Louis Hagen Hall, founder of architectural firm Studio Hagen Hall, is the first to admit that Victorian terraces aren’t his thing. He’s happiest transforming mid-century homes into contemporary havens; in fact, it was one such project featured in this magazine that led to a couple approaching him about a house they were buying in London’s De Beauvoir Town.
The neighbourhood has two main types of vernacular architecture, Louis explains: ‘The glamorous, white-stucco, late-Georgian, early-Victorian houses up the main drag, and late-Victorian terraces. This was one of the latter.’ Arranged over three levels, the house was constructed – according to the local conservation officer – with leftover parts from the fancier houses. ‘It’s not a housing typology we normally work with, so it was a fun challenge,’ Louis says.
The property’s Grade II-listed status meant little could be changed; a conundrum for Louis and his clients, who chose the house chiefly for its garden and location. ‘The premise was to go through the front door and not feel you’re in a Victorian terrace, which is funny, because a lot of people buy them because they love them.’
One half of the couple is an art teacher and ceramicist – most of the pieces seen throughout are his – while the other is a civil servant, which made for an interesting dynamic during the project. ‘The civil servant was not massively involved in material selections but at the same time, was very much, “I need this cupboard to be able to fit an ironing board.”’ Louis recalls. ‘The artist would ask, “How does this work with the joinery stain, and how are all these materials coming together?”’
Louis’ plan flipped the sequence of rooms to suit the owners’ lifestyle. The kitchen, dining room and snug are on the lower ground floor, with a bedroom, dressing room and bathroom on the ground floor. Upstairs – making the most of the view – is the salon – ‘a grown up space’ filled with art and antique furniture from the couple’s time in Japan.
Behind that is the most multifunctional room Louis has ever designed. ‘It has a bath in it; it’s the client’s art studio; it’s the other client’s storage for his 7,000 CDs. It has a little pull-out desk for homeworking and futons for guests. It does five different things in a room that’s four by three metres!’
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Next came the creation, essentially, of a ‘house within a house’ featuring the studio’s signature bespoke joinery. ‘You can build freestanding joinery inside a listed building as long as you don’t do any crazy stuff to the building’s fabric,’ Louis explains. ‘We retained the original skirting boards but a lot else is hidden behind the contemporary joinery.’ The way this intervention is inserted into the house, like a hand within a glove, means that at any point, ‘you could take all of that out and you’d be left with the original’.
One thoughtful element that embodies this home’s warmth and charm is the wooden step in the hallway. ‘They have them in a lot of houses in Japan,’ says Louis. ‘You take your shoes off and slide them under the step, then walk into the house.’ The sliding hatch between the salon and the back room, designed to fit the dimensions of an antique Japanese bowl, is another special moment.
A tiny window in the bathroom gives an uninterrupted view from the front door to the garden; it’s Louis’ response to the aspect of Victorian architecture that he struggles with the most – the partitioning of spaces. Finding solutions to the problems this house threw at him has given him a new respect for its typology. ‘So many people rip everything out, stick in a contemporary extension, fill in the side return, fiddle with the footprint,’ he says, ‘but that plan was developed over a long time and it works for a reason.’
His sensitive approach means this house has a calm modernity that is expressed in the ease with which the spaces relate to each other and its relaxed materiality. ‘It doesn’t look how you’d expect it to, but it feels right,’ he says. ‘The impression is that the intervention is big, but it’s actually quite light-touch.’ studiohagenhall.com
