EVEN IF IT MEANS traipsing round Hong Kong, viewing 50 or more properties, Dominique Lampel won't compromise her taste and requirements when it comes to finding a place to live. 'I don't like high rises and prefer older places with high ceilings even if they are inconvenient and don't have ultra-modern facilities,' she says. 'If you look around you can find some marvellous things with great character, even in the Mid-Levels.'
French-born Lampel, who has been living in Hong Kong with her husband, the managing director of an industrial textile manufacturer, and three grown-up children for four years, found her most recent dream home in Stanley. She chose the 2,800-square-foot house for its unusual split-level layout positioned around a central courtyard, and for its light and space.
'I'd never seen anything similar in Hong Kong,' she says. 'It's not a 'normal' house - the dining and living rooms, for example, are separate, which is quite rare in itself - and that's what gives it character.'
Because it is rented accommodation, the Lampels couldn't alter their new home structurally, and they opted not to take the interior-designer route, thanks to Dominique's passion for decorating. She deliberately brought the minimal amount of furniture from her previous home in Spain - beige sofas, beds and most lamps - so she was able to create a style from scratch, rather than fit the look of her home around her existing furniture.
'I wanted a more Asian rather than purely Chinese style with touches of European flavour,' she says. 'And colour is very important to me - I even wanted all my paintings to match.'