St Luke’s Mews W11

Set amongst candy-coloured facades and cobbled stones, this quintessential Notting Hill mews home is both the setting of iconic cinema and modern family living.

When renovating this mews house, designers Fossey Arora could have dug down, stripped out and built up but they and the owner wisely decided against it. Instead, they sought to preserve the beauty of this inner London gem while still ensuring it met the needs of modern living.

“In Notting Hill, everyone knows St Luke’s Mews,” comments Andrew Fossey, “It has managed to retain this wonderful character that can only come from a community that’s proud of where it lives. We had our eye on the mews for years and when this property, which was being used as an old garage and car repair workshop came up for sale, we were delighted.”

Unlike many mews houses, this one was ideally suited to family living. “We have a great relationship with Domus Nova and they helped us to image the ‘client’, the person that would buy this house. That was our foundation and dictated some of the elevations,” explains Fossey. The ground floor has two guest bedrooms opening onto a casual sitting room. The colours and patterns were atypical for this part of London with tartans and chintz reinterpreted for 21st-century living. It also featured a shower room that took an interesting twist on the norm: bright-blue grout contrasted with the white subway tiles and inside the shower, the Moroccan tiles were installed on a diagonal.

A luxurious master suite was to be found on the first floor. We were particularly taken with the master bathroom. Tongue and groove panelling, his-and hers-sinks, a walk in shower and a showstopper of a copper bath really made this property stand out. Upstairs was designed for entertaining: an open-plan sitting, dining and cooking space with views over the mews.

Outside space wasn’t forgotten thanks to a large roof terrace with established plants. Bigger than most London gardens, this terrace provided a great outdoor eating space, timber decking and views over the skyline.