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This month, we’re delighted to feature a truly wide selection of AMAZING homes – everything from a seaside townhouse and a flamboyant Cornish manor to an apartment in Amsterdam and a pied-à-terre in central London. We love the STYLE and VIBRANCY of Michael and Olivia Costello’s Georgian abode in Kent (p8). And take a look at how Amica Studio have brought instant character to a city new build with a balance of understated elegance and splashes of pattern (p37). We’re also keen to bring you rooms in more detail, so take a look at our two fabulous kitchen CASE STUDIES (p80 and p104) for lots of inspiration to help you with your own transformation.…
HOME TRUTHS THE PROPERTY A four-storey 18th-century Georgian townhouse on the seafront ROOMS Hallway, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, upstairs sitting room, main bedroom, two guest bedrooms, two bathrooms LOCATION Kent coast Whether it’s admiring the sunrise through the Georgian windows, drinking their morning tea on the beach or enjoying fish and chips by the woodburner in winter, Michael and Olivia Costello are embracing life just a stone’s throw from the seafront. A lengthy search eventually led to the purchase of a four-storey, listed townhouse in a sought-after location with exceptional sea views. ‘My childhood memories are here as my grandmother lived here and it’s where my parents met,’ says Michael, owner of an advertising agency, whose wife Olivia is a travel writer. ‘I’ve always loved the houses on the…
HOME TRUTHS THE PROPERTY Three-storey terraced house built in 1860 ROOMS Sitting room, living room, reading room, kitchen, dining room, utility, study, six bedrooms, four bathrooms LOCATION Galway, Ireland A feast for the eyes – this Galway city residence, an amazing project suspended between history and modernity and conceived and brought together by Kingston Lafferty Design – is a never-ending surprise. ‘Today it’s a family home for husband, wife and five children, the very epicentre of a hectic and bustling family life,’ says Róisín Lafferty, founder and creative director. Built in the 1860s, this post-Georgian era three-storey house is part of a terrace of similar homes. It’s been a five-year project. ‘We were first approached to look at the house back in December 2018, with Helena McElmeel Architects having started…
HOME TRUTHS THE PROPERTY A detached home built in 1917 ROOMS Sitting room, dining room, kitchen-diner, family room, playroom/den, boot room, gym, two cloakrooms, four bedrooms, four bathrooms LOCATION Washington DC The story of this rather magnificent turn of the century property is quite unusual,’ says designer Martha Vicas of the historic detached house she helped turn into a home. ‘The owners, Emily and Alfred Johnson, actually purchased it during lockdown without viewing it in real life – they just saw images of its shell, newly renovated by a developer and fell in love with its floor plan and large garden.’ The couple, who have two young boys, aged five and three, had been travelling around due to Emily’s training in psychiatry but wanted to settle down in Alfred’s home…
HOME TRUTHS THE PROPERTY Semi-detached new build ROOMS Sitting room, family room/gym, kitchen, pantry, study, two cloakrooms, utility room, four bedrooms, four bathrooms LOCATION Southwest London HOW DID YOU COME TO BE INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT? We met the clients, a South African couple, through recommendation. WHAT WAS THE BRIEF? The clients had bought a plot at the top of the hill and divided it into two, building an identical house in parallel. The difficulty was working with the landscaping and levels to achieve a comfortable property – at its widest point, the house is 4.2 metres and 20 metres long, tiering over four floors and cutting into the landscape, so it was difficult to fit everything in. The brief was to fully design the property, utilising the levels through…
HOME TRUTHS THE PROPERTY Semi-detached Victorian house ROOMS Kitchen-diner, library/parlour/sitting room, basement bar/media/entertainment room, six bedrooms, four bathrooms LOCATION Southwest London ‘The banquette seating in the corner of the kitchen freed up space for people to gather at the back to chat during get-togethers’ We previously lived in a small three-bed terrace in the shadow of Stamford Bridge stadium in Fulham,’ says Lisa. ‘We had two children, Zac and Darcey, who came into my life when I married Giles, and we were keen to find a larger house. We realised that any plans to extend our family would require more space and we were taken with this area of London’s abundance of greenery and good pubs at the end of the road. We found a Victorian property with bags of…
