefling, who with his brother Frank owned one of the first Ford automobile dealerships and served as a local alderman.

The boyhood home of Joe’s father, the late Martin Duggan of the Globe-Democrat and Nine Network’s Donnybrook, still stands directly south, on the other side of Tower Grove Park.

“It is likely that my father’s uncle, Jerome Duggan, was a visitor to the Riefling house. Jerome and his wife and daughter lived on the 3800 block of Flora during the early 1930s, and he ran for mayor of St. Louis in 1933, losing the Democratic primary to Bernard Dickmann, who went on to become a notable mayor,” Joe says.

When Joe and Lucía bought the house in December 2011 after living abroad, their real estate agent discovered the original blueprints, which they had framed, as well as a photo of the house when it was new, looking nearly the same as it does today.

Joe, a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, was living in Washington, D.C., when he first met Lucía on the online dating site eHarmony. Though she lived in Mexico City, they began a long-distance courtship before marrying in 2004. Lucía relocated to Washington, her first time living in the United States. In 2009, Joe got a great job opportunity in Saudi Arabia. Before moving there, however, the couple and their young daughter, Rita, spent four months in Mexico City, traveling to beautiful destinations, including the small ranching towns of Jalisco, where Lucía’s mother was born.

“On return visits to Mexico after our move to Arabia, we were more and more attentive to the Arab ‘Moorish’ influence in Spanish Colonial style. We traveled extensively in the Middle East and observed more and more, and we collected what we could,” Joe says.

A fine example is the stunningly detailed wood portal surrounding a window in the dining room believed to be from Afghanistan, which Joe and Lucía purchased from an architectural antiques dealer in Saudi Arabia. Under the window, a plant-filled urn sits atop two treasured family heirlooms — antique travel trunks belonging to Lucía’s maternal grandmother, which she used when she was a migrant worker.

In the spacious foyer, a primitive, tribal-style door in washed hues of blue and green hangs on the wall. The door, more than 100 years old, was once the entrance to a house in Riyadh, the heart of Saudi Arabia. More antiques fill the living room, including a pair of intricately carved solid teak window panels set inside the window frames on either side of the fireplace that came from a mosque in Oman.

In what was once an unfinished basement, the couple created a complete guest apartment where Lucía’s mother recently stayed during an extended visit, including a kitchen and dining area, bathroom, bedroom and a cozy Arab-style sitting room with traditional floor sofa cushions custom made in Saudi Arabia.

Upstairs, Joe has a special piece of his own family history — his dad’s stately editor’s desk from the old Globe-Democrat offices. Framed and hanging above it is his official letter of appointment as presidential speechwriter, signed by Bush. After many years of traveling and living away, Joe couldn’t be more pleased to share the joys of his native city with his family.

“St. Louis was always home to me, in some ways even more so during the 42 years away,” he says. “Nostalgia has a strong pull. Until I was 10 years old, I lived with my family in north St. Louis city, on Holly Avenue near O’Fallon Park. I walked to and from school along brick-paved alleys, and I never got old urban St. Louis out of my system or my heart.”

Joseph Duggan and Lucía Landa

Ages • Joe is 62, and Lucía is 44

Occupation • A former presidential speechwriter, Joe recently started his own public affairs consulting firm, C-Suite Strategic Counsel (c-suitestrategy.com). Lucía is retired from a career in marketing.

Home • Flora Place neighborhood in south St. Louis

Family • Joe and Lucía have a 12-year-old daughter, Rita; and Joe has two grown sons from a previous marriage.