A Chelsea townhouse brought back to life with a characterful and calm interior
For those who work in interiors, surely one of the trickiest things about the job is knowing when to emotionally disconnect from a project. There will be countless interior designers who find themselves so attached to a space they have crafted that they are envious of the client who gets to live in it, and antique dealers are known for holding onto the odd piece with which they are particularly enamoured. For Jack Simpson, founder of Nomad Developments, this dilemma saw him buying back a house from his company, completely renovating it and moving in with his wife, Sam, a stylist from New York, and their newborn son Kai. The house, a Georgian townhouse on one of Chelsea’s most coveted streets, has come a long way in the three years since the couple bought it. What was once a series of tired and unloved spaces has been reinvigorated by Jack and Sam's keen eye for design and ability to masterfully layer textures, colours, antiques and art, resulting in a grown up, warm family home.
Jack has property in his blood, having worked for his father's residential development company after university. At the time, he had very little intention of making a lifelong career out of it but ‘the longer I stayed, the more I fell in love with the design elements of crafting a home’ he explains. He went on to found Nomad, which today specialises in buying land and building period-style newbuilds, decorated by the studio's in-house interior design team. ‘It’s not just about chucking money at stuff’, he says of his success, ‘you have to design it properly’.
His own house began its life as a Nomad project. In 2022, following Liz Truss’ mini-budget which sent the housing market into turmoil, Jack pulled out of a large development project in Richmond and was in search of something smaller to occupy his team. Sam, a Rightmove devotée, came across a house in Chelsea belonging to the Cadogan Estate. It had been rented out for decades and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Reluctant to invest in the work the house needed, the Cadogan Estate put it on the market in an unusual move, which made this house one of just two on the street that are privately owned.
‘Whilst we were getting underway with all the legal stuff and the planning permission, Sam and I were paying too much in rent just the other side of Chelsea Barracks’, explains Jack. ‘We started to think that maybe the house could be a nice place for us to start a family. We decided that we would hold on to it, so I bought it back from the company and we ran it as a private client project’. Immediately, things changed: ‘our whole approach became so personal. We were able to lean into the things you really want to do that wouldn’t necessarily be ubiquitous in a development’.
Built in the 1850s, the house is a handsome example of Georgian-era architecture, with a pleasingly symmetrical, classical facade. The inside, however, revealed very little of these charming 19th-century roots. ‘It looked like you had entered a time capsule from the 1970s. The house was damp everywhere and very compartmentalised. It had clearly been badly renovated three or four times in its life – it was a patchwork quilt of poor renovations’, Jack recalls. And so began the mammoth project of reconfiguring the house while also reinstating some of the period charm that had been stripped out.
In a process known as ‘façade-retention rebuilding’, the inside of the house was demolished. They dug down into the basement to transform a pokey lower-ground floor into a generous, open-plan live-cook-eat space with high ceilings. Walls and doors elsewhere were knocked through to create a better flow and the roof completely revamped too. ‘At one point, if you walked through the front door and took one step forward, you would have fallen three meters into the basement and if you looked up you would have seen the sky’, says Jack.
Georgian-style skirting, architraves and cornicing were reinstated throughout, with Jack saying ‘my view is that if you are doing up a period building in London, don’t try to make it look like a villa in Ibiza. Stay true to what the property is. I think it works best when you have nods to the era to which it belongs.’
The couple were careful to maintain a feeling of calm and airiness, aided in part by large windows and a neutral colour palette, so that they could introduce their own personality through art and furniture. Sam, a born-and-bred New Yorker, enjoys a bolder, more playful approach to design, seen in the bright pink wallpaper that lines the ceiling of her walk-in wardrobe, and the orange and white chequerboard tiles in the hallway, inspired by the Cipriani hotel in Venice. The yin to her yang, Jack was on hand to ‘ground the house and make sure the bones are calm’, citing the light touch of decorators Jake Arnold and Rose Uniacke as inspiration. Through a layering of textured fabrics in rich colours – velvet on the headboard in the guest bedrooms, bouclé wool on the iconic ‘Matteo sofa’ by RH, and curtains in a tactile linen – a sense of warmth was introduced.
Antiques picked up in Parisian flea markets sit in harmony with bespoke furniture and art by up-and-coming contemporary artists. Particularly precious are the framed Air France posters hanging in Jack’s study which the couple bought at auction and which once belonged to Freddie Mercury. Though somewhat surprised to learn that the hammer price was not the final amount due, and having regrettably put bids on a few items, for Jack and Sam there is a joy in knowing that one of their favourite performers enjoyed the same playful artworks that now brighten their walls.
In the moment of calm between finishing the project and Kai’s arrival, Jack and Sam hosted friends for Thanksgiving dinner. ‘It was a great test for how the house would work,’ says Jack. ‘The ground floor was perfect. We had the doors to the garden open, and everyone gathered around the island. The children were all in the snug like a crêche’, he recalls fondly. ‘This is how we designed it to be used and now we’re seeing it in full swing. It’s just working and it’s so lovely’.
Kensington Leverne1/20Farrow & Ball’s ‘Stirabout’ provides a backdrop for a marble chequerboard floor, inspired by the one in the lift of the Cipriani hotel in Venice. A bespoke mirror hangs above a bench made by Pierre Jeanerette.
Kensington Leverne2/20This space opposite the sitting room on the first floor feels light and airy. A travertine table sourced from Belgium sits below the ‘Milan’ light from Paolo Moschino, while stools covered in ‘Fauve Tiger Mountain’ by Dedar and a 19th-century Spanish enfilade cabinet from Nick Jones Antiques add depth and intrigue.
Kensington Leverne3/20A painting by Arran Rahimian hangs above the 19th-century Spanish cabinet.
Kensington Leverne4/20A painting by Chicago-based painter Eric Stefanski hangs above the fireplace.
Kensington Leverne5/20The downstairs loo is often a space to indulge in a brighter, bolder look: the walls here are painted in ‘Picture Gallery Red’ by Farrow & Ball.
Kensington Leverne6/20Photography
Kensington Leverne7/20A pantry clad in zellige tiles has been nestled in under the stairs: a brilliant use of space which keeps the kitchen area from feeling too cluttered.
Kensington Leverne8/20A pair of eye-catching vegetable paintings by David Shrigley, framed by Marcus Wells, hang above the dining table.
Kensington Leverne9/20This corner of the house has been transformed from an unused basement space into a useful snug. A ‘cloud’ sofa from restoration hardware add to the cosy feel, while ottoman upholstered in ‘Cocoon’ by Metaphores adds a layer of texture. The woodwork is painted in ‘Thames Mud’ by Paint & Paper Library: an earthy green which completes the warm aesthetic here.
Kensington Leverne10/20In the master bedroom, Farrow & Ball’s ‘Stirabout’ - a creamy off-white, cocoons the space. It is complemented by linen curtains and a velvet headboard.
Kensington Leverne11/20The master bedroom has a muddy-coloured velvet headboard. Though small, the space feels open.
Kensington Leverne12/20The en-suite bathroom is clad in a striking Italian Calacatta Viola marble. Brass hardware and a vanity unit from porter bathrooms adds to the glamorous feel.
Kensington Leverne13/20Photography
Kensington Leverne14/20A combination of ‘School House White’ and ‘Sulking Room Pink’ - both by Farrow & Ball, have been used to create a pretty guest bathroom, with the colour scheme continued on the porcelain, chequerboard tiles.
Kensington Leverne15/20A canopy bed occupies the main footprint of the guest bedroom.
Kensington Leverne16/20The space also furnished with an armchair from Audo Copenhagen and a chest of drawers and bedside lamps from Soho Home.
Kensington Leverne17/20The dressing room is where Sam, more brave with colour and pattern, chose to express herself. The woodwork and walls are painted in Farrow & Balls’s ‘Sulking Room Pink’, which picks up on the colours in the Gucci wallpaper which clads the ceiling. The bench is a bespoke design which plays into the fantastical feel of the space.
Kensington Leverne19/20Tongue and groove panelling in the hallway downstairs, which leads to the garden.
Kensington Leverne20/20A charming terraced garden lends itself to long summer lunches, helped along by a handmade table topped with moroccan tiles and chairs from Neptune.
