A grandmother’s spacious home combines timeless elegance with all the mod cons
Designed by Yu-Chang Chen, this spacious 2,600 sq ft flat in Jardine’s Lookout was made to suit the lifestyle of its stylish resident
Yu-Chang Chen, founder of interior design studio hoo, is used to clients giving him free rein. But this 2,300 sq ft home in Jardine’s Lookout was a particular treat.
“Our client [a retired grandmother] was very open-minded and trusted us completely, so we did absolutely everything for her – from changing the layout to suit her way of living to sourcing and styling every last piece on the shelves,” says Chen.
The trust had been earned several years before this 2017 project, when hoo worked on the home of the client’s daughter, also in Jardine’s Lookout. But where the daughter had wanted a clean, minimalist interior, Chen and Natalie Tsoi Kit-wing, hoo’s lead designer for this project, envisaged a more elegant, old-world aesthetic for the mother.
“Our client had just one piece that she wanted to bring with her – a grandfather clock that she has had for over 30 years,” says Chen. “We took that as our starting point. But we didn’t want it to look like an old lady’s home. That wouldn’t have suited her at all. We wanted an elegant, classic and timeless home for her.”
Tsoi adapted the 36-year-old flat’s three-bedroom, two-bathroom layout to create a luxurious bedroom suite with a walk-through dressing room leading to an enlarged en-suite bathroom. A second room, also with an en-suite, functions as a “playroom” for the client’s grandchildren and features a raised bed platform for sleepovers.
Custom-designed parquet flooring and decorative door mouldings lend the interior a genteel European flavour, enriched with antiqued mirrors and feminine accents in rose and gold. For added depth, Chen commissioned French-Moroccan artist Assia Bennani to paint a subtly textured ombre-effect wall in the living area, where white dissolves into a smoky grey-blue at the base.