25 Beautiful Homes October 2019

We are featuring a lot of brave homeowners this month. Confident decorating decisions, complex planning challenges and large-scale renovations all make for some juicy stories. A bright yellow kitchen, a black-walled living room and a turquoise hallway are just three of the stand-out spaces to discover, and then there’s Laurie and Solomon Parker’s home in a former Turkish bath house that’s pretty epic (page 128). It even includes a vintage bowling alley that once belonged to Roman Abramovich. Autumn is a key project season, so now is a good time to bend your mind to any improvements on your hit list. Clever tricks abound for all styles and sizes of space. There is an Edwardian terrace in Marlow that is particularly full of easy ideas to steal (page 73). Hilary…

The solid vernacular house built by Selina van der Geest and her husband Eduard is so deeply rooted in its majestic, sweeping landscape, that it is hard to imagine it began as a few pen strokes across a Parisian napkin. Selina, an English interior designer, and her New York-based husband were sitting in a café in Paris, while on holiday when they lightheartedly started drawing plans of their dream home. At first, it seemed as if the fabric of their dreams would remain as flimsy as the napkin it was sketched upon, but in a stroke of serendipity, soon after, they were able to purchase 18 acres of land on an idyllic virgin site, later supplemented by an additional 12 acres, some two hours’ drive north of New York City in…

Back in 2004, Bengt Björklund began searching for a house in the country. ‘I wanted a rural retreat I could escape to from my busy life in Stockholm,’ says Bengt, who owns and runs a management consultancy in the capital. ‘I wanted somewhere I could come for weekends and spend the whole summer. Naturally, I thought of Scania, where I grew up. It’s always so calm and peaceful there.’ Having chosen the area, one house stood out from all the others. With its contemporary design, sleek exterior and tall windows, it was strikingly different from the rest of the summer homes in the area, which were mostly fisherman’s cottages or more traditional Swedish houses. ‘There was something special about this house,’ says Bengt. ‘It was so warm and cosy, and filled…

From the Folies Bergère to a Brad Pitt movie set, Laura and Stuart McKay were sourcing items far and wide for their beachside home long before they had even found it. ‘We love to grab interesting pieces whenever we see them – even if we don’t know how we’ll eventually use them,’ admits Laura. However, in 2017 that opportunity came along. The couple had been looking for a weekend retreat when they found this Seventies chalet bungalow. ‘It was unremarkable with a downstairs bathroom and no heating, but we fell in love with the location by the beach and knew this could be our bolthole,’ says Stuart. The property was rewired, replumbed, the floors and roof were replaced, bathrooms and a handmade kitchen were designed and built in situ and an extension…

Becky Cooper and her husband, Andrew, saw their present house long before they owned it. ‘The clock tower caught our eye every time we drove past it,’ says Becky. ‘We were living in a modern property nearby, but longed for a home with character and more space for our children.’ When the house came on to the market, Becky and Andrew were excited. ‘We were curious to view it,’ says Becky. ‘It was a little out of our budget, but ticked so many boxes for us.’ First impressions, however, were far from favourable. ‘It was an integral part of a converted stable block and was very dark,’ says Becky. ‘I was brought up in Sweden and have a Scandinavian love of light, so I was put off.’ Once the couple ventured upstairs, however,…

Anna and Alistair Jenkinson knew that their period property in Kent would need work – but it wasn’t until the builders arrived that they realised exactly how much. ‘We were prepared for some big expenses, as the house hadn’t been touched since the Sixites,’ says Anna. ‘The whole of the basement was damp, it needed a new roof and new chimneys, and many of the sash windows were rotten. The builders also discovered two separate old heating systems, which needed to be united. And that was just the start of the renovations.’ The couple decided to renovate in two stages, renting the house out after the first, while saving to tackle the second. Firstly they replaced the old roof and windows, rebuilding the chimney stacks and removing the dated carpets. ‘We…