Symmetry keeps antique collector’s Hong Kong home looking curated not cluttered

David Halperin’s first encounter with Hong Kong was as a young United States Navy officer in the 1960s. He still remembers sailing through Victoria Harbour, wondering what life in the then British colony was like. Little did he know it would become his permanent home.

“After leaving the navy, I trained as a lawyer and came back to Hong Kong in 1976 for a job with an international law firm [for which he still works],” he says. “The key was buying an apartment rather than renting. Having some­where I owned, I felt more committed to the place and more settled.”

This 2,400 sq ft Mid-Levels flat was not his first purchase. Having lived nearby for 35 years in a similar-sized flat, when a five-bedroom apartment came up for sale in a building he knew and liked, he jumped at the chance. And not least because it had two reasonably sized staff rooms with windows and a rear lift, offering greater privacy for all concerned.

Almost derelict and infested with termites, the flat had not been inhabited for years. And with the entire block undergoing an overhaul and shrouded in netted scaffold­ing, it was difficult to gauge its potential. But Halperin had faith. He roped in a close friend, designer Stephen James, of Softworks Studio, who had helped him refurbish a previous apartment as well as properties in Bangkok, Manila and New York, and a 10-month process began.

“David and I have worked together on many projects and we go through a lot of detailed drafts before anything physically happens,” says James. “This was a pretty major renovation but it was relatively straightforward and I think the investment of time before construction was worth it.”