Sussex Victorian Apartment

The Project

A complete refurbishment without demolition. The existing plan, openings and fabric retained throughout. The original decorative plaster ceiling, its Regency-inspired geometric detailing largely undisturbed through more than a century of occupation, set the decorative register for every room that followed.

One exception. An original oversized fireplace, awkward against the room's proportions, was replaced with something quieter and better scaled. Everything else was kept.

Materials & Makers

The antiques were selected before the scheme was resolved. A Louis Philippe commode imported from France, its figured walnut carrying a warmth no contemporary piece replicates. An antique gilt mirror scaled to the Victorian ceiling heights. A still life by Peter Ellensworth, one of the original illustrators on the early Disney productions, placed for how it reads in the room before anything else is known about it.

In the bedroom, wallpaper was commissioned in a colourway developed specifically for the space. The palette was calibrated to the room's aspect and the particular quality of light it receives at different times of day. The Arts and Crafts register was chosen deliberately, to reflect the building's passage through successive decorative periods rather than resolve it into one. The apartment has lived through several generations of taste. The scheme does not pretend otherwise.