{"id":19506,"date":"2023-03-18T09:30:57","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T08:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=40645"},"modified":"2023-03-18T10:36:38","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T09:36:38","slug":"a-john-nash-designed-regency-house-in-regents-park","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/a-john-nash-designed-regency-house-in-regents-park\/","title":{"rendered":"A John Nash-designed Regency house in Regent\u2019s Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi Heaton and Jonathan Waxman are bold decorators, suffusing their John Nash-designed home with colour and collections, from Victorian vernacular to Japanese contemporary sculpture. Feature Peter York. Photographs Andreas von Einsiedel <\/p>

By kirstylyons\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 18 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Naomi Heaton\u2019s house is decidedly prime in its location and architecture. It\u2019s a large cream stucco terraced house in Regent\u2019s Park, part of John Nash\u2019s (1752\u20131835) master plan for the area, conceived in 1811 and developed over the next decade.<\/p>\n

And so it should be, for Naomi is an expert in prime London residential property investment. This might make you imagine her home to be grand-but-bland \u2013 all uncluttered interiors in grey and taupe with shiny floors and a German steely-white abattoir kitchen.<\/p>\n

But step into the entrance hall \u2013 lined with Chinese red lacquer and 16th and 17th-century portraits and featuring a black-and-white marble floor copied from a Vermeer interior \u2013 and all \u2018show flat\u2019 associations are dispelled.<\/p>\n

Naomi and her husband Jonathan, a medical academic, are risk-taking decorators and enthusiastic collectors of everything from Victorian vernacular (Staffordshire figures, Sunderland lustre), to rather startling Japanese contemporary sculpture via masters such as William De Morgan and John Piper.<\/p>\n

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They buy with a combination of boldness \u2013 snapping up pieces that frighten less confident buyers \u2013 and careful research. They like knowing the history of styles and makers, and also enjoy buying from artists they know.<\/p>\n

The couple find things they are drawn to \u2013 such as Jonathan\u2019s beloved Victorian glass lions \u2013 and start collecting them in numbers. Decorative tiles<\/a> pop up all over the house, as do Mason\u2019s celebrated ironstone plates \u2013 Naomi and Jonathan could feed the 5,000 from them.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve thought of imaginative things to do with favourite objects, too \u2013 on the first-floor landing a carefully planned collection of William De Morgan tiles has been ordered into a six-foot high \u2018picture\u2019, framed with salvaged pilasters and topped with the cresting from a Victorian chaise longue<\/a>. \u2018The tiles used to be propped up on shelves with Blu Tack, but then we had the idea of turning them into a composition,\u2019 says Naomi.<\/p>\n

Against a window hangs another collection: eight jewel-bright early 19th-century blue and red glass quarter lights from doors and windows, framed together as a kind of secular stained glass.<\/p>\n

In the kitchen, favourite blue-and-white Victorian tiles have been organised in groups of four by subject and set into plain white tiles. \u2018Some represent the seasons, but there are other more satirical ones about professions \u2013 such as law and medicine,\u2019 says Naomi.<\/p>\n

While they visit Christie\u2019s and Bonhams frequently and follow objects around the world online, many of the pieces have been here for a long time, such as the objects bought from since-gone Camden Passage antiques dealers and Stoke Newington architectural salvage yards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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There are triumphant coups \u2013 like the William De Morgan tiles: \u2018I bought these from a Stoke Newington salvage yard 30 years ago \u2013 they were a wonderful find,\u2019 says Jonathan.<\/p>\n

Both had mothers with an eye and knowledge. Naomi\u2019s mother, Patricia Jarrett, dealt in drawings and watercolours<\/a> and wrote a book on Roland Batchelor, many of whose pictures are clustered in the stairwell. Jonathan\u2019s mother was a furniture dealer. Neither can remember a time when they weren\u2019t reading, talking and looking at interesting things.<\/p>\n

This is clearly a house of many parts. While the entrance hall is as chic and shiny as a Manhattan apartment, the close-hung drawings and watercolours set against a greeny-blue background on the staircase are pure English country house.<\/p>\n

The drawing room, with its dramatic damask papers, gold and cinnamon colours and Regency furniture, is something else again. There\u2019s a contrast around every corner and an intriguing story.<\/p>\n

\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
The dining room is filled with striking antiques.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
The dining room table.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
Naomi Heaton, a London property investment expert, lives here with her husband Jonathan Waxman, professor of oncology at Imperial College, and founder and lifetime president of Prostate Cancer UK.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
The mahogany table in the entrance hall is George III, while above it is a William and Mary oyster wood cushion mirror, both from Christie\u2019s. On the landing, a Jacobean dark oak bird perches above a contemporary Japanese statue, bought at London\u2019s Whitechapel Gallery.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
Above the stove in the kitchen hangs a crown \u2013 a Victorian marble logo of the old Crown Wharf in the Port of London, bought 25 years ago from an architectural salvage yard in Stoke Newington. The Victorian blue-and-white tiles below were made by Smiths of Colville. The late Victorian dining table came from Jonathan\u2019s mother, while the elegant Regency chairs are from Christie\u2019s. To the right is a Paul Hamlyn painting. The light is a 1920s milk-glass pendant from a commercial establishment.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
A collection of 19th-century pharmacy bottles, stoneware beer mugs with \u2018treacle\u2019 glaze from the same era, Sunderland lustre mugs and 18th-century glasses. The blue-and-white \u2018slab\u2019 on the top shelf is an early Chinese ceramic roof tile. The blue-and-white Victorian tiles, set into white tiling as a splashback, are Wedgwood and Minton.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
Stoneware pots, Victorian tiles and a painting by the couple\u2019s friend, Paul Hamlyn, are displayed in the kitchen.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
In the music room, on either side of the chimney piece are Regency novelty sand pictures by Benjamin Zobel. The red-and-gold damask wallpaper is by Ralph Lauren \u2013 set against it is an early 19th-century mirror, probably Polish. The Georgian ceramic heads are actually sash window openers. Victorian glass lions adorn the bookcase, while the mahogany Edwardian grand piano is by Chappell & Co.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
In the first-floor drawing room a gilded Regency convex eagle mirror hangs above a reinstalled Regency chimney piece. The two sculptural heads on the shelf are from Africa and the two leather wing chairs are from Christie\u2019s, as is the small Regency Pembroke table. The leather rhino is 1960s and from Liberty, while the 19th-century French ebonised chair came from Jonathan\u2019s mother \u2013 it has been re-covered in green velvet.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
A pair of Naomi\u2019s Victorian Staffordshire figures \u2013 the largest piece on the upper shelf is a watch holder. On the lower shelf are Staffordshire pastille burners in the form of houses.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
In the staircase well, above the first floor, watercolours and drawings are close-hung on chains from brass rails. They include a group of Roland Batchelor\u2019s mid 20th-century drawings of ordinary life from Naomi\u2019s mother, Patricia Jarrett, who wrote the definitive book on the artist.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\""Regent\u2019s\"<\/picture><\/div>
The splendid English 17th-century bed, with fine marquetry panels in the back, was bought in America on 1st Dibs and shipped home. The button-backed leather Regency chair is from Christie\u2019s. The small tripod table is English late 18th-century and the picture of a cow is by an unknown artist.<\/span> <\/figcaption> <\/span>\n<\/div> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

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