Robert Sanderson,
photographed ‘Balancing Act’,
Robert has been a professional interiors photographer for over 25 years and he particularly enjoys shooting period homes. ‘I find that older houses have such charm and atmosphere and that’s what I aim to portray in my photographs,’ says Robert. ‘On my coffee table you’ll find a couple of favourite tomes: Jasper Conran’s Country and Slim Aarons – Once Upon A Time by Frank Zachary.’
A glimpse of tall grasses dancing in the breeze against a backdrop of London plane trees creates a magical ! rst impression when guests enter the elegant hallway of Robert McNab and Joanne Bernstein’s Victorian home. With the "ats behind almost entirely screened by well- established trees, it feels astonishingly rural.
As a garden designer, the generous south-facing garden was all important to Joanne, and – thanks to the removal of a wall – it is now visible from the entrance hall. ‘ We wanted to ensure that the ! rst view from the front door was all about the garden,’ she says, adding that it was the potential of the outside space that enabled her to see beyond the eight dingy rooms that had been let out as bedsits. ‘ When we viewed it, the house had no central heating, unsafe electrical cables and ro#en window frames. We had to strip everything back and remove "ooring and ceilings,’ says Joanne.
A self- confessed perfectionist, she viewed around 40 houses during the course of their search for a new home. ‘ We knew we wanted a simple, modernist design for the extension. We didn’t want to ape the Victorian house as it would have compromised both the original architecture and the new,’ she says. ‘Our ! rst port of call was to Messana O’Rorke Architects in New York. They are dedicated
minimalists, but I knew they’d love the challenge of mixing modern and traditional. We’ve been close friends since we were students and Robert and I had total faith in them. Touchingly, they o!ered us the new design as a wedding present,’ says Joanne.
Working in conjunction with another close friend from their student days, London-based architect Ian West of Reading + West, a scheme was drawn up with sliding glass walls enclosing the dining room extension on two sides.
‘On hot days we can slide back the doors so that the dining room becomes one with the garden,’ says Joanne. ‘And, of course, the view is part of the room all year round.’ The unashamedly modern aesthetic of the architecture is so"ened by the couple’s choice of a traditional, Shaker-style kitchen. The architects suggested adding an ‘apron’, which envelopes the island unit and hides work-surface clu#er. ‘ It was an inspired idea,’ says Joanne. ‘It screens any mess, and guests can lean against it while we cook. It is a very sociable room.’ If it had been solely down to her, Joanne would have chosen a more minimalist look, but the Shaker kitchen units were a happy compromise.
‘As far as aesthetic tastes go, Robert and I are from di !erent planets,’ she says. ‘I’m a minimalist and he is a collector, or a maximalist, as he likes to call himself. Le" to his own
The main reception rooms are now lled with an eclectic yet elegant mix of furniture.
devices he would have many more pictures and objects on display.’
When two creative heads meet, choosing ingredients for interior schemes can easily result in con ! ict and unhappy concessions. But for Joanne and Robert, having talented architects with ‘ brilliant ideas’, not to mention a fair bit of tact, dissolved most of their di "erences. It also helps that both Robert and Joanne have their own work rooms. Joanne’s o#ce is sparsely furnished with a streamlined mid- century sideboard and a simple round table, whereas Robert’s room feels slightly cosier, with a mix of furniture including a vintage plan chest in one corner. The walls are hung with his own artwork as well as souvenirs from his professional life as a documentary $ lm maker. Elsewhere, ‘compromise became the springboard for ingenuity,’ says Joanne.
The original cornicing and $ replaces in the ground-!oor living rooms and hall miraculously survived the bedsit years, and spotlights set into the !oor rather than the ceiling highlight the intricate plasterwork. ‘ Floor-spots cast a dramatic yet sympathetic light, whereas overhead-spots are o%en harsher and you can get caught in their glare,’ says Joanne.
The main reception rooms are now $ lled with an eclectic yet elegant mix of furniture. Robert’s antiques, many of which he inherited from his family in Budapest (such as the decorative, hand-painted 18th- century commode) so%en the stark, sleek lines of the minimalist Italian and Scandinavian furniture that Joanne admires.
Joanne’s o ce is sparsely furnished with a streamlined mid-century sideboard and a simple round table. Robert’s room feels slightly cosier, with a vintage plan chest in one corner. The walls are hung with his own artwork.
‘ The si!ing room is a beautiful marriage of our possessions,’ says Joanne, adding that the Victorian windows are of such pleasing proportions that, ‘even a hardened traditionalist would "nd it di #cult to hide them behind curtains.’ The walls, ceiling and woodwork were painted the same for ‘a sense of cohesion’.
Naturally, the design of the garden was le$ to Joanne (it has subsequently been awarded a prize on a BBC television programme). She began by removing decades of neglect, replacing what was once a wilderness with a new layout to complement the extension. A band of billowing grasses and perennials immediately outside the kitchen partially screens the rest of the garden from view, a path cuts through this and leads the eye towards the shady, more informal woodland beyond. ‘It is an unusually long garden by Islington standards,’ says Joanne, ‘so I was able to create several separate spaces within the whole. Robert loved it in its untouched state and sulked when it was cleared. But now he enjoys nothing more on a summer’s a $ernoon,’ says Joanne, with a hint of triumph in her voice. She does admit, however, that she’s grown surprisingly fond of Robert’s assortment of antiques. ‘ They add texture and colour to rooms that might otherwise look clinical. We both love this house and the way in which our characters are expressed in its rooms.’
‘We both love this house and the way in which our characters are expressed in its rooms.’