20th Century Belgian Home Restored by Pierre Yovanovitch

This extraordinary circa 1900’s Belgian residence has undergone many different incarnations. It was originally built for an aristocrat. Some half a decade later it was carved up and turned into offices, complete with polystyrene tiled ceilings and a conspicuous absence of any kitchen or proper bathrooms. But then again, that’s what gets the juices flowing, isn’t it? The desire to restore, rejuvenate and reinvent.

In this case, for the superstar French interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch, there was less of the restore, and more of the reinvent. The only element of the original house remaining is the street frontage, resplendent in its original brick façade.

Yovanovitch completely redesigned the interior of the home. A stunning full-height picture window for the kitchen, an arresting sculptural spiral staircase, rising three floors skyward and crowned with a geometric stained-glass skylight.

Yovanovitch favours the artisan approach – his belief is that the only way to make sure a space is not sterile is by employing the deft hand of the truly creative and inspired craftsmen. He favours bespoke joinery crafted by master carpenters and furnishings by 20th-century Scandinavian masters like Axel Einar Hjorth and Paavo Tynell. Yovanovitch is in his element when employing understated materials, walnut bookshelves built into the curved walls of the library, a travertine fireplace in the living room and patinated steel sheets that cover the walls in the dining room.

His clients, a family with four adult sons were very effusive in their brief for the house to be entertaining friendly. Their desire to put living rooms and dining rooms into the same space caused some consternation for Yovanovitch. He prefers his rooms to have specific functions, not to meld into a soup of multiple usages. But isn’t that the ultimate challenge of the designer? To take a brief which makes you uncomfortable and to produce, what can only be described, as a climatic result.