CLAREMONT HOUSE

INTERIOR DESIGNER & BUILDING DIRECTION
Angela Harry

FURNITURE ART & OBJECT
Simone Haag 

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Kate Patterson Landscapes

PHOTOGRAPHY
Eve Wilson

Claremont House has been carefully coaxed into contemporary relevance through a dedication to design that articulates its elegant architectural ornamentation while instilling an atmosphere of moderne femme.

Home to a mother and her two daughters, the home’s resurrection was always going to be one that tilted towards the feminine. Beyond its heritage white facade adorned in iron lacework and defined by a pastel pink front door with jewelled stained glass detailing, the home has been intelligently unlocked by Interior Designer Angela Harry who reconfigured the kitchen and opened up the living spaces to a charming newly landscaped rear garden.

As a long time client who first engaged Simone Haag on a previous home as well as for an earlier phase of Claremont House eight year earlier, the client’s character and personal style were already well defined, allowing for the luxury of familiarity when it came to steering the procurement of furniture, lighting, art and objects for the home’s new iteration.

Surrounded by streams of natural light and an interior palette of oak, ever-so-soft nude, cool whispers of grey, stones in rose, terracotta and deep greens, brass and ornate plasterwork, Claremont House’s decorative metamorphosis unfolded from a collection of three rugs  — a  moss beige custom rug from Loom for the living room, a ‘Santa Fe’ rug by Amadi via Halcyon Lake for the dining room which offsets the clean lines of an existing Scandinavian table with its captivating artisanal craftsmanship, and a ‘Corals’ rug also by Amadi via Halcyon Lake for the study — that perfectly mediate between architecture and interior design to establish a refined styling language.

With the rugs established as the axis upon which everything else is hinged, a styling scheme has unfolded that seamlessly emulates and balances the home’s delicate notes. Reflecting a client with preferences for pieces that have an adaptive re-use and are both beautiful and practical, many of the styling gestures are timeless, classic imbued with qualities that eschew trend but are strikingly elevated. Furniture is attired in handcrafted textiles of tribalesque expressions and fabrics that coax tactile engagement; objects reconcile symmetry and the wabi sabi; lighting exudes classicism while reaching for artisanal beauty through bespoke design; and, side tables marry functionality and sculptural grace. What this careful modulation does is make space for the inclusion of pieces that pour heart and warmth into the home — a painting by Peter Powditch via Charles Nodrum Gallery, vintage mirrors via 50607, sculptural wall hooks via Fundemente —  rendering it with its own narrative.

Claremont House has emerged as a home that finds its beauty through design’s rose tinted lens. Through its styling curation it skirts the periphery of an overtly feminine language through the use of abstract points of interest such as its rugs, a Blink Cabinet by Yabu Pushelberg and objets d’art that exude a strong yet graceful poise, an inherently female charm that perfectly disrupts the fragile, pink frilled algorithm.