Nicola Helgesen’s love for outdated buildings and objects was fashioned as a toddler, visiting her grandmother’s “crumbly flint cottage” on the north Norfolk coast. She remembers how “the scent was outdated and papery, with an exquisite scent from the open hearth – a soulful environment that’s completely misplaced with fashionable constructing supplies. She had Thonet chairs, seagrass matting and creaking, painted stairs. That’s all ingrained in me”.
Helgesen has created her personal model of these rustic seaside interiors that she grew up with within the house she shares together with her companion, Andreas Bleckmann, within the Sussex city of Hastings. Constructed as a bakery in 1835, the three-storey listed constructing spoke to the couple due to its beautiful proportions and site within the coronary heart of the outdated city, a warren of slender streets stuffed with historic pubs and a profusion of classic and vintage retailers. They purchased it in 2017, however the property was in removed from move-in situation. “It had been dreadfully uncared for. The damp and decay had been appalling,” says Helgesen. “The roof had been disintegrating for many years and water ingress had brought about a lot harm, however we may nearly see how a lot potential the home had.”
It has taken all of the couple’s exhausting work over the intervening years to attain what they’ve now: an totally charismatic house the place the stripped-back historic cloth supplies the backdrop to their well-chosen finds from throughout the centuries. The partitions have a cloudy lime plaster end, with a restricted palette of impartial paint colors used for the woodwork and flooring, to carry cohesion throughout the rooms. Helgesen mixes objects from totally different ages, mixing Thirties work and lighting with French farmhouse furnishings, vintage pots from Nepal and delightfully aged Hungarian dough bowls.
“I wished to make use of supplies and colors in a harmonious approach, completely pure and stuffed with texture,” she says. “Historic sandstone partitions are everywhere in Hastings – they feel and look nearly Mediterranean – so I additionally aimed to create a light, sun-bleached atmosphere, each inside and outside. Nothing ought to jar or sharply distinction, and my color decisions needed to work with the clear seaside gentle that’s so attribute of the south coast.” Helgesen was a designer earlier than she made the transfer to Hastings (Bleckmann is a photographer) and this background has additionally knowledgeable her fashion. “The ideas are so related. Bringing collectively coherent – however not predictable – supplies and parts that really feel recent, however are seamlessly bonded.” Texture and patina are the vital qualities of practically all the things within the couple’s house, and objects are cherished for revealing their age, from the chipped rim of the enamel pendant gentle in one of many bedrooms to the grain of the hand-sanded timber flooring.
Many objects had been sourced inside a small radius of the outdated city, such because the Thirties medical cupboard in one of many bogs, purchased at Hendy’s House Retailer, or the French linen cabinet present in an area emporium which the couple introduced again to life from being in a poor situation. Different items have come from their earlier house in east London, and have their very own tales hooked up, just like the pair of Mies van der Rohe cantilever chairs. Usually made with a chrome body, these ones are in black, an uncommon element that caught Helgesen’s eye when she noticed them on the market. The one drawback was they had been in Belgium. “It will need to have taken about 30 seconds to steer Andreas to leap within the automotive and gather them – there and again in sooner or later!” says Helgesen. “He returned exhausted, however it was price it. We love them.”
The couple’s assortment of portraits is one other distinguishing function. Their favorite is the idiosyncratic “Uncle Alfred” as he’s been named, purchased from a German public sale home. “He’s a professional-looking chap, painted in a company-director-style portrait and but he has shiny purple lips and eyeliner. We’re satisfied it was initially painted this fashion and we love him for it. He makes us smile and he is a superb speaking level.”
Helgesen and Bleckmann’s distinctive fashion has now turn into their vocation, too. They lately based Oldtownhaus to promote furnishings, books, artwork and ornamental objects that slot in with their ethos of “stunning imperfection”, and the home has turn into a brief holding pen for a lot of of them, making the interiors a altering affair as finds get purchased and offered. They’ve additionally tailored the 2 bedrooms on the higher ground to lease out as vacation lodging.
The couple have their very own most popular spots on this light-filled haven of a house, with Helgesen admitting she likes to work in mattress (somewhat than within the devoted workplace) on the break of day, watching the solar monitor its approach over the outdated city rooftops, whereas Bleckmann has his favorite chair “the place he sits watching the world go by and finding out his beloved images books” beneath the watchful eye of Uncle Alfred. When they’re collectively, it’s nearly all the time across the eating desk: “We love cooking, cracking open a vino and playing around. Within the winter we hunker down within the entrance room and construct a hearth, and when the climate is gorgeous we sit within the backyard in our shaded space accompanied by the sound of our effervescent water function draped in moss and ferns – our personal non-public glen.”
With the lengthy interval of renovation over and a brand new enterprise to nurture, this can be a time for Nicola and Andreas to indulge within the stunning house they’ve created, take pleasure in internet hosting the like-minded individuals who come to remain, and look to the longer term. “The 4 years we have now been dwelling right here have whooshed by, and though we spent most of this era dwelling in a large number after which a lockdown, we each really feel impressed and rejuvenated by the life we have now created for ourselves,” says Nicola. “We had not meant to go away east London for good, however now, we are able to’t see ourselves ever going again.”