Asian persuasion

5-MIN READ5-MIN

Published: 12:00am, 11 Aug 2002

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.'

Once she had her style in mind, Lampel decided on the colour scheme - a mixture of red, beige and tobacco - and the first object to meet both requirements was a Chinese hanging scroll featuring imperial officials, which she found in Macau. She had blinds made from striped Jim Thompson silk (available at Altfield in Princes Building, Central. Tel: 2525 2738; www.altfield.com.hk) to pick out colours in the scroll and found a complementary coloured rug for the floor. From there, it was a case of buying furniture, art and other objects as and when she found them. 'Every time I go somewhere I buy something,' she says. 'The objects don't have to be expensive, just nice to look at.'