Robert Kime's intricately-layered flat, the distillation of 50 years of expertise

The sitting space is further enclosed by a screen covered in chinoiserie paper. ‘One of the first things I bought,’ says Robert. ‘It was £8 at an auction in Peterborough.’ Though not precious, this is a rare thing, as Robert – a collector of coins from the age of five and a passionate historian – originally sold everything he bought and kept nothing. ‘By the time I was at Oxford, I was dealing in antiques properly,’ he says.

Halfway through his first year at the university, his mother arrived to say his stepfather had left home and there was no money. From that time, every object Robert bought had to make a profit. It concentrated his mind, as well as training his eye for quality. ‘I would take Thursdays off for buying and selling, going by bus to eight different Oxfordshire towns and villages, always finishing in Burford. You could find wonderful things in those days – I sold a marvellous set of Japanese prints to a curator at the Ashmolean Museum,’ he says. Later, as his career as a dealer flourished, many of his clients admired his home and begged him to design theirs. And so a second career was born.

At one end of the three-room enfilade is the study, with its vast gilded mirror, William Morris carpet and an armchair by Morris with its original fabric. William Wordsworth’s own leather chair sits behind a handsome late nineteenth-century oak desk. Here, a painting of a pyramid meets a collection of exquisite porcelain flowers and a graphic Anatolian rug hanging on the wall.

Robert has collected antique textiles throughout his life, recreating some of them for his own fabric collections. One such is the late-nineteenth-century embroidery used for his study curtains. His version is still hand-embroidered, but using ‘four different shades, from nearly green, to almost brown to yellow, to pale primrose. Doing that makes the fabric look lively, and echoes the way the original vegetable dyes would have aged’.

Look in the opposite direction and a Chippendale four-poster in his bedroom is hung with antique chintz, its tester lined with embroidered voile. All three of these aligned rooms are painted in different shades of pale blue – a colour that sets off the richness of the carpets and textiles. The colour continues into Robert’s bathroom, as does the brass rail for hanging pictures. One of these, of a large and elegant borzoi hound, looks down onto the impeccable joinery containing bath and basin, with Derbyshire fossil stone surrounds. The same stone forms the surface in the kitchen, too. The walls here are also blue, as they are in the nearby spare room, so the dry Pompeiian red of the dining room comes as a surprise. It was chosen to harmonise with a painting of horses ploughing, which takes up a whole wall.

The homes Robert has made for himself and for his discerning clients always have a strong sense of place, are supremely comfortable and full of objects he has found. This flat is the distillation of more than 50 years of looking at beautiful antiques and of a deep knowledge of architecture, history and the decorative arts. One of his friends once told him she was unhappy with her drawing room; he arrived with one mirror, two pictures and three strong men. By that evening, she had declared that her room was perfect. He may not be able to explain how he does it, but his home is proof that Robert Kime does it to perfection.

Robert Kime is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. Find his profile here.

Robert Kime: robertkime.com