London calling: we reflect on five favourite London townhouses that showcase the best of British interior style.
London is a city of contrasts; the old and new, ornate and minimal, refined and relaxed. A city with a strong architectural history while continuing to shape and reshape itself through the melting pot of people, cultures and styles that call it home.
It’s a city that also struggles with the usual constraints of urban living: space, light and room to inject one’s own personality. The designers behind these five favourite London townhouses not only show us how to overcome these challenges, but to work with them for creativity and originality – a design lesson applicable the world over.
Louisa Grey’s North London home
A recent favourite on est, designer Louisa Grey shared her Finsbury Park townhouse with us for our My Space series.
Drawn to the endless possibilities of spatial configurations within the home, Louisa and her team at House of Grey stripped the townhouse back to its bare bones in order to reimagine it more mindfully. The result is a home that reconnects to the building’s original details while improving the flow and personality of the spaces. Carefully curated furniture pieces and hand-selected artwork throughout infuse the home with Louisa’s definitive eye for good design, while the colour and material palette create a calming ambiance.
It was key to Louisa that the home would have longevity in mind; a place her son would grow up in and that would evolve with their family. “The design is understated but provides my family and I with a retreat space that brings pleasure into the every day” says Louisa – and after exploring the elegant, generous spaces of this home (not to mention that bathroom) we couldn’t agree with her more.
Ladbroke Crescent by McLaren Excell
Excell in name, excel in nature – the well-respected British firm bring their expertise in spatial flow and functionality to this traditional brown brick home in Ladbroke Grove. Redefining the home from the outside in, McLaren Excell maximised space by creating seperate communal and private spaces across the split-level home, and adding a new top floor and basement level.
With the expanded structure of the home providing more room for light and space, an overhaul of the home’s materiality and a significant refurbishment brought the interior firmly into the modern day. Continuous use of sleek concrete, warm oak and brass throughout the home evokes an assured, yet elegant personality.
Butterfly House by Biasol
Melbourne may be far from this home’s postcode, but Melbourne-based design firm Biasol unite a modern Australian aesthetic with traditional English-style foundations in this townhouse. Taking its name from the shape of its roof and newfound light-filled spaces, the house embodies the visual transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.
An instant refresh of the home was achieved through the transformative effect of natural light, with Biasol replacing the diving walls with open-plan living, dining and kitchen areas and adding skylights throughout. The 90-square-metre home can now soak up the sun and its inhabitants can revel in the bright, colourful and charismatic style of the updated interior spaces.
Sheena Murphy’s Queens Park home
We’ve followed nune founder Sheena Murphy’s impeccable design nous from New York back to her hometown of London, and for good reason: a peek inside her historic Queens Park home offers a master class in bringing the best out of a rental.
Sheena’s design injection to the home includes a new coat of paint throughout, replacing light fixtures and adding some new London pieces for the main living spaces – while filling it with all of her favourite vintage and contemporary finds. Who says you need to own your home in order to make it stylistically your own?
Dewsbury Road by O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects
As seen in est magazine Issue 30, O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects have replaced a poorly laid out 1970s addition with a highly-crafted solution to this north London townhouse.
With the owners hoping for a unified space connecting the interior with the garden, O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects created this through both the architecture and the materiality, showcasing the beauty of buttery timber and new ‘London stock’ brick walls.
