A look inside the original House of Hackney

With brick front, bay windows and ceramic tiles leading up to a standard issue Farrow & Ball front door, the exterior of the original House of Hackney might seem unremarkable.

But inside is quite another story: a riot of print and colour, intricately moulded cornicing and wall panels, gilded sconces and sumptuously upholstered velvet sofas. It’s total Instagram porn.

When Frieda Gormley launched cult interiors label House of Hackney with her husband Javvy M Royle, 42, back in 2011, it was described as ‘William Morris on acid’ with its ombre Dalston Rose wallpapers and flouncy Queen Bee bedding. In the midst of the recession, life in the UK was looking bleak.

‘Everything just felt really cold and we were really craving colour, texture, print,’ explains Gormley, 37. It tapped into the zeitgeist for flamboyant, maximalist interiors with a heavy dose of nostalgia. Since then, there’s been the launch of a capsule fashion line (2012), a bricks and mortar store in Shoreditch (2013), and the brand counts Alexa Chung and Henry Holland as fans.

The couple’s Hackney home, shared with their two children — Javi Jr, nine, and Lila, six — is the apotheosis of their creative vision. A three-floor, five-bedroom Victorian property just off Wilton Way, Gormley bought it in 2008, around the same time she met Royle — then a product designer — ‘at a warehouse party. Your typical Hackney love story.’ Royle headed up the major structural changes on what was originally designed as a two up, two down. An extension to the galley kitchen created an open plan living and dining space at the rear of the property, with a decked outdoor space fringed with British flora. Inside, a central staircase serves as the spine of the home, with the first floor dedicated to the couple’s and children’s bedrooms and the top floor housing a mini studio/office space for the pair — along with a TV den that looks like it has taken its cue from Diana Vreeland’s famous Garden in Hell.

With a background in fashion buying, Gormley worked methodically on moodboards for the interior that drew from local history. The obsession with Victoriana was natural — the property dates back to the 1800s. Their now ubiquitous Palmeral print took its cue from Loddiges, the iconic Hackney hothouse (originally just down the road from the house, pre-dating Kew Gardens): ‘English Victoriana, psychedelia, William Morris. We went through an intense period of feeling intoxicated by it.’

Furniture pieces for the house were pilfered from the usual antique markets at Ardingly and Kempton, tiles (surprisingly) not from salvage but rather Topps Tiles. But much of it is bespoke: upholstery from Nottingham, wallpapers hand printed in Loughborough, fine bone china made in Stoke-on-Trent, bed linen made in Italy at the same factory used by Ralph Lauren and Missoni. When commissioning pieces for the home, and the brand, their ‘litmus test was where the quality exists in the UK, it will be made in England. If we couldn’t produce it here, it would be the best place in the world.’

In the hallway, the couple have installed cool white lincrusta wallcoverings (moulded plaster panelling that demands a forensic attention to detail when installing, to disguise any joins) which offset a leaf printed runner (inspired by the French interior decorator Madeleine Castaing) up the home’s central stairway and atrium. Everywhere else, though, there is a free, joyous use of their signature papers — the Moroccan-inspired Mamounia sheaths the walls and ceilings in the living areas, giving off a Bedouin tent atmosphere; upstairs the millennial pink bathroom has the cheeky Indiana Jones-style Sumatra print hand blocked across it. In Javi Jr’s room there is a bold blue pinstripe with flying whales; in Lila’s an archive William Morris daisy print.

Gormley credits her maternal grandmother, Peggy, as a huge source of inspiration: ‘She was on first-name terms with all the antique dealers in Dublin, a real collector of interesting textiles and colours.’ It feels like there is a direct link to Peggy through House of Hackney’s colour palette — all deep, dramatic burgundies, peacock greens and petrol blues. And maybe it is this fascination with the past that explains the absence of any trendy tech around the house: ‘It’s quite a smart house, when it comes to the lighting, the heating and energy saving functionality. For us, it was to be a space where life would actually be around the kitchen table and good conversation.’

With the business thriving, the house completed, what’s next? ‘We love Jacques Garcia’s Hotel Costes and La Mamounia in Marrakech, which is like a Moroccan version. And we know that the Hotel Providence in Paris has had every room done in House of Hackney. But we’d love to do something where you fully check in to the House of Hackney.’ Note to Instagram: #youhearditherefirst.