“We’ve put in a lot of vitamin C showers in the last year or so,” says Hamish Brown of 1508, one of London’s smartest interior design companies. “It’s in line with how the new super wealthy prefer to live. It used to be the Tom Ford suit and the big watch and going to swanky restaurants. Now, with the 'Dot Coms', it’s all white T-shirts and white plimsolls and wellness.” Once it was money that talked. Now it’s a blooming sense of health.
Brown is well versed in what the wealthy want. Apart from those vitamin C showers, which are said to purify water and improve hair and skin quality, there are the near-essential circadian lighting programmes (which mimic the properties of natural light from day to night).
And if a home cinema might sound incompatible with mindfulness, these in-built space guzzlers have come into their own again. As working from home isn’t just part of Covid-life, but also part of a better work-life-balance, a home cinema can be seamlessly adapted by day into an office from which sophisticated conference calls can be conducted. “We’ve just done that in a house in Chelsea,” says Brown.
As a partner at 1508, founded in 2010 with the specific remit of “no house style” but a sensitivity to history as well as contemporary context, Brown has overseen the highest of high-end projects all over the world. At a recent 10,000 sq ft London penthouse, the client’s key preoccupation was with the meditation room, carefully positioned to get the early morning sun.
“It’s very much about ‘Win the morning, win the day’. These guys are about the extra one per cent that puts you just that bit ahead. Being your best self, eating the right things, and winning.”
Brown’s current projects include large new houses in Kuwait and Reykjavik, as well as the Old War Office in Whitehall, untouched since its construction in 1906 (everyone from Lord Kitchener to John Profumo had offices here) it's now being converted into 85 super-luxury apartments and a five-star hotel. "It’s a huge, transformational project that will take a few years,” he says.
Anti-inflammatory living is paramount for wealthy clients just about everywhere. “We’re designing in special boxes for phone charging that eliminate any possibility of radiation, sourcing materials as locally as possible, and designing out anything that requires glues, carpets containing any plastic fibre – all the obvious things. But a new request has been for a tea cellar, rather than the usual whiskey cabinet,” he says.
(Nevertheless cars remain important, and the most expensive properties at 1508's project at Mandarin Oriental Residences on Wilshire Boulevard in LA project will feature, "parking for eight cars, in a discreet zone, with an adjacent area for hanging out with friends, in a glass-fronted space, so you can see your Bugatti and have a good time.")
For another home in Chelsea, Brown says that the priority is separate temperature controls on either side of the marital bed, where the husband needs cooler air than his wife. “We’re working on that one.”
“Sleep is the big thing,” agrees Simon Rawlings, the creative director at David Collins Studio, which has famously created homes for everyone from Madonna to Gywneth Paltrow, as well as restaurants and hotels – most recently the new Nobu Hotel in London's Portman Square (which opened for just days before the first lockdown).
“It’s quite usual to have a sleeping room next to a work room, so if you work late into the night you don’t have to wake your partner when you go to bed. Is it called a Snore Room, or did I make that up?,” jokes Rawlings. Along with infra-red saunas being installed with some regularity, there’s also the prevalence of The Mirror – the $1,500 integrated digital fitness tool that, like a Peloton bike, comes with a programme of classes.
But Rawlings believes the real emphasis now, is on the kitchen area. “Even in the larger houses [10,000 sq ft, just so you know], it is becoming part of the dining room. It makes sense – people are more interested in what they eat than ever before. Angela Hartnett is a good friend and we always hang out in her kitchen,” he says. “People really enjoy the show that is food preparation. When we did the Food Halls in Harrods, we brought that right to the fore.”
The professionalisation of the home kitchen has now reached the point, says Rawlings, where clients a titanium induction hob, where any part of the surface will react to something placed on it, and a metre-long pan can be evenly heated. Blast chillers are practically standard.
Of course, in cities like Hong Kong, space comes at a serious premium. “Apartments there can be uber-expensive, but still not have much room for entertaining,” says Rawlings. A new residential project in the New Territories will offer professional kitchens within the building’s club house, as well as designing a chef’s garden on the roof, for herbs and vegetables.” Gardens are such a thing, he laughs. “There’s that lovely one at the Newt,” he says, referring to the chic rural boutique hotel in Bruton. “I think Heckfield Place even has a farm. That’s not going to happen in Hong Kong.”
Nor in New York, where Jean-Louis Deniot is working on the conversion of the Waldorf Astoria into 375 apartments and 50,000 sq ft of amenities. Deniot, an outrageously outspoken Parisian, who is also working on the conversion of Piccadilly's In and Out Club into a hotel, has perhaps more conventional views of luxury. He’s never, he says, used synthetic materials or polyurethane varnishes, so no problem there. (Rawlings, incidentally, is a fan of Marmoleum, which is made purely from linseed oil.)
Deniot is more concerned with privacy and intimacy – from creating huge estates which contain everything a wealthy client needs to the subtle zoning of drawing rooms, and scattering small eating areas throughout a home. “Let’s stop spending five hours round one table!” he practically shouts, before going on to condemn the sheer existence of the television screen.
In fact, his elimination of it is perhaps the nearest this French purist comes to Zen. “I hide them, behind a one-way mirror, or a sliding canvas,” he exclaims. “The television screen? It’s the least sexy thing ever! I would rather see an ironing board!”
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February 10, 2021 at 05:17PM
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The wellness-obsessed wealthy are demanding vitamin C showers and herb gardens in their homes - Telegraph.co.uk
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