Soft power

Inspired by the design of iconic embassies, Thirty Lane perfectly represents Glenn Sestig’s tactful approach

- ELLIE STATHAKI

Part modernist villa, part sleek contemporary entertaining space, Thirty Lane nestles into its leafy Belgian countryside setting like a beautifully carved architectural sculpture. Its author, the Ghent-based architect Glenn Sestig, is a master in the art of residential design and a deft hand at blending 20th and 21st-century styles, the low key and the glamorous, luxury and subtlety. And this family home near Antwerp is no exception.

Sestig and his client met during a New Year’s Eve dinner at Château Lannoo, the arts venue the architect designed for a mutual friend and gallerist Louis Lannoo in Ghent. Thirty Lane’s owners, a family of four, were after an architect to work on their new home in a richly planted plot a stone’s throw from Antwerp. ‘One thing led to another, they came to see my house at the time, Townhouse Sestig and then asked me if I would like to design their own. After seeing the setting, I was immediately on board,’ Sestig recalls.