The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
An architect’s family home with built-in fun
Alex Michaelis, architect of choice for Soho House and the Camerons, built his family home with nautical portholes, circular lines and a sense of fun. By Talib Choudhry. Photographs by Alexander James
Alex Michaelis knows a thing or two about creating extraordinary spaces. co-founder of architect Michaelis Boyd, he has worked on high-profile projects around the world, from safari lodges in Botswana to new residences at Battersea Power station. with practice partner Tim Boyd, he built a reputation as interior architects for the soho house empire and by creating chic homes for well-heeled west londoners, including David and samantha cameron.
Michaelis’ own home in shepherd’s Bush is both comfortable and glamorous (there’s a heated swimming pool in the back garden) but also pushes the boundaries, skilfully demonstrating that new builds can be imaginative and family homes needn’t sacrifice style.
A former garage, squeezed into the corner of a residential street, has been transformed into a 3,500 sq ft, eightbedroom house, wit h two fair y-tale towers rising from the ground floor.
Why so many bedrooms? Between them, Michael is and his partner Susan na Parry have seven children, ranging from seven to 18 years old, from previous marriages, and the house needed to accommodate all of them, plus the family’s labrador Seal.
‘We wanted each child to have their own space,’ says Parry, an art consultant who formerly worked at Sotheby’s. ‘It’s not often that they’re all here at the same time, but they all have a room if they want to stay.’
Function may have driven the design process, but the resulting building is curvy, playful and resolutely forward-looking. Modernity has been mixed with whimsical touches to brilliant– and slightly bonkers–effect. There are curved walls, round windows, a slide running alongside the main stair case and a fireman’ s pole from the first floor to the kitchen. There’ s also a stunning kinetic sculpture by the artist Daniel Chadwick above the swimming pool, visible as soon as you enter the house.
There’s a slide running alongside the main staircase and a fireman’s pole from the first floor to the kitchen
‘It’s contemporary but warm, and it harks back to 1960 s buildings by architects such as Richard Meier and Le C or busier that had rigorous lines mixed with those lovely curves that people seem to be frightened of these days ,’ says Michael is of his design. ‘People in my office hate me because I’m always adding curves and portholes into schemes .’
The bedroom towers have circular windows that frame views of the lushly planted rooftop below and also feature slim rectangular windows resembling the arrow slits of medieval forts. But the towers are no mere creative folly.
‘It’s a wedge-shaped site – just 5m metres wide at the narrowest point – so to build right up to the boundary walls would have made it feel gloomy and uncomfortable,’ Michaelis explains. ‘I thought it was really important, from the first floor up, to shrink the building a little bit to get as much light as possible into the rooms below. The middle section of the plot couldn’t be filled
without reducing light to neighbouring properties, so I had to use two volumes connected by a bridge.’
While most of us would find the prospect of furnishing a room without any right angles challenging, Michaelis has managed to make the master suite look enviably spacious.
‘I’m beginning to think more and more, why do we live in houses with sharp edges? We’ re all curved. It doesn’t make any sense. You can’t do anything right at the point of a corner. I think everything should be a bit more organic, really. It’s interesting: a lot of guests who stay here say they sleep very soundly. I think it’s because of the curved walls.’
While the family sleeps deeply now, there were a few restless nights after Michaelis’s plans for the site were submitted in 2014, resulting in a number of strident objections from neighbours, who have all been won over since building work ended in December the following year.
‘We had a few interesting meetings. The planners were really good, though, and were very keen on the project despite t he object ions. People don’t like change and are often suspicious of contemporary architecture.’
While our collective fondness for period proper ties means that people keep patching a nd modernising old homes, Michael is predicts that nostalgia will give way to practicality over the decades to come.
‘If we’re talking about the long term, I doubt much of London as we know it will still be there. I imagine there will be little pockets of history kept and then everything else will be new. Perhaps t here will just be a few iconic houses and streets that are deemed worth preserving in 300 years. They won’t keep restoring all these houses.’
Despite this, Michael is was respectful of the buildings surrounding his home, choosing pale-yellow Petersen bricks from Denmark for the exterior. Inside, while there are handsome paintings, sculptures and furniture, much of
‘A lot of guests who stay sleep very soundly. I think it’s because of the curved walls‘
the decoration comes from the natural palette of building materials – Dinesen Douglas fir flooring, marble surfaces and chalky, unfinished plaster walls.
‘It’s the cheapest thing in the world,’ Parry says of the latter. ‘It’s just a skim coat[ of plaster ]. And it’ s great at absorbing sound, which is brilliant when we’ve got lots of people in the dining area.’
During the day, the two huge wooden dining tables are strewn with ‘Lego a nd school books’, which a re then swept away when the couple are entertaining – Michaelis is a keen cook and Parry, who is the lead vocalist with her band S tax, regularly hosts music nights at home.
When parties really begin to swing, guests have been known to go for a dip in the swimming pool and whizz down into the kitchen. ‘They really want to use the f ireman’s pole – it brings out t heir inner child,’ says Parr y. ‘All t he kids love a turn, but it’s the adults who really go for it.’