A punchy scheme for an artistic couple's London home
When Victoria Stainow returned to her London flat in 2013, after six years in Provence, she felt the place looked a little tired. ‘It needed refreshing,’ she says. She herself had been refreshed by her years in France: while renovating a 17th-century maison de maître, Victoria had launched a whole new career. A brass and glass mid-century coffee table, found in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, was so admired by her French friends that she decided to have it copied. ‘The French are brilliant at mixing the modern and the antique,’ she says, and mid-century pieces provided the fillip her austere stone house needed. The hunt was on for artisans in metal, wood, ceramics and glass – and her eponymous firm, specialising in bespoke furniture and lighting in that style, was born.
Victoria had decorated her London home, a mansion flat in a handsome block built in 1889, when she and her husband moved in some 20 years ago. She had worked with the designer Andre de Cacqueray, who established the flow of the spaces and designed the bathrooms, kitchen and bookcases, while preserving the original heavy doors, cornices and ceiling details. When the couple returned from France, the structure of the flat was still good but some of its colours and fabrics had seen better days. A headboard by Ensemblier, bought for their daughter’s bedroom, led her to the firm’s owner, Tara Craig. ‘Tara is a real interior decorator – I’ve never seen such attention to detail,’ says Victoria. ‘I haven’t the patience to look for every scrap of braid.’ Nor had she the time: her return to Britain prompted a search for craftspeople here in the UK to create the pieces for her company.
For her own home, however, she first commissioned a Thirties-style sofa from Ensemblier, which uses beech, other natural materials and traditional methods to make its furniture. Based on an art deco design in Eltham Palace, in south-east London, the sofa was such a success that Victoria asked Tara to help with the rest of the flat. ‘Victoria has amazing taste but she wanted a second eye,’ says the designer. ‘And I like adding layers and bringing a fresh, cohesive look to an existing room. My clients are often in the art world or collectors.’
Tara recalls her initial impressions of the flat. ‘In the drawing room, the paintings and the rug were already there and so were the curtains, but the white sofas and calico-covered French chairs meant everything was floating a bit.’ The sofas were re-covered in soft brown mohair velvet and the chairs in yellow striped silk, and a profusion of cushions was added. Next door, in the dining room, walls that were previously hung with a dull green grasscloth, were lacquered a dramatic shiny brown by decorative painter Hughie Turner. At night, they reflect the glow from lighting made by two of Victoria’s craftsmen: bronze wall sconces by Claudio Gonzalez and a swirling plaster resin pendant by William Sullivan. Tara designed dining chairs, upholstered in yellow horsehair, to soften the acoustics and add colour.
Before she left for Provence, Victoria had worked at Sotheby’s for 16 years, an experience that trained her eye and led to some clever purchases of pictures. She is from an artistic family, her husband’s family were collectors and the couple have several artist friends in France. The walls of the dining room make a strong background for a painting by one of these, Baltasar Dürrbach, while, in the pale blue hall beyond, hangs a set of prints by Joan Miró.
The main bedroom, previously a lime green, has been papered in Pierre Frey’s ‘Sans Papillons’, with matching blinds and bedcover. Tara designed a charming sofa to fit the window space, its shape based on a 19th-century French settee. ‘The previous sofa showed slightly too much radiator,’ she says. She has lined the walls of the fin-de-siècle-style bathroom in a pink handmade Japanese paper. For genuine fin de siècle, there is an iron stove, found behind a wall panel in the original kitchen, with ashes still inside it, which dates from the building’s late 19th-century origins. It now takes pride of place in the breakfast room.
Sitting on the comfortable ‘Eltham’ sofa in the sitting room, Victoria is flanked by a pair of Thirties-style blue Ensemblier swivel chairs and overlooked by a Gail Dooley ceramic swan’s-head mirror. Before her is a copy of the glass and brass coffee table that started it all: ‘That table was a real turning point’.
Victoria Stainow: victoriastainow.com
Ensemblier: ensemblierlondon.com
Natalie Dinham1/9An antique brass chandelier from Andre hangs above an antique oak table from L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The Georgian walnut chairs, formerly used in the dining room, have seats in a spotted horsehair that echoes the colour of the existing floor tiles and picks up on the warm tones of an oil painting by Sophia Stainow. The blind is in ‘Kenil’ linen by Penny Morrison.
Natalie Dinham2/9Designed by Andre de Cacqueray almost 20 years ago, the kitchen features varied surfaces, including granite, Carrara marble and limestone, and a handsome curved cooker hood.
Natalie Dinham3/9The gallery hang of the artworks is by Brett Frizelle. Tara softened the armless sofa with a skirt in a George Spencer fabric and Claremont’s ‘Rayure Monique’ was used on a pair of Louis XV chairs. The carpet is a modern Agra. In pride of place is the brass and glass signature ‘Table Basse’ that started Victoria’s business.
Natalie Dinham4/9‘Chauffeuse 1940s’ chairs by Victoria tone with walls in a pale blue linen-style paint finish by decorative artist Hughie Turner. A rug from Parsua in Paris complements mid-century lamps.
Natalie Dinham5/9Grasscloth walls provide a rich backdrop for the ‘Eltham’ sofa by Ensemblier in Le Manach’s ‘Zanzibar’. Victoria’s ‘Table Basse’ sits on a rug by Sandy Jones. The blinds are in Carolina Irving’s ‘Exotic Bloom’ linen from Tissus d’Hélène, and on the desk stands a bronze ‘Lampe Stela’ by Claudio Gonzalez for Victoria Stainow.
Natalie Dinham6/9Framed by an arch off the sitting room, a painting by Baltasar Dürrbach in the dining room is flanked by ‘Quadravi Sconce’ wall lights by Claudio Gonzalez for Victoria Stainow.
Natalie Dinham7/9Lacquered brown walls contrast with a ‘Rochelle’ white plaster resin pendant by William Sullivan. John Boyd’s yellow horsehair brightens Ensemblier’s ‘Bellamont’ chairs.
Natalie Dinham8/9The swan’s-head mirror in the sitting room is by Gail Dooley.
Natalie Dinham9/9The wallpaper is Pierre Frey’s ‘Sans Papillons’, with a bedcover, blind and Ensemblier ‘Selton’ sofa in the matching cotton/viscose fabric. A plain curtain fabric, by O Ecotextiles from MM Design, offsets the pattern, while pleated shades on a pair of crystal lamp bases pick up on the pink of the pretty floral design.
