Hugh Leslie deploys his signature subtle palette and clever joinery in a London family home
From an interior decoration point of view, the question of how a house comes to look the way it does is an interesting one. Some houses bear the unmistakable stamp of a particular decorator, who has imposed his or her style on everything sometimes to the extent that the owner's personality disappears. Others are much more their owner's creation, which the decorator has simply fine-tuned or enhanced, sometimes so subtly that it's hard to tell that a decorator has had a hand in the house at all. But there's also a third way, which this west-London house exemplifies perfectly.
Here the owners - an American couple with two young children -had a certain amount of their own furniture and an interesting collection of pictures, but when they bought the house in 2009, they had no strong feelings about how they wanted it to look. ‘We loved the cool, pared-down style of a house belonging to a Swedish art collector, which we had seen in a magazine,’ say the owners, ‘and we were looking around for someone who could help us achieve a similar feel.’
Enter Hugh Leslie, who was introduced to them by the furniture dealer Christopher Howe, who had sourced many pieces of furniture for them over the years. Hugh, a dapper New Zealander whose work will already be familiar to regular readers of House & Garden, moved to London in 1987, and his first job was at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. After Colefax, he moved to John Stefanidis, then Mlinaric, Henry & Zervudachi, before he went on to become a director for Chester Jones. Hugh started his own practice, Hugh Leslie Design, in 2000, and hasn't looked back since.
'The design here evolved in the process of getting to know the owners,' explains Hugh. 'As a practice, we do everything, from architectural work to designing furniture; here there was a certain amount of structural work to do, which gave us plenty of time to get to know each other. We spent six months doing architectural drawings, and the design fell into place after that.' Work started in early 2010 and took about a year to complete.
The house, built in the early 1860s, belongs to a fairly typical west London terrace, with a basement kitchen, raised ground floor and two storeys of bedrooms above. It was in a reasonable condition, but the basement badly needed reordering. 'There was a poky little kitchen at the back,' Hugh recalls, 'with a great big pillar in the middle that supported the back wall of the house.' By replacing the pillar with a steel cross-beam, now hidden, Hugh was able to open up the room, creating a spacious, light-filled kitchen where the owners spend a lot of their time. With its mix of country furniture and stoneware, painted-wood wall units and a large, oak central island, it's a relaxed, very liveable room that the owners evidently love. 'Their friends are always telling them it's the nicest kitchen in London,' says Hugh.
In the front third of the basement is a family space with a television and a seating area, plus plenty of built-in storage. Under the front steps, in what was previously a store, Hugh has fitted a downstairs loo, with bevelled tiles and a cleverly recessed sink framed in the same pale-grey marble used for the kitchen surfaces and splash backs. Here, as throughout the house, you can see examples of Hugh's deceptively simple joinery; which is something of a trademark. 'Never skimp on quality joinery;' says Hugh. 'That would be one of my top design tips.'
On the raised ground floor, the front steps lead up to an entrance hall. The floorboards here and throughout the house are original, though they have all been sanded and reconditioned. The sitting room is at the front, and has a slightly Fifties feel, created partly by Hugh's plank-and-marble chimneypiece and partly by the quirky furniture, which matches the couple's paintings very well. It opens into a small library at the back, with french windows and more furniture designed by Hugh.
At the top of the stairs on the first floor is an oddly deep landing, created at some point when the house was extended at the back. It could be wasted space, but now it includes a handsome built-in wooden wardrobe - the landing below has similarly been cleverly converted into a small study space complete with a customised Habitat desk. At the front is the pretty, generously proportioned main bedroom, with a matching wardrobe for the wife. Its walls are lined with the same buff-pink linen as the pelmets and the curtains, which adds an extra touch of glamour to the room. Behind it is the en-suite bathroom, with simple panelling, hand-built units and a walk-in shower lined in teak, which feels a bit like entering a first-class compartment on a vintage train.
The top floor is devoted to the children, with the son's room in off-white and the daughter's in soft green, plus a bathroom on the half-landing. Hugh's talent for joinery is evident here as well: tongue-and-groove recesses frame the children's beds, with capacious cupboard space on either side. What's particularly nice about this house is the way that, while Hugh's imprint - with its pale palette, plain joinery and nods to mid-century modern style - is unmistakable, it still feels very much like a family home. It's a fine balance, but one all too rarely achieved.
Simon Brown1/4Structural alterations to the basement layout mean that the kitchen now feels spacious and flooded with light. The slightly beaten up blue dresser came from LASSCO.
Simon Brown2/4In the daughter's bedroom, the check curtains and upholstered bed are in 'Small Check Sea Mist' fabric from Chelsea Textiles.
Simon Brown3/4The built-in shower enclosure in the main bathroom was designed by Hugh.
Simon Brown4/4The walls in the main bedroom are in 'Prelle Toile Barbare' fabric by Alton Brooke.
