This title for the monograph dedicated to their work by Roberto Peregalli and Laura Sartori Rimini perfectly describes their interior design style: The Invention of the Past. This Milan-based design duo cannot be labeled as modernists, nor are they atypical. Their work instead reflects the past with a slick sophistication by bringing to mind the architectural styles of a time that have passed, but not in a rigid manner. “Nothing is copied directly from something else,” Peregalli declares. “It’s always a reinterpretation, like a reverie.” Sartori Rimini adds: “Our interiors aim to give the impression they’ve always been there.”
The earliest Arts and Crafts home in Hampstead, London, proved the ideal venue to showcase their talent. The 19th-century architectural genius Basil Champneys had built the magnificent 1881 brick residence for himself. He was an early master of his Queen Anne style and a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson and Victorian essayist Walter Pater among his acquaintances; the significant projects he worked on comprised Manchester’s John Rylands Library and Harvard University’s Newnham College.
The elegant central part of the home has morphed only a little through the years; it has Flemish roofs, four central chimneys, and mullioned windows transoms and mullioned. The 20th century saw a series of changes; however, it had nearly entirely stripped the interior architectural value. In the latter half of the 1950s, the house was converted into apartments, mainly occupied by artists–“it was a kind of commune for hippies,” claims Sartori Rimi. In 1984, it was converted to a private home with an indoor pool was added. “The interiors were flashy, without any charm,” Peregalli reminisces about the house. There were marble floors with a shiny finish and plain white walls and a fake-stone spiral slide that slid into the pool. The new owners – an Italian couple and their three children from being enthralled by the property. “It had a rich past and beautiful proportions, and it simply needed a sympathetic refurbishment to bring out all its glory,” says the wife, who was attracted by the vast gardens. “After twenty years living in Chelsea, I was aching for a larger garden and dogs. This is an acre of constant delights from the rose garden to the vegetable garden. We call it “our London country home.”
The most significant modification was the relocation of the pool into the basement. Peregalli and Sartori Rimini created a great library with bookcases based on 18th-century portraits of Ottoman characters on the ground floor. The bookcases come from the renowned Italian interior designer Renzo Mongiardino, an acquaintance of Peregalli’s parents.