THE MODERNIST HOME Innovative design, original features and a sense of community combine in this architectural icon

Innovative design and a sense of community drew one couple to this iconic masterpiece in north London

It’s the sense of community at Highpoint as much as its design that captivates architect Sandra Coppin and her family. They have made their home in a striking duplex apartment in Highpoint II, the second of the Highgate apartment buildings designed by the pioneering Modernist architect Berthold Lubetkin in the 1930s. It is testament to Lubetkin’s design approach, which included communal gardens and a swimming pool, that Highpoint remains such a vibrant village in miniature, beloved by its residents.

‘I could say that it’s the architecture and the double-height space in our duplex that we love best, but the main draw for us is that feeling of belonging and assuming that we will grow old together here,’ says Sandra, who shares her home with husband, Nico de Beer, a design director in the bathroom industry, and their teenage children, Anna and Eva. ‘It does feel very special being here – it’s as though you are living in a 1930s movie.’

Sandra grew up in South Africa but moved to London to study at the Bartlett School of Architecture, where she met Nico. They lived in a studio flat in Shoreditch for a number of years, but with their first child on the way, they realised they needed more space.

Highpoint is an iconic design project that Sandra studied in architecture class, never dreaming that one day she’d live

‘It does feel very special being here – it’s as though we’re living in a 1930s movie’

‘Our home feels like a forward-looking and optimistic space, even though it was designed 85 years ago’

there. She and Nico initially bought a three-bedroom flat in Highpoint I in 2002. This was the first of Lubetkin’s two Highgate apartment buildings, commissioned by businessman Sigmund Gestetner, who was looking to offer affordable and well-designed modern housing for the workers at his office equipment company. Completed in 1935, Highpoint I is an H-shaped building with 60 apartments, which offers amazing views out across the city. But then Sandra and Nico began to outgrow Highpoint I and feared they would have to move again, but just in the nick of time, a much larger flat came up for sale in Highpoint II.

‘We were really loath to leave, and were away one weekend while there was a wedding party happening here in the garden,’ says Sandra. ‘While at the party, some Highpoint friends discovered that a duplex was coming onto the market and suddenly we got all these drunken texts, saying it’s okay, you can stay, we have found you a flat! It was all very emotional.’

The only drawback was Nico’s vertigo – induced by a hiking incident on a mountain trail some years ago - and the fact that the duplex is on the fifth and sixth floors. But when he heard that the original bathrooms and many other period elements were intact he couldn’t resist taking a look. The couple were hooked from the moment they saw it. It had a double-height living space that formed the heart of the home, with a balcony on one side and a dramatic spiral staircase on the other. ‘We loved it and Nico made me promise we’d never move again,’ says Sandra. ‘But we did find ourselves with a very demanding heritage restoration project.’

Lubetkin designed Highpoint II, completed in 1938, with 12 luxurious apartments including a penthouse for himself. The building had the best of everything, including hidden galley kitchens and separate entrances for servants. The previous owner had lived here for decades, so many original features were well preserved, with the exception of the kitchen, which had been replaced in the 1970s. Keen to reinstate one that was in keeping with Lubetkin’s original vision, Sandra began researching the archives to find as many period photographs, plans and specifications as she could. She designed a new galley kitchen full of space-saving, modern features, inspired by the period Lubetkin designs. Then she and Nico spent a big chunk of their budget renovating the bathrooms, drawing on specialists to bring them back to life.

Sandra restored the statement staircase, and used colours throughout the duplex based on Le Corbusier’s Architectural Polychromy palette of 1931. The original dining room has become her home office and a base for her architectural practice, Coppin Dockray. Clients have included a number of other residents at Highpoint, who have also become firm friends.

‘There’s such a strong community here,’ says Sandra. ‘It really is a village in itself and the romantic idea of living in these communal Modernist gems appealed to us. You do get the feeling it was designed at a special moment in time, part of a very positive, brave view of the future. Our home feels like a very forward-looking and optimistic space, even though it was designed 85 years ago.’

Coppin Dockray Architecture & Design; coppindockray.co.uk