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This four-bedroom penthouse was handed to Darryl Gordon with strong direction from the owner to prove that "decoration in the contemporary idiom doesn't have to be cliched, and it isn't about white pebbles in a black bowl".
The Burley Katon Halliday building's clear lines are the epitome of modern and Gordon's plan was an exercise in simplification, keeping the space large and uncluttered for maximum impact.
You don't buy an apartment like this and then not maximise the impact.
There are four bedrooms, a gym, four bathrooms, powder room, an informal living space, a formal lounge room, a dining space, kitchen, study and outside terrace.
The home is made for entertainment: 60 for cocktails can be happily accommodated on the terrace alone, with large numbers flowing searnlessly from space to space.
Everything in the building is architecturally designed to a seemingly mammoth scale.
So for the interior design, traditional shapes were pared down and the detailing removed.
There is no unnecessary fuss or camouflage.
What is not there is as important as what is there.
You walk down steps to reach the voluminous boudoir that is the main bedroom.
Gordon went for a glamorous 1930s Hollywood feel, a sense of luxury on a grand scale. Thirties style custom-made cabinets with a Macassar veneer, matching
those in the bathroom, set off upholstered walls in glazed oyster linen from Rubelli, creating "the wonderful sensation of being in a fabric box". The oyster-coloured ultra-plush carpet is "like standing in inch-thick velvet". A man-made fibre from Dupont, it's a carpet "to drown in" and cost "the price of a small car".
The Californian King bed is upholstered and covered in the same linen as the walls and curtains, which drop an amazing 3.6 metres. They used "kilometres of the stuff" said Gordon.
Everything is over-scaled in "absolute jumbo-size".
Luxe bathrooms and kitchens, already designed by BKH, use glass and Macassar veneer, marble and polished black granite, and Vola taps.
The kitchen is a long, elegant galley facing it is an integrated wall of ovens, microwaves and fridges.
A dining room opens onto an ornamental pond.
An antique alabaster Buddha from Thailand floats in the pond. Succulent agavae cactuses in tapered timber and metal jardiniers from Phillippe Hurel in Paris and an antique Asian
buffet table are complemented by a big slab of European stained oak, used as a dining table.
Chairs are upholstered in chocolate leather from Christian Liagre in Paris, pebbled, hammered fmish -"like a crocodile".
As you enter the penthouse, two huge sofas face each other on a timber floor in an informal version of the old fashioned Great Hall or atrium. Guests congregate here for drinks before dinner. Sofas are upholstered in off-white natural herringbone weave from Marvic and walls are painted in a very pale olive, bleached by the sun.
A vast study, for working at home, was designed to contrast with the rest of the house. A big, partner-style desk is at one end, a meeting area at the other. Here, Gordon aimed for the "moody and tactile". There is green grass paper on the walls and eight metres of khaki curtain in shiny wool satin from New Zealand. The custom made mahogany table is inset with panels of Louis Vuitton damier cloth. A circular Henri Becq lamp looms from the ceiling to hover over the desk.
Alba armchairs are covered in Brunschwig & Fils boucle, like an old Chanel suit. An antique French engraving of an Egyptian monument hangs on the wall, and crystal decanters sit on an ebonised X-frame butler's tray.
Doors slide open to another bedroom.
The formal area of the penthouse features a huge curve of glass and two solid walls upholstered in pewter silk.
Floors are in pale limestone, and custom-made sofas in Lelievre's petrol blue 'Almagnac' sit on a linen and silk herringbone rug.
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