Any space inhabited by Jérôme Faillant-Dumas and Anda Rowland is going to be full of color. Faillant-Dumas, an interior designer who also designs furniture (and works on branding and packaging for global luxury brands) via his company L. O. V. E.
Editions, cut his teeth at Chanel before spending 15 years working for Yves Saint Laurent. Rowland manages Anderson Sheppard, her family’s Savile Row tailors, who have been suiting dapper men from Fred Astaire to Prince Charles for more than 100 years.
So when the couple swapped a two-bedroom flat in London’s Belgravia for a handsome six-bedroom townhouse a few blocks away in Pimlico, vanilla was not on the table. “Saint Laurent was the king of color,” says Faillant-Dumas. “And, personally, I think it’s very sad to do the white ‘thing’ – I’m very lucky because Anda loves color, too. ” (Together they have a young son, Felix, while Faillant-Dumas has two daughters, Louise and Lila, from a previous relationship. )
A bespoke sky mural covers the home-office ceiling.
Faillant-Dumas admits to being obsessive about even the minutest details, such careful focus possibly instilled by a childhood spent creeping about the Louvre after-hours with his mother, who ran its research laboratory. “I remember seeing Leonardo’s paint very close,” he says.
This love of detail is evidenced in the visible brushstrokes on the hand-painted joinery in the master bedroom, the trompe l’oeil–painted light switches that disappear against the green lava-stone surface in the kitchen, and the tiny brass pivot hinges on the kitchen cabinets. In the travertine-paneled master bathroom, Faillant-Dumas calls attention to a brass-framed light box hung above the shower. “A spotlight is hard and horrible,” he says. “This is much more gentle. ”
The house is also punctuated with playful surprises. A secret door on the ground floor conceals a powder room; Rowland’s office ceiling is decorated with a cloudscape; on the half-landing, to either side of a raspberry velvet window seat, is hidden storage.
The biggest and best surprise of all is probably the secret garden that can be reached only via the master bathroom. Looking out through the glass door onto the romantic terrace – heady with jasmine, wisteria, and olive trees – while lying back in the tub would be the ultimate time-out. “We also like to come here in the mornings with a cup of coffee or sit here in the evenings with a drink,” says Rowland. Against the waxy green-leaf backdrop, it would no doubt be a blushing-pink rosé or a sunset-red Negroni – another vivid display of this designing duo’s vibrant spirit. love-editions. fr
