An Elegant Notting Hill Flat Enlivened By Maximalist Flourishes

In 2012, soon after graduating from the Inchbald College of Design in London, the Turkish designer Enis Karavil was residing in the city’s Belgravia neighborhood and operating close by — for the London Design and style Pageant — at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He put in much of his weekends, nonetheless, a handful of miles northwest in Notting Hill, browsing at Portobello Market, which is composed of a mile-prolonged string of avenue vendors who have been congregating there since the late 1860s, and which, many thanks to the so-termed rag and bone men — effectively, cart-wielding junk dealers — has in excess of the final eight decades developed into an epicenter for antiques and eccentric bric-a-brac. Sooner or later, Karavil’s regular excursions, as properly as the neighborhood’s vibrant ambiance, spurred him to glimpse for a place in Notting Hill. Initially, he set an offer you on a a few-tale London villa, but then he observed an apartment that spanned two flooring of a stucco-fronted townhouse created in the mid-19th century. Though it required considerable adore, he realized, largely many thanks to an initial marble fire with neo-Classical corbel detailing and an abnormal wrought-iron spiral staircase, that it was in which he desired to be.

What he did not but know was that renovating the home would usher in a new creative chapter for him. About the future 5 months, Karavil labored to revive the property’s silent attraction, at which haphazard interventions and common neglect had, above the decades, bit by bit chipped away. “I desired to make positive the inside mirrored the architecture of the making, so that everything felt as although it had been below because the starting,” he claims. In some approaches, this intended putting issues back again the way they’d been. Commencing in the south-experiencing sitting space that anchors the condominium, Karavil reinstated attractive plasterwork molding, restored the trio of round-topped home windows that open up on to a very long balcony and tore down ceiling storage that experienced been mounted in the 2000s and stunted the room’s original generous proportions.

But Karavil also permit himself stray from the historical report, opening and brightening the area, and its combination of outdated and new things is a person of a couple of apparent contradictions that make the dwelling so appealing. He eliminated the doorway top from the entryway to the previously boxed-in kitchen area, for instance, and added a serving hatch in the wall in between the kitchen area and the sitting down area. He also painted the walls bone white — rather than any of the deep hues the Victorians may have favored when the residence was crafted — set up personalized stainless-steel cabinets in the kitchen area and laid a reclaimed pinewood flooring sourced from an old English tobacco manufacturing unit throughout.

Another notable stress is that, for somebody who enjoys amassing, Karavil has kept the rooms remarkably and intentionally spare. The seating in the dwelling area mainly consists of a single sofa — a boxy brown leather-based style by Umberto Asnago for Arflex — a vintage black pony skin club chair from the Nicole Farhi store in Chelsea and a trio of tiny, mom-of-pearl-inlaid dining chairs from an antiques retail store in Marylebone. There is also a slender Serge Mouille flooring lamp, a television-shielding lacquered display screen with mesh and gold patina detailing and a metallic-trimmed tea stand.

Continue to, Karavil’s far more maximalist side shines by right here and there by using many curios, which are prominently displayed and present notes of theatricality. On the mantel of the marble hearth, also located in the residing space, is a glass dome encasing a trio of dried and painted mushrooms, their darkish, globular varieties searching as nevertheless they are element artwork and component science undertaking, and on the dining desk is an outdated butcher’s block topped with vintage stationery accouterments. On the floor in front of the fireside is an antique alligator rug nicknamed Bob that Karavil identified at a Chelsea honest in 2016. And in a much corner of the room is a established of custom made cabinets that houses items from his collection of in excess of 100 silver teapots. What started as a nod to the English tradition of acquiring afternoon tea — and to Karavil’s grandmother Sol’s copious assemblage of silverware — has grow to be a full-scale obsession, and between his vessels are a pyramidal model picked up at the Marché aux Puces in Paris and 1 with a plexiglass deal with sourced from Loads Highway Auction House in London. “They’re these little matters. But it constantly amazes me how absolutely unique they are from a single another,” claims Karavil, who adds, “It’s the facts that convey the colour for me.”

Which is certainly true of his favorite item in the condominium, which did not come from a layout studio or a flea current market but rather from his maternal excellent-aunt, an artist named Suzanne Kutiel: Previously mentioned the fire hangs a glamorous oil portrait of her that was rendered in 1959, when she was 36 and dressed to show up at a friend’s ball in her adopted homeland of Brazil. When she returned to Turkey in 1995, the painting was the only possession she brought again with her. It looks out previous a glass-topped dining desk with mismatched wooden legs from the Georgian and Edwardian eras, at which sit a established of cartonlike papier-mâché 10313 stools, both of those of Karavil’s style and design, to the reverse wall, which is hung with 13 anonymous male portraits purchased at distinct antiques marketplaces. “A stadium for Suzanne,” he states.

By the time Karavil was mostly accomplished with the condominium, he was operating as an inside designer at the business Hubert Zandberg, but then his pals, viewing what he’d carried out with his own place, commenced asking him to reimagine theirs. In 2015, following he’d worked on properties for pals in Boston and Istanbul, he made the decision to start out his possess agency, Sanayi313, with his brother, Amir, and to base it out of Turkey, where he realized he could develop environments, and give merchandise, that weren’t out there wherever else in the place.

Even nowadays, the Notting Hill flat remains a variety of blueprint for his projects — from an artwork-stuffed seashore property in Bodrum to Cafe di Dolce, a Parisian-design cafe in Istanbul the place attendees sit beneath an set up of some 2,000 acrylic peonies by the artist Nahide Büyükkaymakci — which all share a streamlined aesthetic that nods to Outdated Planet natural beauty. This tactic extends to the Sanayi313 restaurant and shop, found on the mezzanine of the former car or truck maintenance shop that residences the firm’s workplaces in Maslak, an industrial district of Istanbul. The previous serves a every day menu of seasonal fare to company seated at the very same design and style of very long glass desk in Karavil’s Notting Hill dining area, though the latter sells goods from the dwelling line together with a curated selection of objects from other makers, including Karavil’s beloved Serge Mouille lighting, Taschen artwork publications and Cire Trudon candles.

The designer hopes a single working day to open up a comparable setup in West London. For now, he’s receiving all set to current a 21-piece giving of wooden, ceramic and glass vases this spring, and doing work on a furniture assortment. He lives in the Notting Hill flat about a person week a thirty day period. When he’s there, he likes to host impromptu wine and cheese functions. Right after his good friends go dwelling, he helps make for his bedroom, a bijou area to the rear of the condominium which is appointed with a straightforward antique Iranian table and a Flos Parentesi lamp. On the wall, in lieu of a headboard, is a wallpaper mural depicting a chlorobromide print of a nude by the Greenwich Village portrait photographer Atelier Von Behr titled “Rebecca, 1938.” The next morning, if his plan permits, he wakes up, grabs an iced espresso, takes his black schnauzer, Polka, for a stroll and then heads to Portobello Marketplace.