A Bold REWRITE

Designer Guy Oliver changes the narrative of a late 19th-century London townhouse to showcase exquisite art and literature and exude an ageless sense of comfort.

- Guy Oliver

LONDON-BASED DESIGNER Guy Oliver's firm has worked on com-missions for the legendary Claridge's and Connaught hotels as well as the state rooms at 10 Downing Street. He's been engaged for royal soirees at home and exhibitions internationally, including those at the Louvre and the Château de Versailles. But it was not for his pres-tigious bona fides that he was hired by an English aristocrat and his American wife to refresh their late 19th-century townhouse in London's tony Kensington neighborhood.

The library's ceiling-height bookcases (here and opposite) are filled with the owners' leather-bound collections, classics, and Lancastrian lusterware pottery. Pendant, Jamb

“It was more like they inherited me,” he says. “I came with the silver.” Not altogether untrue as Oliver was the protégé of the silver-haired, quintessential English designer David Laws, whose eponymous firm Oliver took over in 2012 and deferentially redesignated Oliver Laws. Oliver assisted his mentor with the clients' town and country houses almost 20 years ago, so when the time came for him to make some updates, the transition was easy. “It is a comfortable relationship,” he says. “And it is nice having that thread of continuity and really knowing the property.”