From Fashion to Farmhouse

A Georgian farmhouse close to Castle Howard is the third home Kimi has renovated and redecorated across two decades. For 16 years from the early Noughties, she lived in a converted Victorian corner shop in London’s Kensal Rise, her work and the nearby shops and markets helping to crystalise her interior design ideas and a love of post-war design.

^{Fashion Editor and Stylist, Kimi O’Neill}

“I only really buy vintage pieces - furniture and clothing. I’m a natural hoarder and having lived near Portobello Road and Notting Hill for 16 years, that’s where I did a lot of my shopping.”

Working with Condé Nast as the senior fashion editor on the biannual Love magazine, took her to the United States.

“I was lucky to work alongside photographer Alice Hawkins on some big shoots that meant road tripping around California and Nashville. I did a shoot at the renowned Sheats-Goldstein residence in Beverly Hills and another nearby at the Playboy mansion. Those trips were a huge source of inspiration for my love of mid-century treasures.”

It is a look that has subsequently entered the mainstream in the past decade.

_{A gilt wheat-sheaf table shown in Kimi's Kensal Rise home, £300-500}

Many of the pieces included in this month’s Design sale were bought to furnish Kimi’s Kensal Rise home. They include a gilt metal and glass-topped Wheatsheaf table bought at a second-hand shop in Queens Park and a 1970s Howard Keith 'Cloud' suite upholstered in velvet duck-egg blue. Like a Roche Bobois modular suite in green suede and chrome, estimated at £1,500-2,000, it had made the move back to Kimi’s native York five years ago when she and her partner settled into a Georgian townhouse in the city centre. However, they are a little too large for the smaller rooms of a Yorkshire farmhouse. 

^{A Howard Keith 'Cloud' suite, £2,000-3,000}

^{Kimi's former home in York}

While a 1970s chandelier brought by the stylist from Sworders some years ago has been installed in the property’s entrance hall, several other lighting pieces are destined to find new homes.

^{A pair of 'palm' standard lamps,1970s, £400-600}

“The pair of Palm standard lamps with glass globe shades were purchased at local auction around 15 years ago. They had been part of the flamboyant décor of the famous Glen and Julio's hairdressers in York. I would often admire them as we drove past the salon on way to school.”

View the lots from the private collection of Kimi O’Neill in our 25 October Design sale, here.