A handsome Grade II-listed townhouse on one of west London's prettiest garden squares
When it comes to city living, being situated on a garden square is about as close to the dream as it gets, and it's particularly dreamy in the case of this striking 19th-century house on one of west London’s most sought after squares. The square dates back to the economic boom of the 1820s when the plots started being developed in sets of three. The result is a bucolic setting, where trios of grand houses, abundantly ornamented with columns and pediments, lions and eagles, surround the garden at the centre. Most of them have now been remodelled to give them layouts that suit 21st century family life, and this house is a beautiful example of how to do that while retaining all of the historic charm of the architecture.
Louisa Preskett Mobbs, one of the founders of Maison Margaux, a tableware shop and hire service, and her husband Jeremy had lived there for quite a few years before they decided to go ahead with a redesign. Eventually they called in their friend, the interior designer Angelica Squire, to make it more rational for their family of three children, two cats and one lovely dog. “It is a beautiful house on a beautiful square,” says Angelica, “but they bought it from a family who had slightly sucked the life out of it and added lots of really modern fittings and dodgy coloured wooden floors. Louisa is a very colourful, happy person and let’s just say, it needed some love.”
The house is spread over four floors and can be entered via two doors; the main, original front door brings you to the raised ground floor, where the formal double living room sets the tone alongside a small study and Pierre Frey-bedecked bathroom. The door the family mostly use, however, is in the former garage, now converted to a functional and pretty utility room, with dedicated space for each family member’s coats, shoes, and dog-related paraphernalia. This then leads down to the lower ground floor – the only area that required architectural work in the renovation.
Angelica brought on RJH Architecture, with whom her studio had previously collaborated, and obtained all the necessary permissions to convert the tumbledown garage and push the house a little further out into the garden, working with their preferred team at Kiwi on the build. They also decided to dig down to give the lower ground floor slightly grander proportions. “Jeremy is very tall,” Angelica explains “and so we budgeted for digging it out a bit more to get more head height. It has the added benefit that it doesn’t feel like a basement area now”. This was a key consideration, given that this is where family life happens: the serene white-tiled kitchen is here, alongside a bar area, huge dining space (the family love to entertain) and more informal living area where the children can gather and watch TV.
“It was getting that layout really right that felt like a priority downstairs,” Angelica explains. “They'd probably lived in the house already for about five years and I think they were at their wits’ end with this very tiny footprint that they lived in.” Once this was done, the decoration could take priority. “I had in my mind that there are such beautiful houses on that square and I kept feeling like it needed to be quite timeless and grown up, as well as bringing in these fun prints that Louisa loves and that you see in the Maison Margaux pieces,” she continues. “I always had this vision of the lower ground floor being quite white and light and bright. I think that probably pushed Louisa a bit outside her comfort zone when I said ‘let's do this white kitchen with white tiles and a really bold marble’. It needed to be a serene, calm space where the colour comes in with their artwork and the books they have out and the Maison Margaux pieces, but the backbone of it is quite muted and calm. I just didn't want it to end up being a sort of paint catalogue of one room yellow and the kitchen's blue and so on – we wanted it to be quite harmonious.”
The harmonious feel of the house was helped on by the pre-existing friendship between Angelica and Louisa’s families. “I think there probably was more of an ease to the project,” Angelica admits, “in the fact that we'd been to parties or dinners there, we know how they like to live and we know how they like to lay the table and have the lighting – it does help a lot. I felt quite confident in what I showed her that I felt quite sure of what she would and wouldn't like.” It wasn’t all newly kitted out though, as Louisa and Jeremy “already had a lot of lovely pieces of furniture and a real mix of inherited pieces. We love to try and reuse things with clients. Where we live in this world of everyone buying cheap and throwing away, we would always try on a project to reuse or recover pieces, or if a kitchen's not bad, then just add a new counter or change the doors.”
What projects are next for Studio Squire? Unfazed by the size of this four storey townhouse, Angelica and her team are moving onto a rather massive family house in Barnes, complete with swimming pool and adjoining pool house as well as another not far from Louisa’s house.
studiosquire.co.uk | maisonmargauxltd.com | kiwibuilding.com
Mark Anthony Fox1/16Angelica and Louisa
Mark Anthony Fox2/16Open shelves were incorporated into the kitchen design to display Louisa’s ever growing collection of china and glassware.
Mark Anthony Fox3/16A designated bar area was designed to fit into a corner of the kitchen, next to the dining table.
Mark Anthony Fox4/16Louisa requested space for a dining table that sat at least 12 people, and up to 20, given the family's love of entertaining. The dining table is laid with all Maison Margaux pieces.
Mark Anthony Fox5/16The artwork is an existing piece from Louisa and Jeremy's collection. The chair is from By Lydia and the lamp is antique.
Mark Anthony Fox6/16The original front door opens to a raised ground floor, where stairs lead to the master suite and up again to the children's bedrooms
Mark Anthony Fox7/16The mirror is an inherited antique from Louisa's mother.
Mark Anthony Fox8/16Existing pieces in the formal living space were recovered in Soane and Guy Goodfellow fabrics. The large artwork is by Tom Hammick.
Mark Anthony Fox9/16A Pierre Frey wallpaper brings a sense of fun to a downstairs bathroom.
Mark Anthony Fox10/16In keeping with the use of warm neutrals throughout the house, Angelica chose ‘Slipper Satin’ from Farrow & Ball for the main bedroom. The bed tester is made up of Guy Goodfellow’s Olive Sacking and a plain linen. The end of bed bench was an existing piece recovered in a Ralph Lauren fabric, that was previously a landing blind.
Mark Anthony Fox11/16Angelica had already made the curtains for the couple when they first moved in, so they remained in place and were the blueprint for the bed tester.
Mark Anthony Fox12/16The master bathroom had no built in joinery so drawers and tall cupboards were added around the existing double marble vanity. The hardware is from Corston and the lights are Original BTC.
Mark Anthony Fox13/16The daughter's bedroom is one of the smallest, so Angelica created a wonderful fairytale four poster bed tucked into the corner that makes the small room feel extra special. The fabric is Colefax & Fowler's ‘Dart Stripe’ and the wallpaper is from Dado Atelier.
Mark Anthony Fox14/16The garden has a coach house in it, which was the first thing that Angelica overhauled in the midst of lockdown.
Mark Anthony Fox15/16Maison Margaux products on the garden table.
Mark Anthony Fox16/16The garden is small but with the square right outside the front door, the priority was to steal space from the garden and use it to make the interior more workable instead.
