Completed just five weeks ago, Caspian House, on one of Chiswick’s premier roads was a labour of love for architect Kristian Rapallini. Set on a World War II bomb site, the 4,400 sq. ft new build home was designed to blend seamlessly into the streetscape and disguises four levels of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a two-tiered landscaped garden at the rear of the property.
The home was inspired by the work of Mies van der Rohe and The Tugendhat Villa, a Czech property he built in the 1920s. Like Caspian House, this famous building has an innocuous small front at street level, but walls of glass that overlook gardens at the back and sides.
As Kristian Rapallini, Director of Trace Architects says, ‘we wanted to create a unique property with materials that would still match the character of the street. At the back of the house, we had the freedom to be a little more expressive and as the garden was south-facing, we were excited about the landscaping possibilities there.’
Today, the £4.95 million property is on the market with Dexters Chiswick and offers six bedrooms, six bathrooms and an outdoor terrace on every level. One of its most impressive spaces is the lower ground floor that features a superb cinema room, bespoke kitchen and a dining area that is accessed via a vaulted library.
Kristian says one of the challenges his team faced when building the property was making sure the basement felt bright and spacious. His solution was to ‘elevate the ground floor by 600m and create a ‘clear storey’ element around the lower level that allowed light to pour in from all sides. The design of the two-tiered garden also opened up the space as sunlight could reach the dining room, overlooked by a private sunken terrace.
Upstairs, all the bedrooms have en suite bathrooms and integrated wardrobes. The principal suite runs the full length of the house and has its own south-facing balcony and a bathroom featuring a Lusso stone bath and walk-in shower and steam room. Although Kristian says there is a lot of glass in the house, his team installed mechanical louvres throughout the property to provide shade and privacy. ‘This way you can close up most of the side elevations,’ he says.
John Williams, Director of Dexters Chiswick, says ‘Barrowgate is a uniquely modern, large and stylish home in one of London’s most popular boroughs. The house now lies in a conservation area, so it couldn’t be built today. Whoever buys it will benefit from living in an unrepeatable one-off.”
