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The Coach House, East Dulwich
The Evening Standard called the decor ‘serene, considered and contemporary’. Around 65% of what you see is reused; vintage pieces, re-upholstered finds and clever high-street buys sitting alongside things with genuine history.
The feel is softly mid-century. The concrete floor has been sanded back to reveal its aggregate, which gives it a slightly retro quality I find hard to describe but easy to love – it’s warm without being obvious about it.
There’s also a timber-clad annexe off the main house – quieter and more considered in feel. It has a different kind of vernacular to the main building, but still part of the same conversation.
What I find most interesting about this project is that it’s never really finished. I don’t think a home should be, and we’re still slowly adding, editing and changing. The result is a space that reflects how I actually think about interiors – not as a fixed outcome, but as something that evolves alongside the people living in it.
Photography by Ellen Christina Hancock and Lewis Gregory
The Coach House in East Dulwich isn’t a client project – it’s mine. My husband and I built it together on the site of a derelict commercial garage; he led on light, form and space planning, and I took care of the materiality.
Our aim was to create a beautiful home that feels calm but has character, so the architecture is deliberately neutral – wood, off-white, steel, exposed aggregate concrete – and that restraint is intentional. It’s the same approach I used on our Gin Distillery project: let the architecture breathe, and bring character through the furniture and objects.
Featured In
"Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud christened Rupert the ‘master of illumination’ in its House of the Year series in 2018 and this stands to good reason: despite facing north-west, there is nothing gloomy about this abode.
A generous skylight in the double-height atrium floods the entry and staircase with southern light. This source is amplified into the windowless ground-floor study and the family bathroom via wall panels of reeded glass."
Olivia Lidbury, Evening Standard
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