Actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley creates an achingly refined London townhouse with Rose Uniacke
The A-lister offers a sneak preview into her collaboration with a decorated interior designer and shares what partner Jason Statham thinks of her passion project.
It is surely every girl’s fantasy to have a place to call her own. And this is exactly what British model-actress turned designer, entrepreneur and angel investor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has created with help from sought-after British designer Rose Uniacke. Away from the family home in a leafy suburb just out of London that Huntington-Whiteley shares with her partner, the actor Jason Statham and their two young children Jack and Isabella, she has created the perfect city bolthole. “I liken it to a little jewel box,” Huntington-Whiteley enthuses.
She comes here most days of the week to work and “get some headspace”, Huntington-Whiteley explains. “I do a lot of creative direction at the house, whether it is pulling together imagery, reading or writing; it’s such a beautiful setting to take meetings… and I’m very much somebody who likes to be in town.” And when in London for the night, Huntington-Whiteley loves getting together with, and cooking for, friends. “I rarely go out to eat in restaurants now, and everybody who comes always comments on how intimate and personal the house feels.”
Purchased upon the couple’s return to London after many years living in Los Angeles, the property wasn’t an entirely new discovery for Huntington-Whiteley. She had first seen it a decade ago, while house hunting with Statham — “it is one of our obsessions, we love architecture and design” — but it had felt too small for the two of them to reside in together, “knowing we wanted to start a family at some point”, she says. “But it always stayed in my mind because when I first moved to London as a model, I stayed with a relative who lived around the corner and I used to walk down this road and say to myself, ‘one day, I would like to own a house like that’”.
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When it came up for sale again, however, it looked very different to how she remembered. “It had been through two or three owners, rented out and was falling apart, but it was still charming,” she says of the Grade-II* (buildings of special national importance) townhouse’s simplicity of line and proportion, high ceilings and big flat windows. “There’s such an elegance and refinement to this period of Georgian architecture.”
She called on Uniacke, who had previously worked on the couple’s family home, because “we are quite aligned in our tastes and ideals”, Huntington-Whiteley says. “I felt it was a great project, I could drive it with my ideas and bring to the table a real point of view, while Rose could layer in her own identity and style,” she says of the three-bedroom pied-à-terre.
“I’m proud of this project because it very much shows both of our handwriting.” According to Uniacke, “designing spaces that make you feel good, that feel like they hold you” has always been her modus operandi. “I wanted to bring a contemporary flavour and Rosie’s style to this very pretty Georgian house by making it feel clean and fresh, elegant and feminine.”
Laying pale Dinesen Douglas fir floorboards throughout, something Huntington-Whiteley had seen Uniacke do in one of her own homes, “really set the tone for the whole house”, the model enthuses (they also used it for the cabinetry in the kitchen, bathrooms and dressing room). Then, against walls painted in a warm off-white specialist finish, Uniacke introduced the creamy soft neutrals that Huntington-Whiteley is drawn to having in both her homes and her wardrobe.
“It’s what brings me a sense of joy and evokes calm and serenity,” says the former runway star and actress (film credits include Mad Max: Fury Road and Transformers: Dark of the Moon) who has designed lingerie with British retail giant Marks & Spencer and recently collaborated on a collection for Wardrobe.NYC. “That’s really the feeling I want when I walk through the front door,” says Huntington-Whiteley. “To be able to immediately take a deep breath and feel embraced by a sense of peace.”
Knowing that the townhouse didn’t need to survive the rough-and-tumble of young children also meant Huntington-Whiteley could be less practical in the materials she and Uniacke chose. “I wanted it to feel more grown up,” she says.
This certainly comes through the eclectic mix of contemporary and antique pieces — “lots of European, some Scandinavian, quite a lot of French, even some American designers like Phillip Lloyd Powell”, says Uniacke — and the myriad uses of textiles, particularly as art. “Art in a glass frame just felt too restrained,” says Huntington-Whiteley.
With many of the textiles and art by female artists, from the triptych artwork by Tarka Kings to wall hangings by Simone Prouvé, and an emphasis on furniture with sensuous curves, “the house has good girl energy”, beams Huntington-Whiteley. This comes through, too, in the sense of lightness permeating every space, not just in the way sunshine softly filters through each room from morning to night, but also in the pared-back choreography of pieces Uniacke curated for each room.
“It’s so much about a combination of how full and how empty a room is,” Uniacke says, describing the importance of how things work together. “An empty wall, for example, will profoundly influence a piece of furniture next to it and the other way around.” However, the designer always grounds a space with a touch of black or something weighty — like the red travertine side table in the drawing room, the warmth of the walnut George Nakashima hanging console in the dining area, or the vividly veined marble fireplace in the principal bedroom — so that things “don’t feel like they’ll fly away”, she explains. “It is about getting the balance right, so you’re not sucking the life out of the room but actually energising it with the right pieces.”
When pressed to choose her favourites, Huntington-Whiteley says, “I can honestly say every single thing in the house is really special because everything we chose was really informed and considered.” She credits Statham for inspiring her love of “the airy feel and quality of build” that comes with vintage design. “He introduced me to mid-century furniture when we first met, and as we became a couple, owning, designing and furnishing homes together, our tastes really evolved,” she explains. Favourite pieces in the townhouse include gifts from Statham, such as the Paavo Tynell ‘Chinese Hat’ cane-wrapped brass floor lamps in the drawing room. “You can see our love language is homes, furniture and art.”
Among iconic designs such as Isamu Noguchi’s Akari ceiling light hanging above the silver travertine table in the kitchen and a cosy pair of 1950s Fritz Hansen Easy sheepskin armchairs, there are contemporary pieces that also garner attention. “The Glithero Hold Me vase on the mantelpiece in the drawing room is quirky and odd, but interesting, and people always remark on it,” says Huntington-Whiteley.
A sycamore table and stool by Atelier Cedric Breisacher — “as light as a feather, soft and sensual” — has been transformed into an elegant dressing table in the main bathroom, and a crescent-curved ’60s sofa, upholstered in one of Uniacke’s luxurious bouclé wools, was chosen as a more affordable alternative to Huntington-Whiteley’s original desire for a Jean Royère design. “I immediately realised I’d be blowing a massive proportion of the budget on one of those sofas and in hindsight it would have been very heavy in the space.”
Naturally, many of Uniacke’s own designs are peppered throughout, from a raw-oak and stitched-leather armchair, calico-skirted bronze pendant light and turned-marble side table to her own collection of lightweight linens used to line the walls, robust woven wools upholstering sofas and sheer linens used to create relaxed Roman blinds.
“Collaborating with makers has been a primary interest for all of my working life,” says the designer of pieces including a sculpted table lamp fashioned from stoneware by French ceramicist Isabelle Sicart. “That’s how my practice has evolved — what we make and buy, and why we make and buy it, plays a key part in what we do.”
“I tell you who loves this house the most is Jason,” Huntington-Whiteley laughs. “Every time he comes here, he leaves feeling very inspired but also a little envious that I have my own kind of ‘sneak off’ space.” Hands down, “this has been the most fulfilling project of my life,” says Huntington-Whiteley while taking in the view through the kitchen’s French doors of the small but wildly verdant terraced garden outside, designed by award-winning British landscape architect and garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith. “To literally handpick every single piece that’s here, from the lamps and sconces, to the art and the knives and forks in the kitchen drawer, to designing the cabinetry so it is exactly as I want it, has been an absolute dream come true.”
Photographed by Simon Upton
Make-up by Brooke Turnbull
Hair by Christian Wood
From the Vogue Living November/December issue. On sale today, October 24.
