Nearly everything in Beatrice Ancillon’s home is for sale. The reason is that she buys instinctively for ODE, or Objéts de Epoch, the 20th-century design store she owns in Hastings, never simply what she thinks her clients will buy and, invariably, some of those pieces found their way to her home. She lives in a split-level flat in nearby St Leonards, which she shares with her husband, John Alfredo Harris, an artist and landscape designer.
Four years before the Covid city exodus, Ancillon decided to call time on the capital. Like many before her, she moved for the sea air, more space and the vibrant, arty community, which thrives there.
ODE is a beguiling edit of furniture, crafts, ceramics and art in a space that is curated more like a gallery than a shop. It attracts design aficionados from all over the country and the local FILTH (failed in London, try Hastings), a jocular acronym to describe a growing number of like-minded creatives who have moved to the south coast.
Ancillon, whose mother was an artist, grew up in Paris in a highly creative setting. In her late teens, she studied photography in Paris before working in a lab and galleries, and then moving to London, where she worked in fashion and auction houses. More recently she has completed an interior design course at Chelsea’s KLC college in London.
“I go to work sometimes and when I return there is an entirely new living room,” shrugs Harris. “If a table isn’t working with the rest of the decor, the table stays and everything has to be reworked. There’s no compromising as far as aesthetics go.”
The home is barely recognisable from the shell they moved into four years ago. “It was a mess,” says Ancillon. “For a long time we lived out of one room. The garden existed as a large, muddy slope and when John landscaped it, all the rubbish had to be carried through the house.” Harris also changed the electricity and plumbing, while doors and windows were widened.
The result is a flat that feels more akin to a maisonette with a bedroom, study and bathroom, off which is a small courtyard with private open-air shower. Up a flight of stairs is the kitchen and living room.
Nearly everything, other than the kitchen bought ex-display, has been made by Harris. The floors were laid with larchwood (he rounded, milled and air-dried them himself), then there’s the daybed in the sitting room, the dining table, not to mention their bed, or the sliding door wardrobes inlaid with hessian that lends them a Japanese air.
Originally from Nottingham, where his first job was as a miner, Harris takes his inspiration from the American traditions of George Nakashima and Wharton Esherick, and also European designers, such as Janette Laverrière and Gustave Gautier. “I’m very interested in the migration of talent and great craftspeople who left Europe and really changed the face of American design in the 50s. I think that’s where Britain lost out.”
His furniture and sculpture have enjoyed more success in Europe – possibly, he thinks, because Europeans place more value on craftsmanship. “It’s very embedded in how they think. Here, I might be known as just a chippy whereas abroad you’re thought of as an artist.”
Other significant pieces the couple have collected are the Bruno Mathsson cord chair and footstool, a pink chair by Theo Ruth and a red reclining chair by Osvaldo Borsani. The suspension lights in the bedroom are designed by Bruno Munari for Danese Milano, while the pendant light in the sitting room is Italian from the 1960s.
Their artwork includes a number of photographs by the American conceptualist Les Krims, which were given to Ancillon by Krims himself. There are also paintings in the office and bedroom by the late Roland Jarvis, who lived in Hastings.
The lithograph, Little Richard, by Turner prize-winner Mark Leckey, was also a gift. Hanging in the hallway is a textile work from the Pearly Queens by Ann Carrington and a 1970s 3D work, which shows three different pictures by Daniel Rousseau.
Arguably one of the couple’s best finds was a haul of Czech pictures bought at auction. Harris assumed he was bidding on four posters – only to realise that his particular lot comprised 200 posters and 80 lithographs and prints. He smiles: “We did very well from those.” Several hang in their living room. “They are different from everything else and very graphic,” says Harris. If he has his way, they won’t be going anywhere.
odeinteriors.com; jaharris.co.uk
The Link LonkMay 22, 2021 at 10:00PM
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Art by the sea: a coastal home rich in treasures - The Guardian
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