HOUSE 10
The amazing aesthetic of this renovated Georgian house encompasses the modern, the classic and the charmingly bold
There’s a real Oscar Wilde-y feel to this home,’ Jennifer Hamilton, director of The Vawdrey House, says of one of the firm’s latest projects in London. The clients, an Australian couple, had watched as Jennifer and her team worked on their neighbours’ property and acted quickly to appoint the f irm for their own home.
‘We get a lot of work through client referrals, but this one was particularly exciting as we had already redeveloped one side of this pair of grand semidetached Georgian houses,’ Jennifer explains.
While both houses had the same footprint, their respective owners differed dramatically in taste. ‘We really enjoy the variety of the work and we are versatile with our design language,’ she adds. ‘We always look at both architecture and interior design from the start, anticipating usage and planning with foresight.’
The owners had lived in the house for 23 years, and with two teenage children, they wanted more space, connectivity and to overhaul the lower-ground floor of the house, which had been neglected and underused for years. ‘At one point the house had been divided into flats, so on the lower-ground floor there was a side door, but little connection to the garden. There was a study and a guest room, but they were damp and cold. It felt like a lost floor,’
Jennifer says. The owners, having always enjoyed the kitchen and living layout on the raised upperground floor, opted to leave them put. ‘Not many houses have stuck to this tradition,’ Jennifer notes.
‘So, our challenge was how to give this main floor a greater connection to the garden.’
The solution was for the kitchen to open onto a roof terrace above the new lower-ground floor extension. A new set of steps lead into the large garden. ‘It feels much closer to the house now,’ says
Jennifer. ‘Previously, you had to go out of a side door and down a narrow steel spiral staircase to reach it.’ While planning permission f
