Residing partly in Dalkey, London interior designer Zoe Willis has used fabrics and paints of a design house co-founded by a Dubliner to create this textured and soothing space, which includes a listening suite.
Pics: Vigo Jansons
Home is a place we go to feel safe, to close the front door and exhale, leaving the outside world in the hall.
London-based Zoe Willis of Zoe Willis Design is an honorary Irishwoman.
She summers in Dalkey and is a fan of House of Hackney, a design house co-founded by Dubliner Frieda Gormley.
She is also feted for her visual storytelling talent, previously working with brands at Net-a-Porter and publication house Conde Nast before flexing her decorating skills.
She also brings colour therapy and colour theory to the mix.
Her clients, the owners of this Clapham Victorian house, travelled a lot, working overseas.
The house was a respite from that freneticism.
The brief was that it was to feel calm and soothing. And, there was a place for their many interesting finds on those travels.
They wanted colour and texture but needed help translating what that meant, she explains.
“They had found my profile online and saved it for two years before they contacted me.”
It was the first property that they had owned in 20 years, having travelled and rented. In short, they wanted to put down roots, physically and decoratively.
Their Afghan rug collection inspired the colour palette. She suggested a colour-drenching approach to create a cocooning effect.
The Victorian terraced house also had several original features that helped her build her narrative.
Tiles from that era were still in situ in the hall, and the colours of the stained-glass panels in the windows helped frame the approach.
The couple are film fans and audiophiles.
So, she’s installed a listening suite and a “wonky sense of symmetry” that one of their preferred directors, Wes Anderson, favours.
This is executed by mirroring colour placement and accents between the two interconnecting rooms.
Period features remain. Architraving, cornicing, ceiling roses and decorative work are drenched in colour and appear as ghosts of their bygone era, nowhere moreso than in the blue half of the space, where the outline of a door that is no longer in use and its surrounding decoration still pushes out from the wall, doffing a cap at the past but not overwhelming the clients preference for a mid-century sensibility.
Walls here are painted in Lobelia blue, by London’s House of Hackney, co-founded by Dubliner Frieda Gormley and her husband Javvy M Royle.
The blue is named after a plant that is believed to promote contentment and serenity. Its steely hue evokes positive energy and a sense of tranquillity.
A Cornaro sofa by Carlo Scarpa for Cassina has been upholstered in a tonal colour but has a glossy lacquered frame that teams with the contrasting russet-coloured Salvia, by the same company, and also on the chromatically cool side of the spectrum.
The fireplace makes a statement. Mutina’s Rombini small triangular tile in brun, an award-winning design by brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, features an exacting enamel that ensures exceptional colour rendering.
These fill the chimneybreast, climbing all the way to the ceiling in a textured column.
She’s juxtaposed this with Salvia, named after a plant, used in medieval spells and potions for its protective powers, the salvia flower is also said to hold healing and calming properties for the body and mind.
The blue undertone in this vibrant red is part of the reason the colours work so well together.
It also lends it a richness that makes it welcoming. It is also used with the colour Nasturtium.
In this room, there is an Eames lounger and footstool that one half of the couple had hankered after for years.
It’s where he can pop on headphones and listen to his vinyl collection and also read.
The built-in cabinetry includes a shelf for the turntable and also front-facing displays for the record sleeves.
A pair of Utrecht chairs, upholstered in a felted wool, sit under the windows, whose plantation shutters screen out the day.
The front room is more formal, while the back room is meant to be a retreat and is set around an open fire, has a fully stocked bar and a curtain that can be swished shut when you want to close out the world.
The curtain wasn’t yet in situ when the shots were taken, but it is a smart way to dispense with doors, be they the fold-back kind, traditionally seen in these spaces, or sliding pocket styles of later eras.
The curtain is double-fronted, faced with two luxurious fabrics, each one relating to the side of the space it is in. If features two House of Hackney prints.
On one side is Anaconda, the brand’s signature serpent and symbol of immortality and life force, in a cut cotton, viscose, cupro mix raised velvet, a technique based on classic damask designs that feels utterly tactile to touch.
On the carnelian side is Phantasia, a cotton/polyester printed velvet in an orange selenite colourway that features winged beasts amongst stylised clouds of colour, flowers and toadstools,
In the primary bedroom, House of Hackney Zanjan wallpaper’s Indian influences can be seen and align with the client's existing pieces.
The surfaces are drenched in Anenome, a rich, ripe plum colour, also House of Hackney.
There is a boutique hotel sensibility to her aesthetic, which is fitting, for she is branching out into a collection of mainland Europe-based establishments.
She’s also planning to set up shop in Dalkey this summer.
A double-fronted curtain divides the interconnecting rooms.
Faced with two luxurious Gouse of Hackney fabrics, each one relates to the colour scheme on that side of the space.
To see more or book an appointment, visit Zoe Willis Design
