Collection by Pascale
Cuisine comptoir
With clever storage and a retractable skylight, a London apartment designed by metalworker and owner Simone ten Hompel and Roger Hynam of Rogeroger Design Solutions feels larger than its 576 square feet. The team worked in a uniquely collaborative way, with Ullmayer Sylvester planning the space, Hynam creating the built-in storage and the kitchen island, and ten Hompel making models and scrawling on the wall to better envision their proposals. The kitchen island features a compact cooktop by Whirlpool and an integrated drainboard incised into the countertop for easy cleaning.
Connected to the kitchen by a flight of stairs, the bar features cohesive custom fittings and furniture by Eginstill. Each living area flows freely into the next, in effort to “make the space as open as possible, just like it used to be when it was a sugar refinery” says van Hulzen. “We wanted to [return] the building to its old glory.”
A massive white island range is anchored by locally sourced Italian slate floors in black. In this black and white kitchen, cabinets, countertops, and walls are finished in white so as to prevent the space from feeling too dark. To shed even more light, a glass ceiling at the far end of the kitchen presents an open-air feeling.
Featuring reclaimed wood from the original house, a single sliding door covers only half of the kitchen pantry. As the door slides, china and glassware are revealed on one side; the other side holds Anne’s design library and favored heirlooms. The sliding door follows a track installed in the concrete underfloor; the shelves are supported by recessed steel brackets, strong enough to hold the weight of a man—or a baby. An additional full-size pantry is located inside the laundry room, toward the original bungalow.
Architect Kevin Alter integrated wood from the original bungalow into the kitchen and covered the island in Carrara marble, with an interior clad in wood. A long table extends from the side of the island, and wine storage is integrated into one end of the island. New appliances include a Wolf range, a Broan hood, and a Miele oven and refrigerator. The Fucsia pendant lights are by Achille Castiglioni for Flos.