This Is a Home Made for Every Type of Party — With a Design That’s a Celebration of Good Times, Wellness, and Everything in Between

A home gym, an onsen, a bar, and a cigar room — this stylishly sociable home makes the case for a life of balance

Kitchen-diner with banquette dining area built into island
(Image credit: Richard Pickavance)
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"The homeowner loves wellness and celebration in equal measures — as we all should do," says Portia Fox, the interior designer behind this impressively sprawling and architecturally rich four-storey home in Chelsea, west London. She offered a turnkey service for her client, even going so far as to fill his jars with lentils and buy him slippers.

Working on this modern home, Portia Fox transformed the basement and staircase, changed the ceiling and floor height, and generally injected the spaces with her signature polish.

White living room with wooden built-in joinery either side of a white marble staircase, brown armchairs, grey curved sofa, glass and black-legged coffee table, smokey rug and wood parquet flooring

"The smokiness of the rug evokes more of an evening entertaining feel, but by keeping the living room light and airy, it can be used for quiet reading in the day as well," says Portia. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

It’s a place that reflects both sides of the owner's personality, with an onsen, ice bath, massage table, sauna, and smartly kitted-out home gym close to a fully-stocked home bar, a games table, a wine fridge big enough for 2,000 bottles, and even a humidor room for cigar smoking.

In fact, part of the original brief for the basement level (where you’ll find all the hedonism-related areas) was that all the furniture should be able to be danced upon.

Games area with grey round table, black and rattan chairs, and gold wall lights against beige panelled wall

The convivial round table has a lazy Susan in the middle, which Portia says is perfect for playing games, "especially poker". (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

Basement lounge with grey polished plaster panels, teal chairs and black and white coffee table

"Using polished plaster inside the panels was a way of creating subtle contrast, breaking up this vast space without causing too much visual noise," says Portia of the basement lounge. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

But despite this amped-up attitude to partying, the overall feel of the home is one of peace and serenity, with its pared-back and polished palette of well-chosen gray tones, creamy whites, and the occasional warm brown.

"It was very important to the owner that he was able to feel calm at all times," Portia explains. "And that he wanted to be able to see the floor. He’s Scandinavian, so has an aversion to carpets — but we made sure that every room looked and felt good underfoot."

Home bar with black stone backdrop, navy ribbed island front, and orange-red bar stools

"Because the lights have a ceramic core, they create a soft glow, making this whole space feel so sophisticated," says Portia. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

What’s most noticeable about this house is its sense of flow. Structurally incredible staircases curve or snake between floors, ceilings have been raised, and floors dropped to create cavernous four-meter-high rooms, while air and light pass through double-height and triple-width door frames.

"We just wanted to create subtle moments of contrast, so you could almost glide from one space to the next," says Portia, who worked with Stanhope Gate Architecture on the build.

An onsen with warm white walls and steps with seat cushions leading up to the bathing area

"We added the seat cushions and steps so that people could sit and chat here," Portia says. "The whole onsen experience is meant to be quite sociable." (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

Cloakroom with rough-edged grey marble vanity and green Kintsugi wallpapered walls

"We chose a rough edge to the marble vanity in the cloakroom because it made the shape less blocky, with space for air to flow through," says Portia. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

It’s an approach that has seen her fill in corniced panels with polished plaster, select roughly-hewn marble for vanity edges, and occasionally swap timber floorboards for stone in chevron patterns.

Then there are the standout lights: sculptural and big enough to fill the empty space between high ceiling and low floor, but always with room to allow air to pass through them and always emitting only the warmest of glows.

"We only ever use 2,700K Kelvin bulbs in any project, so every space is slightly rosy," says Portia. "It adds to the overall feeling of rhythm here, of every design choice washing over you, with storage concealed and details hidden where possible."

Bedroom with beige panelled walls, grey upholstered bed, wood bedside table and white bed linen

Relatively free of adornment, the main modern bedroom takes up most of the first floor. Portia has carried through her use of polished plaster to fill the area inside wall panels to great effect. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

A freestanding white bathtub in the main bedroom with beige walls and beige curtains

"The idea for a bathtub in the main bedroom came after the owner stayed at Ett Hem, a hotel in Stockholm designed by Ilse Crawford," says Portia. (Image credit: Richard Pickavance)

Ultimately, this is a house made for entertaining. "You can have guests over and host them in so many different ways and spaces," notes Portia. "Drinks in the orangery, cards in the basement, or dinner in the dining room.

Even the onsen is designed to be social, with bouclé-covered benches for friends to perch on and chat in between dips. But, equally, each area can also be used just by the owner, to sit quietly and peacefully with a book, to pour a drink, and just relax."

In other words, it’s the perfect place for a New Year’s reset — after all the socializing of the Christmas season, that is.

Pip Rich
Executive Editor

The editor of Livingetc, Pip Rich (formerly Pip McCormac) is a lifestyle journalist of almost 20 years experience working for some of the UK's biggest titles. As well as holding staff positions at Sunday Times Style, Red and Grazia he has written for the Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and ES Magazine. The host of Livingetc's podcast Home Truths, Pip has also published three books - his most recent, A New Leaf, was released in December 2021 and is about the homes of architects who have filled their spaces with houseplants. He has recently moved out of London - and a home that ELLE Decoration called one of the ten best small spaces in the world - to start a new renovation project in Somerset.