This Quietly Elegant Apartment Is in a Former Iconic Shopping Center That Every Londoner Will "Have a Story About"
Personalized with pieces by UK artisans, this neutral scheme makes for a home with a real sense of place
How do you approach an oddly configured apartment when its quirks stem from its revered heritage, but the owner feels no particular attachment to its history? That was the challenge that faced interior designer Lisa Mettis when tackling this three-bedroom modern home in the iconic former Whiteleys shopping center in London.
"You say to anyone who grew up in London that you're working on a flat in Whiteleys and they all have a story about it," she says. "They'll have gone there ice skating as a kid, or on a date as a teenager to Café Rouge. So they'll know its famous interior columns and have warm feelings about them."
One of the key requests from the clients was a table they could play chess at, so Lisa created this space in the corner of the living room.
We're seeing these upholstered tubular armchairs everywhere, but this particular design from Six the Residence feels right at home in this chess corner.
This elegant scheme is missing one item typically found in such spaces. "The family didn't want a television," says designer Lisa Mettis, founder of Born & Bred Studio.
Yet said large, concrete poles that crop up in this apartment, one floor beneath the penthouse, had no such romanticism for their new owner, who grew up in America and felt they just got in the way. "We had to find ways to disguise them," says Lisa, founder of Born & Bred Studio.
"We had three different artisans working on this hallway bench and mirror set-up, which was technically one of the hardest things to do. But they all aligned really well and it makes a good spot to sit and take shoes off, which then go in the drawers underneath," says Lisa.
These brass wall lights from Pooky rival the above from Studio Henry Wilson in subtlety — and we love the ridged shape.
"The family wanted a second working space, one where they could go with a laptop and it's really cozy, so could also be for reading," Lisa says of her idea to bring in a little color with the green sofa here. "It's next to the clock tower, so the view is amazing."
This necessity actually might have been the making of the project. One of the pillars Lisa clad in ridged plaster, aesthetically enhancing it, then using the same ribbed effect on neighboring joinery doors. For the other, Lisa clad it in plaster again, then created a twin for it just along the wall, using them either side of a very impressive fireplace. "It was logistically very challenging, but it meant one of those columns actually fades from view," she says.
"This is actually a thin little corridor between other parts of the open-plan living space, but the brass joinery gives it its own personality," says Lisa.
Channel some of the quiet glamour of Born & Bred Studio and Novocastrian's brass shelving unit with this design.
All Lisa had to do with the existing B&B Italia kitchen was soften it with some well-chosen accessories.
A feature the owners did like, however, was the curved ceiling; that, and the way the apartment stretches under the big glass dome atop the building, creating almost panoramic views of the city. "The backdrop is so nice that we didn't want the design to detract from it," says Lisa of her mostly neutral color scheme.
"The owner had always loved this Kelly Wearstler print we used on the headboard but never found a space to use it before. It works here because it's graphic," says Lisa.
"But at the same time," she adds, "we wanted to do something special to honor the fact that it's in such a special building." That meant finessing every tiny detail, adding movement and texture and repetition wherever possible, as well as getting a roster of mostly British makers and artisans to give this American client something she'd not seen before.
"Green is the perfect gender-neutral color, and we wanted something that the tween-age kid wouldn't outgrow," says Lisa. "All they'll need to do is lose the circus stripes when he's a teenager and it'll last him through."
Newcastle-based Novocastrian did the metalwork, Welsh studio Green's created the joinery, and Chelmsford firm Locker & Riley oversaw all the plasterwork. "It meant we could create a warm family home where every aspect worked in harmony and enhanced the overall effect — an apartment that is full of the unexpected, but only after you really take a second look.
"It's a home that warrants questions, which people come in and say, 'Oh, where is that from?' and 'How did you manage that?'" says Lisa. "It feels like no other place but home."
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