There have been some memorable Christmas parties in the Chelsea home of Blake and Chad Pike. ‘I go to the flower market and buy miles of garlands and mistletoe and then we have a steel brass band and a drinks party for all our friends,’ says Blake with a breeziness that belies the scale of the operation. ‘It’s become something of a tradition – a highlight of the festive season.’
That the house design so readily lends itself to a crowd is no happy accident. In 2013, the couple – Chad is founder of Eleven Experience, a luxury adventure travel company with lodges in far-flung corners of the globe, while Blake oversees its interiors arm, Twelve Interiors – gave the 1920s home they share with their four children a top-to-toe rethink. ‘We’d already been here a decade,’ says Blake, whose family divides its time between London and New York. ‘But the original renovation had been so poorly done that everything was falling apart.’
Library: The painting was once part of a panel in a hotel. Vintage sofa, 17–21; covered in Stourhead, Fleurons d’Hélène. Green cushion in L’Animal, Le Manach
Enter New York–based architect Eric J Smith, with whom the pair had already collaborated on Eleven’s lodges and their Shelter Island home. With a deep affinity for American Georgian architecture – and a particular admiration for Robert Adam and David Adler – Eric was a natural choice. ‘We wanted to draw on the Georgian houses in the neighborhood to give ours the character it was missing,’ Blake explains.
Eric’s most dramatic intervention was the new staircase: a cantilevered stone structure that appears to float skyward beside a new triple-height window. ‘It was no mean engineering feat,’ admits Eric of the design, which is both graceful and practical, flooding the core of the house with light.
Shifting the staircase also allowed Eric to enlarge the kitchen, flipping the layout so the working side is tucked out of sight from the entrance hall. The breakfast table now aligns with French doors, which in turn frame the outdoor fireplace – a sequence that draws the eye through to the garden. ‘Chad loves to be outside,’ says Blake. ‘It was important to him that the house had that easy connection.’
Kitchen: The architect Eric J Smith designed the cabinetry to soar up to the roof lantern, with glazed doors for displaying porcelain. ‘When people first walk in, they often don’t realize it’s a kitchen,’ says Blake. Wall tiles, Waterworks. Worktops, Pyrolave. Pendants, Dean Antiques. Ziegler Mahal carpet from western Persia, circa 1880, Joshua Lumley.
For the walls and cabinetry, Blake chose a deep blue. ‘Being American, it took me a while to understand what palette works in the northern English light,’ she says. ‘I wanted the room to feel more like a library than a kitchen.’ The color also resonates with the chinoiserie wallpaper in the dining room, where Eric added fretwork joinery and moldings. ‘One of the pleasures of a traditional house is the hand of the craftsman,’ he says. ‘We’re always looking for ways to bring that back.’
Sitting room: ‘This isn’t a room we use much in the day so I wanted it to feel almost like a club,’ says owner and designer Blake Pike, who found the mirrors in New York and the chairs at Puces de Saint-Ouen. Lacquer wall treatment, Hughie Turner. Chairs in Duchesse, Le Manach. Cushions in Opium Poppy, Robert Kime. Painting by Francisco Bores. Rug, Stark.
Upstairs, a decorative painter spent a week building up layers of color on the sitting room walls to create a lacquered oxblood finish, rich and glossy, that nods to a vivid drawing by Sarah Graham. The effect is dramatic yet warm, offsetting a map of London – one of the many antiques Blake has gathered over the years. ‘I do very little sourcing online; I like to be out and about, because that’s when you stumble across things,’ she says. ‘I don’t buy with a scheme in mind, I buy because I love it.’
Bedroom: Blake had already papered this space when she found the artwork on the Lillie Road. A vintage kantha quilt adds to the bohemian mood. Lamp, Marianna Kennedy. Vintage cushion, Penny Worrall. Jardin de Mysore wallpaper, Pierre Frey. Curtains, Namay Samay.
In the main bedroom, a botanical wallcovering is the perfect foil for a series of 19th-century chrysanthemum woodblock prints by Keika Hasegawa, a collection Blake has built up over time. Overhead, an elegant coffered ceiling conceals a surprising piece of high-tech wizardry: a skylight that slides open to the sky. ‘My husband wanted a skylight and I didn’t – I wanted beautiful architecture and privacy,’ Blake admits. ‘Eric solved our design conflict with a retractable glass panel hidden within the ceiling. You’d never know it was there.’
Balancing all the rich patterns and colors – a lacquered Chinese-red cloakroom here, a bedroom alive with exotic animals there – is the serene staircase, its pale sweep wrapped in a textured silk wallcovering the shade of sun-warmed stone. ‘By keeping the hallway neutral, I could be bolder in the rooms leading off it,’ says Blake. ‘It acts like a palette cleanser: as you move from one space to the next, the eye needs somewhere to rest – otherwise it’s like living inside a color wheel.’
Bathroom: A classic bateau tub anchors the elegant scheme, while a new skylight and mirrored panels flood the space with light. Bateau bathtub, Catchpole & Rye. Taps, Volevatch. Antique side table, Brownrigg.
The result is a home that feels as considered as it does convivial, designed for family life yet ready to rise to the occasion. Which is why, when the sitting room furniture is cleared for the brass band, the house slips so effortlessly back into party mode.