Conceived by Hill House Interiors, this enticing, four-floor bolthole is all about “quiet performance”.
There’s plenty to recommend this 17,000 sq ft private residence in London’s leafy Highgate, conceived by Hill House Interiors: the visionary design practice co-founded by Helen Bygraves and Jenny Weiss. Besides the discreet residential address, over four impeccably planned floors, it offers: seven bedroom suites; four drawing and sitting rooms; a formal dining room; private study; two kitchens; wine room; gym; games room; and a spa complete with swimming pool, sauna, steam room and treatment room.
Even the arrival sequence feels choreographed, with a car lift delivering residents directly to the garage while preserving the calm, understated character of the house above. And yet, what really makes this one of the most desirable properties we’ve come across in the UK capital of late the magic concealed behind all the majesty.
Hill House Interiors has built the entire project around the idea of “quiet performance”: the notion that the highest expression of luxury is technology, rather than flaunting itself at every opportunity, slipping into the background (the inconspicuous efficacy of Jeeves in the eponymous P.G. Wodehouse novels springs to mind). Cutting-edge engineering slips behind and beneath exquisitely crafted surfaces, allowing atmosphere, comfort and personality to own the limelight.
Crucially, to implement this philosophy, designers worked alongside the architectural team from the earliest stages, ensuring that layout, interior architecture, finishes and sophisticated technical infrastructure evolved in tandem. The challenge, from the start, was to make the property’s 17,000 square feet feel instinctively liveable in varied scenarios: somewhere seemingly specifically designed for lavish dinner parties one evening, for welcoming adult offspring back from university the next and offering pockets of sanctuary once the guests—and younger relatives—have left owners in peace.
The technology’s elegant disappearing act is perhaps best realised in the private cinema. At first glance, it’s only the fact that the seats all face the same way that makes you realise you’re not in a richly layered salon, with a waiter about to come and take your cocktail order any moment. Take a closer look, and you’ll discover professional-grade L-Acoustics technology hidden within lavish fabric wall panels and a stepped coffered ceiling, with speakers, lighting, cabling and a retractable projector also seamlessly—and invisibly—absorbed into the architecture.
The décor is every bit as ingenious as the engineering. The same woven wall coverings that provide acoustic absorption also introduce texture and warmth; specially commissioned textiles and bronze detailing lend further richness and depth; black Perlata plaster cocoons the room in a kind of dramatic intimacy conducive to being immersed, for the coming ours, in some cinematic marvel or other.
Meanwhile, every reflective and absorbent surface has been painstakingly balanced to preserve crystalline sound, creating an experience so immersive that the outside world simply melts away. Even the technical controls vanish behind a concealed jib door, preserving the illusion that this is, first and foremost, a beautifully appointed room rather than a showcase for modern technology’s tendency towards vanity.
Elsewhere in the residence, John Cullen lighting quietly enhances artworks, architectural features and intimate corners as daylight ebbs and flows, while switchable privacy glass allows the games room to transform at the touch of a button (the garage beyond can be converted, at a touch, into a gallery-like display of the owner’s automotive inclinations, or screen it entirely from view). Add to all this sculptural forms, richly veined stone, bespoke metalwork, saturated colour and high-gloss finishes, and the result is a home in which technical and aesthetic sophistication are singing in perfect harmony.
Is invisible smart tech the Next Big Thing in interior design? If so, the creatives behind Hill House should take a lot of credit for it.
