Serendipity portends splendour when matched-made in heaven.
Exactly 12 years ago, during a vernissage at the Gallerie St Laurent + Hill on Dalhousie, Henrietta fell in love with a painting she could not afford by the great Leslie Reid. She called a few friends to ask them to immediately come in the hopes one would buy this treasure and hang it on a wall she could visit at will. The painting was sold before any came. Nearly a decade later, a client introduced herself by ways of sending real estate pictures of a house she wanted to renovate. That very painting was hanging on the walls. Henrietta says it may have even been the reason she said yes to the project as it allowed her to see the monumental lake landscape once more.
When HS Design approved the purchase of the house by their owners, the painting left the premises and the work began on a project that ended up winning the only Canadian nod for Interior Design Scheme by an international panel of peers in 2021. As pictures of this project were a thing of beauty, Southam put them on a poster outside of a home she was designing in Rockcliffe. It just so happened to be that Artful Agora’s clients lived around the corner on the same block.
An email exchange began and these are a few of the excerpts that brought her to them: “You redesigned our previous home in Chelsea recently for its new owners and we thought the results were great. In particular, we liked that the good parts were preserved. Our home is right around the corner from the White House on Mariposa that you are designing currently, which is so atmospheric and has always been one of our favourites.” These were the very owners of the beloved mysterious painting.
From the outset, it was clear that the clients’ desire for change was well placed. A catastrophic, bulky, flying staircase with no place or presence was the first thing you walked into. Worse, a two-storey foreboding wall cut off any flow and light from the entry. Their home had received a number of well-intended renovations over the years, but sadly with no view to a coherent or cohesive design. Everything worked and yet none of it worked together.
Sprawling rooms needed to be connected in language and the kitchen needed to belong. The two recurring themes in their home, a love for the Arts and Crafts movement and the colour green became HS Design’s Manifesto. Over the next year and a half HS Design refreshed and rebuilt 15 rooms in what Henrietta believes is the most personal and imaginative concept her firm has produced.
