Tim and Kit Kemp are hoteliers who have designed numerous boutique hotels, including the Haymarket and Soho in London and the Crosby Street Hotel in New York City.
Junior Suite at the Soho Hotel – image via Firmdale Hotels
The couple lives in a 1920s London townhouse near Hyde Park. Their home is filled with wonderful colours and patterns, just like the hotel rooms that they design. Here’s the groovy couple… love those purple go-go boots!
Isn’t the arched bronze front door awesome? If you’re wondering what that big thing on the floor is, it’s a beehive found in France!
The house revolves around the barrel-shape kitchen. The cabinets are limed wood and the flooring is bleached wood. The wing chair is upholstered in a patchwork of tea towels.
The adjoining sunroom is a casual eating space and is the closest thing in the house to a dining room. I love the bright pink & white fabric on the head chairs, and how pretty is the view to the garden?
The living room is open to the kitchen. I really like the combination of the floral and striped fabrics and the red piping on the sofa.
The library is filled with colour and pattern, and of course, books!
The loft has a great vaulted ceiling, and you can just see more books in the upper right corner. Wonder how you get up there!
The grandest room in the house is the drawing room. Tim’s grand piano is in this room, and the Kemps enjoy the fireplace in the drawing room on cold winter nights. Kit expresses her passion for decorating and collecting in this room. It’s filled with her finds, like antique wood panels that she cleaned and hung on the walls in strips.
The master bedroom has a more traditional look and feel than the rest of the house.
And the guest bedroom is an ode to black & white! Maybe a bit of toile overkill, but I think it works. I really like how the zebra rug gives the otherwise traditional room some funkiness.
I love how the Kemps have managed to create a home that’s both elegant and relaxed. This is a house that just has to bring a smile to your face every time you walk through the front door :-)
Source: ELLE Decor
Unless otherwise noted, all photos from ELLE Decor and all photos by by Simon Upton
