This Home Mixes English Heritage Charm With a Contemporary Palette

Aristocratic mansions aside, few homes today remain in the same family for more than a generation, but the children running through these refined and tranquil rooms are the third generation of their family to live here. Their father and mother moved in with his parents while renovating their previous home, then decided to buy this place when said parents downsized nearby.

In these circumstances, it could be a challenge to bring your own identity into the mix. Perhaps that’s why the family brought in architecture and interior design studio Zunica Paraskevas to help them reimagine the house as a modern home.

They asked the founders of Zunica Paraskevas, Maria Olmos Zunica and Frédérique Paraskevas, to create a better sense of flow between the rooms, with the capacity to host lots of family and friends, and to include a grown-ups’ drawing room with a members’ club vibe.

“The house felt compartmentalized and inaccessible,” says Maria. “We opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, letting light flood in.” To improve the proportions of the main living space, they shifted the wall bordering the hallway, restoring and reinstating the original oak paneling. “It is such an important original feature, reflecting the Arts and Crafts character of the house that we wished to preserve and respect,” says Frédérique.

The project has been a balancing act between past and present. “The stone and wood that were used when the house was built feature rich textures and craftsmanship,” says Maria. “We wanted to introduce materials that would complement the craftsmanship of the original house, rather than overpower it,” adds Frédérique.

In the kitchen, the custom-designed joinery is a pared-back, contemporary take on the original wood paneling. “We used the oak cabinetry almost like a blanket that wraps the kitchen and creates a continuity, a conversation, with the living rooms. Our design process was an ongoing exercise in finding an almost understated elegance,” explains Frédérique. Drawing on the warm tones of the paneling, the color palette throughout the house is now soft and subtle, but also rich and intense.

At one end of the kitchen, Zunica Paraskevas created a little breakout space with a sofa area. “By integrating a lounge area into the kitchen, the space allowed for cooking and family life to happen in parallel — something that was not possible in the previously fragmented layout. We design the spaces that our clients ask for, but also the spaces and atmosphere that the family may not initially have known they needed,” says Maria.

The couple’s modern bedroom was approached in the same way. Here the designers have created an indulgent, cocooning space, with an upholstered headboard layered against a wall-wide wool panel. “It’s no longer a purely functional space but somewhere in which it is a real pleasure to spend time at the end of a long day,” says Frédérique.