As well as advising on many of King Charles’ projects, English architectural and interior designer Ben Pentreath is the king of elegant country house interior style. He also translates this comfortable and charming approach for his city-based clients
Chester Terrace has perhaps the most beautiful of all the crisp stucco façades that surround London’s Regent’s Park, the wonderful green expanse laid out by John Nash and the Prince Regent as the centrepiece of their ‘Metropolitan Improvements’ in the early 19th century.
Nash was the most renowned of the Regency architects. I admire his work so much, for its joie de vivre, confidence and sheer exuberance. I sense that, unlike the bookish John Soane, here was a man who just loved life. In the park, Nash’s greatest composition of all, he dashed off remarkable schemes for huge palace-fronted terraces, set against a frame of verdant nature. It was a vision of fluidity and complexity, unmatched elsewhere in London (or, for that matter, in any European city that I know). Chester Terrace, announced by two Corinthian triumphal arches at either end, has always struck me as the finest of these palace fronts. How thrilling it was, then, when Rupert Cunningham, our senior design director, was asked by friends to help with the restoration of one of the townhouses, recently inherited from a revered grandmother.
The dining room, with Peebles’ classical mural contrasting beautifully with the marble-topped Saarinen table and 1960s Danish dining chairs. Simple linen blinds filter the light.
The house, last renovated 60 years ago, had considerable style – the sort of place that in one sense you could happily just move into. But as is so often the case, the wiring and plumbing were in disarray, and some terrible things had happened here since the building was bombed and largely gutted during the Blitz. Rupert’s friends, with their very young family, wanted to live in a way that was slightly different from Granny’s, bringing the kitchen out of the gloom, creating new bathrooms and children’s bedrooms, and most excitingly of all, making a new roof garden with astonishing views above the treetops. It was the sort of invigorating restoration that we love to carry out, Rupert working also with our decoration studio to provide help with colours and furnishings.
Nash’s huge floor-toceiling windows overlook Regent’s Park. The sofa is upholstered in a yellow linen by Prelle, and the curtains are in Red Oak Stripe by Michael S Smith. The abstract painting over the fireplace is by Albert Irvin. The Georgian mantelpiece was installed in the 1960s.
Old pictures and furniture have found new places; the architecture is completely revived. New cornices and joinery have been detailed with the fine, restrained, early 19th-century quality that is perhaps the hallmark of Rupert’s aesthetic; modern services and plumbing introduced in a completely seamless and delicate way; and the whole house redecorated in glowing, jewel-like tones of sapphire, azure and warm saffron yellow.
A view into the kitchen, with cabinets in Minster Green by Farrow & Ball, and an Arabescato marble backsplash. The range hood is in aged zinc. The hallway doors are painted a delicate Wedgwood blue with the carved ovolo mouldings picked out in crisp white.
The guest bedroom walls are lined in a brown hessian wallpaper, and the simple cotton ticking curtains are by Ian Mankin. A 1960s painting by Spanish artist Eduardo Arroyo, a neoclassical chest of drawers, campaign chair and Egyptian bust are an eclectic mix of things that brings a vibrant personality to this corner of the house.
Today, this is the happiest home you can imagine, filled with the sounds of young feet tearing up and down the slender neoclassical staircase from basement to attic bedrooms. It is a magical place in which to grow up, with the dreamlike park and the zoo on the doorstep: a townhouse from a storybook, filled with adventures yet to be written. The frame has just been set. That’s our job. Now the real fun begins.
The roof garden, with a glazed box that slides back above the staircase. Stripy deckchairs make this a happy place to spend the day and evening.
An English Vision: Traditional Architecture and Decoration for Today, by Ben Pentreath, with foreword by The Earl of Moray, Rizzoli, €50.
