Georgian Four Story House in Clerkenwell

From "World Of Interiors"
The first thing you notice as you enter the Clerkenwell home of interior designer Shaun Clarkson and his husband Paul Brewster are six framed Hogarth prints, bought at auction while their house was being renovated. ‘Our original plan was to decorate the place in a much more period style,’ Brewster recalls, ‘so we were vaguely on the lookout for Georgian things. I'd always had a fascination with Hogarth and I found these original prints, all dusty and folded in on each other. It turned out they were from the same year the house was built –1757.’ Now dust-free and gracing the entrance hall of the four-storey shop-fronted house, their square frames are echoed on the facing wall by a grid-like Gilbert and George print – a fitting metaphor for the property’s skilful interweaving of period grace with bold contemporary statement. Clarkson is an interior designer known primarily for his work in bars, clubs and restaurants. Brewster’s background is in textiles, though they have now joined forces professionally, running an interior design consultancy and two boutique country retreats in Norfolk: Cliff Barns and Carrington House. Refurbishing their Clerkenwell home was also a joint effort, with both bringing his own individual design expertise into play. ‘Paul and I have very different perspectives,’ says Clarkson. ‘He’s interested in detail and decorativeness and I'm more concerned with the bigger picture. He likes the little bits and pieces, I'm much more about grand gestures and bold strokes.’ He adds with a grin: ‘Basically Paul is the one who pulls the whole thing back from looking like a nightclub.’ Typically Georgian with its small-scale rooms and narrow footprint, the house is a dramatic departure in style from their previous home, a loft apartment in Shoreditch, which was essentially one big lateral space. ‘This time around,’ says Brewster, ‘we were definitely looking for a period house with the scope to create lots of rooms with different atmospheres and moods – as opposed to a white box.’ ‘The Shoreditch flat was great when we were living there,’ continues Clarkson, ‘because it reflected our lifestyle at the time. We entertained a lot – people would always come back to ours after clubbing. But we began to tire of that. We still wanted a space to entertain in – which we have with our cinema room and living room – but also a space that’s comfortable and cosy for just the two of us.’ This newfound maturity is also reflected in Clarkson’s work. Having made his name in the early 1990s designing The Atlantic bar, Pop, Denim etc. he has since graduated to large-scale domestic projects, elegant gastropubs like Islington’s The Draper’s Arms and The Albion and the acclaimed café at the Wallace Collection. It took two years to find a house with the right potential, and a further year to renovate it. The property was originally a Georgian dairy, but its most recent incarnation was as a solicitor's office – with suspended ceilings, grey office carpets, and a total absence of period features. A few floorboards and a few areas of tongue and groove in the hallways were all that remained of the original Georgian house, which meant the building process was more like reconstructive surgery than renovation. While most people find a property and then buy things to go in it, for Clarkson and Brewster it was the reverse. They bought their house largely as a repository for their ever-expanding hoard of pre-loved design classics, junk shop finds, and the odd bit of kitsch. The couple admit to being obsessive collectors/hoarders whose first question when visiting friends for the weekend is: “Is there a car-boot sale near you?” ‘Visiting flea markets, antique shops and car boot sales is just something we do at the weekends,’ explains Clarkson. ‘It’s part of our routine. As a hobby, it does get a bit silly sometimes. We have 28 gravy boats – in a range of colours. In a sense, we deliberately created a house with enough nooks and crannies to give us a huge amount of scope to carry on collecting. We’re also planning to open a shop in Shoreditch this spring.’ From the cinema room with its clubby, fusty feel – which they describe as ‘Sherlock Holmes with a twist’ – to the boutique hotel elegance of the bedroom (a tongue in cheek take on the gentleman’s club), and the tropical psychedelic explosion of the living room, the couple’s creativity, ingenuity and keen eye for a bargain have resulted in a home which possesses style and humour in equal measures. The kitchen, which was moved up from the basement and boasts a salvaged Georgian limestone fireplace, is typically innovative. ‘We liked the fact that the ground floor was once a shop,’ says Brewster, ‘so we decided to make the kitchen feel a bit like a shop, by using old shop fittings – refurbished and with mirrors put in the back – instead of units.’ The mahogany fittings, from David Binder on Holloway Road, once graced a gentleman's outfitters, and lend the room a touch of Savile Row style. On a practical level, they allow Clarkson to display his ceramics collections, notably the Poole tableware he has been collecting for 20 years, and various Wedgwood pieces. Indeed, Josiah’s influence can be seen in the palette of the entire house, which has Wedgwood blue in the entrance hall and up the staircase. Another influence was Italian still life artist Morandi, whose gradated tones can be felt in the rooms, which are painted in shades of the same grey, starting with the basement as the darkest colour and with each floor going two shades lighter, so you feel as if the rooms get more airy as you ascend to the top of the house. Even the films of Alfred Hitchcock get a nod. ‘The early Hitchcock films like Rope tend to be quite monochrome,’ explains Clarkson. ‘They’re mainly tones of greys but with splashes of colour – someone might be wearing a red or orange tie. That’s the effect we wanted to achieve here.’ ‘Until you get into the living room,’ chips in Brewster, ‘when it all gets a bit bonkers.’ The living room, which they refer to as ‘the Golden Girls room’, is indeed a sensual riot, an unabashed ‘tart of a room’ as Clarkson puts it. Formerly a dingy space used as a typing pool, they added a glass roof and transformed it into a light-filled oasis. The ‘Wow’ factor is augmented by its approach: via a dark, narrow corridor – a contrast trick Brewster first encountered at the Brighton Pavilion. The centrepiece is a 1980s coffee table that’s guaranteed to provoke an extreme reaction one way or another. ‘It’s hideous, isn’t it,’ chuckles Clarkson. ‘We used to have it at Carrington House but the glass got broken so many times we gave up and brought it here. And the Chinese rug was in our bedroom in the other house. Like a lot of our stuff, it’s one of those things you either love or hate.’ Witty, subversive and totally uncompromising – you can’t help feeling Hogarth would have approved.
This Georgian house has been features in many magazines, from World of Interiors Living Etc to Italian Vogue. The house is set over four stories with an amazing glass roofed Garden room. This is a whole Georgian house with your own front door. Can be set up as a two double bedroom house with a snug/library, garden room and live in kitchen. Or we can make the snog up into an extra bedroom.
We like to greet guests ourselves if we can, to show round the house, explain how things work and hand over the keys.
The area is walking distance to the British Museum the Sir John Soane's museum to name just two, Upper St. know as "Supper" St due to the number of amazing restaurants antiques market at Camden passage Exmouth Market is home to the award winning Moro and Caravan restaurants. In honesty it the best location in London! Our neighbours include artists and writers.
Walking distance Kings Cross station, Faringdon Angel and Chancery Lane tube. Plus loads of busses a short walk.