The tiny, exquisite Holland Park apartment of Martin Brudnizki and Jonathan Brook
‘Our idea was to create a perfect little hotel room in London, a bijou flat for a couple of nights a week,’ says Martin Brudnizki of the Holland Park pied-a-terre he shares with his partner Jonathan Brook. Perched on the second floor of a Georgian townhouse and overlooking a private garden, it is the quintessential jewel box of an apartment, luxuriously appointed and exquisitely finished in Martin’s signature style.
The couple, who work together at Martin’s eponymous design studio, spend as much time as possible at their house in the Sussex countryside, but needed to maintain a base in London for work. When Martin sold his own flat, they decided to renovate and move into this flat of Jonathan’s. The flat has a compact footprint – the sitting room and bedroom are essentially one long space running from the front to the back of the house, divided by a wall in the middle. Martin and Jonathan moved the door between them to allow light to flow through the entire flat. Off this central space is a miniature kitchen at the front , and a small entrance hall and bathroom at the other end of the room.
The premise was to make it all feel ‘as sumptuous as possible,’ says Martin, ‘but a little more contemporary than our place in the country. We took the history of the apartment as a starting point: a Georgian building that was redeveloped into apartments after the war, so we would mix the classical in with the modern and take a kind of Hicks-ian approach.’ Strong colour and a bold patterned carpet were the starting point for a scheme that is indeed very much in the manner of David Hicks’ iconic mid-century interiors. Martin created a sumptuous base by lining the walls of the two main rooms in fabric – glowing gold moiré in the sitting room and chocolate brown mohair velvet in the bedroom, echoing these colours in the warm golden tiles of the bathroom and the tobacco brown paint in the kitchen.
There is a distinct theatricality to the decoration that will be familiar to those who know Martin’s work. A dramatically pelmeted curtain in the same moiré as the walls forms a divider between the kitchen and sitting room, without blocking the light from either. Plentiful trims and tassels – many of them from Martin’s new collection with passementerie specialists Samuel & Sons – can be found on the curtains, blinds, cushions and the chairs, while the edges of the fabric walls are double-piped with a striking knot detail in each corner. ‘I love a trim,’ he says. ‘It’s the thrill of the frill.’ Each piece of furniture has considerable personality, from the elegance of the tapestry sofa in Braquenie's ‘Lisieux’ to the plump curves terracotta bouclé armchair and matching footstool.
The main challenge in decorating the apartment came in laying out the small space to suit the way they intended to use it. ‘We were effectively downsizing,’ explains Jonathan. ‘We had a larger collection of furniture from the old flat which we had to curate and make work for a smaller space. It’s the kind of thing we often do for clients, so it was an interesting exercise because we were effectively becoming our own clients.’ The bedroom was large enough to accommodate the bed from Martin’s previous flat, a glossy blue sleigh bed he created as an homage to the Art Deco designer Paul Dupré-Lafon. The sitting room was a trickier proposition. ‘So often in London flats,’ says Jonathan, ‘the living area has to take on all these functions, as a sitting room and a dining room and a study, but rather than do that, we thought, “let’s just make a really nice sitting room.”’
Since they are only in London for work a couple of nights a week and eat out a lot, it didn’t make sense to go down the full multi-functional route, but instead they chose pieces of furniture that could serve different purposes from time to time. The main table in the middle of the room can be a hall table, a desk, or a dining table. There are upright Gothic Revival chairs that are comfortable enough to settle into for a cocktail, but which can also work as dining chairs, as well as a tallboy with a handy shelf that pulls out to be an extra surface on which to set a drink.
The other challenge was editing their considerable collection of pictures to suit the flat’s space and aesthetic. ‘Some of our pictures literally didn’t fit,’ explains Jonathan, ‘and some of them didn’t fit the narrative of the interior. That was the last 10% of the project that we had to keep tweaking.’ As with the rest of the decoration, it is a clever blend: 20th-century expressionist pieces with 18th-century landscapes, affordable pictures from flea markets – ‘I often buy something just for the frame,’ says Jonathan, with more precious works. A favourite is the charcoal drawing of the couple’s whippet, Zenon, which hangs next to the sofa. ‘Charcoal drawings tend to be quite small, but I like the scale of this one. It gives a moment of whiteness and blank space amidst the rich decoration.’
There is an immersive quality to the flat which is characteristic of Martin’s work. ‘The decoration does create a sense of escapism,’ says Jonathan. ‘At the end of a day in London when it’s raining outside, we can come here and escape into our own world – it’s very small but it’s our own.’
Dean Hearne1/7Martin and Jonathan had the doorway into the bedroom moved slightly so that the light could flow all the way from front to back. Jonathan found the blue still life in a flea market in upstate New York.
Dean Hearne2/7The bedroom walls are covered in a Turnell & Gigon mohair velvet in chestnut. The bedspread and blind are in GP&J Baker's ‘Tree Peony’, which was also used for the piping and knots on the edges of the walls.
Dean Hearne3/7The brass mirror came from Fiona McDonald in Fulham.
Dean Hearne4/7Looking out into the entrance hall, where the walls and closet doors are lined in a Philip Jeffries seagrass.
Dean Hearne5/7Reed Harris tiles in a bespoke yellow glaze create an enveloping feel in the bathroom.
Dean Hearne6/7An antique Art Deco light hangs overhead.
Dean Hearne7/7Zenon next to the sofa.
