It’s a great shame that the photographs I have of this commission are so poor considering the efforts I made and the pride in the making. For this Regent’s Park house, Crown Estates oblige that any installation must be in the style of John Nash. His interior work is clumsy and I wanted to do better. Sir John Soane, an architect of the same period (1820s) I very much admired a so created a modern interpretation of his style, an ‘ode to Soane’ you might say.
The study was constructed in American black walnut. Pilasters were detailed with ebony strings terminating in a Grecian key topped by Grecian urns. Heralded as a success, there wasn’t much that the Crown Estate authority could say. The Drawing room was given a similar treatment, but in polished sycamore – simple, delicate, sophisticated. The green silk blinds were the icing on the cake. The curator of The Sir John Soane Museum (Lincoln in Fields) came to see and thought I had done “rather well”. Hurrah for sticking to what you believe in.