Page 86 - Architectural Digest - USA (March 2020)
P. 86
“I wanted to make it happy,”
Out went the beige, taupe, and
nougat, and in came raspberry, chocolate,
teal, orange, and plum. “What started says Sara Tayeb-Khalifa.
as a refreshment became a full-on, soup-
to-nuts, top-to-bottom reimagining,” says “Happy colors, happy home.”
Mele of the fourth-floor space, located
in an 1880s building that Henry James,
T. S. Eliot, and Ian Fleming once called
home. The renovation narrative that he and the clients Mood, in fact, is a leitmotif at the Khalifas’ London getaway.
conjured up was by turns posh and preposterous: a richly The L-shaped apartment doesn’t get much natural light except
layered decor to suggest that the apartment had been in for a few brilliant hours in the late afternoon, so Mele erred on
the family for 80-odd years and was added to every decade the evocative side of things. “Hussein has a busy life, Sara has a
or so with new elements, whether they seemed felicitous or busy life, and there’s always lots going on,” he says. “They spend
not. As Mele explains, the effect is “a little bit of bad taste, time here in the morning and then come back in the evening.
a little bit of fabulous taste, and a lot of books.” So I really made the rooms to be enjoyed at night.”
Chums such as fashion designer Duro Olowu (“He influ-
BASIC BRASS WALL SCONCES in the hall hint at the 1970s, ences my style a lot,” Tayeb-Khalifa says) and photographer
for example, while colorful if stylistically unrelated wall- Miguel Flores-Vianna, who snapped this feature for AD,
papers imply installation dates ranging from the age of Art arrive for drinks or dinner, stepping into the glow of candles.
Deco to the age of Aquarius. The vintage Chinese carpet Curtains fashioned of vintage saris shimmer, a beefy mirrored
belonged to Tayeb-Khalifa’s mother, as did other furnishings, mantel—recalling one at the Paris apartment of Yves Saint
now reinvented with fabrics and paint. “It’s rude to get rid of Laurent and Pierre Bergé—glistens, and gilt-framed works of
people’s things,” Mele says. “Clients have led a life before they art gently gleam as conversations about everything from books
work with you, so to dictate what should be thrown away is to politics roll on past midnight, and the clients’ Pomeranian,
not the best approach.” As for the salon’s red crystal chande- Stewie, falls asleep on a cushion. “This is not a yoga-clothes,
liers—hanging from an artfully sooty ceiling—they look like green-juice environment,” Mele says. “It’s meant to be a place
heirlooms, perhaps brought back from India, but Mele actually to have a glamorous time.” Adds Tayeb-Khalifa, “There’s
sourced the moody sparklers at a shop in the King’s Road. whimsy, charm, and mystery—this is my dream home.”
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