Today, AD is welcomed by fashion designer Harris Reed to tour his fantastical London home. When the trailblazing Nina Ricci creative director and husband Eitan Senerman first viewed their future home it was dark, gray, and in dire need of renovation–yet there was something about it Reed could not stop thinking about. The space felt like a blank canvas, and with the help of his godfather, Harry Harris of 4Corners Design, and Georgina Wood, founder and creative director of Studio Clementine, Reed turned the space into a “Wes Anderson–meets–Oscar Wilde” fantasyland. The 750-square-foot space transcends into opulence with embroidered silk walls, embellished ceilings, and marbled floors creating the perfect creative refuge for the couple. “It really is a safe queer space—all our friends can feel at home here,” he says. “We’ve created something so authentic, and it’s beautiful when a dream allows others to dream as well. I think that’s really special.”See more of Harris Reed's London home here
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, G. It's Harris Reid, and my biggest dream is literally coming true.
00:05Welcome to my home.
00:09So we are in our, I call it the salon.
00:19It's basically a living room that also has our dining room in it.
00:22Really the room we do everything in.
00:24This apartment, when we saw it, looked nothing like this whatsoever.
00:27It used to be a part of this incredible manor block that has been split over the years and
00:30years into different apartments.
00:32And when we walked in, it just had so much history and so much potential.
00:36As someone who makes dresses and hats for a living, this took my creativity and also
00:41my patience to a whole new level.
00:43We worked with my godfather, who owns Four Corners.
00:46And then for the interior design, we worked with Clementine Studios.
00:48I came with so many ideas.
00:50My husband came with so many ideas.
00:51So it was a really collaborative process and very, very hands-on.
00:55All the walls are hand-embroidered with the amazing company Fermentel.
00:59And then it lends itself into a really wacky art.
01:01All the art in this room is from Chilean artists, because my husband's Chilean.
01:05So for me, it was really important to bring a bit of his home into here.
01:08It's also a beautiful way of bringing in color to the space.
01:11We have an insane ceiling above us.
01:13And the story with the ceiling, growing up in Arizona, I remember I used to always just
01:18stare at the ceiling, dreaming of a better place.
01:20And so every time I ever create, I always look up.
01:22So I always knew when we bought our first place, I wanted a really crazy ceiling to
01:26really symbolize hope and creativity.
01:28These insane wall lights are about two and a half meters by two meters.
01:33They're vintage 1950s Italian wall sconces that were from an old cinema in Paris.
01:39My wonderful husband told me, he's like, babe, where are these going to go?
01:42And this is going to eat up the whole room.
01:44And you know what?
01:45They're fabulous.
01:46They can just, you can see through.
01:48The key thing with this house is just having a safe, queer, fun place.
01:52And England is very gray.
01:54So things like these objects make me really, really happy.
01:57Fireplace.
01:58This is my number one thing.
02:00The whole room is based around this.
02:02It's from Renaissance London.
02:03I always had this vision of me like having martinis with a fabulous fireplace.
02:07We put plants in front of it because I don't know how you turn it on.
02:10So right now it's kind of a garden.
02:12This for me was my dream sofa, an original Marbellini B&B Italia sofa.
02:16This is kind of my baby and my angel.
02:18And even though I'm crawling on it, I don't really let anyone sit on it right now, but
02:21it's so nice.
02:22And as someone who knows what I do, I love velvet.
02:25It's like, it's just delicious.
02:27It's just so yummy.
02:28And it's so fabulous.
02:29So we're going to go into the hallway.
02:36Fun fact is why the house I think sat for about a year with no one buying it.
02:39Because you have this, this is the main staircase of the building.
02:42And it was actually quite an eyesore before because it was just like this really stark
02:46white, very low.
02:47And I mean, I still now have to duck, which is hysterical because everyone's like, you
02:50bought a house that you literally have to duck to be in.
02:55Regina at Studio Clementine knocked out of the park.
02:58We had Locker and Riley do this insane branches covered in roses that kind of completely climbs
03:05to space and climbs onto this wall.
03:07We've also put all of our wedding pictures and photos with a lot of meaning to us on
03:11this wall.
03:12We sleep in here and every morning I wake up, the first thing I see is this hallway
03:15and all these photos and it just brings so much love.
03:18And then I have these insane Martin Brudinsky and object lights.
03:21I'm obsessed with lighting.
03:23This was a very dark hallway.
03:24So just adding these completely changed the space.
03:27So this is the smallest room in the house, but I just was obsessed with having this like
03:32Oscar Wilde kind of like gentlemen parlors bathroom.
03:36And so we worked with Fermentel and CP Hart to kind of create this little magical Harry
03:42Potter.
03:43It's literally under the staircase space.
03:45Obviously, if you're hanging out in here using the bathroom, but I think it's quite fun and
03:49who doesn't want to like use the bathroom and be like, Oh, I'm going to sexy gentleman's
03:52bar.
03:58So we are in our main bedroom slash the only bedroom in the house as someone who travels
04:04a lot for work and is, you know, always like on the run, I wanted to kind of come back
04:08into what felt like a little cocoon.
04:11So we worked with Fermentel on this insane hand-painted wallpaper, which really lovely
04:15about it is it's like this fabulous nature scape with these burnt oranges and fuchsias
04:19in it.
04:20And they were really amazing about customizing it.
04:21So they put these like hand embroidered swallows on the wall and they took the stencil from
04:25my husband's tattoo and they embroidered it.
04:28So he's always here and if he's not here and then my husband always calls me like a little
04:31bumblebee and a butterfly.
04:33So they put these little tufted bumblebees that you see kind of scattered throughout
04:36all the wallpaper.
04:37And obviously we have the world's craziest chandelier.
04:41It's by Bottega Veneziana.
04:42I believe it was much bigger than this.
04:44So they scaled the whole thing, hand blew the entire thing in Murano and a lovely contractor
04:49Scott was able to put the whole thing up and at night the light just dances across the
04:53whole room and you feel like you're just kind of in this trippy forest.
04:57Before I opened this door, this was what all my friends and family laughed about when I
05:02showed them the apartment.
05:03They're like, it's almost too good to be true.
05:04And then I showed them the closet and basically all of our clothes, everything I own and my
05:10husband owns are on these two racks.
05:12It's definitely been a bit of a challenge as someone who's a fashion designer.
05:15In a lot of videos you watch, people are like, the best thing about my marriage is a his
05:19and hers closet or a his and his closet and that's the only way to have a perfect marriage.
05:23I think that's not true.
05:24I think if you have this pole right here, this is the key to a perfect marriage because
05:29with this stick, I can put up all of his suits, all of his clothes, all of my clothes.
05:33Whenever anyone has these gorgeous immaculate closets, I'm like, who lifts like that?
05:37You know, it's all jammed in and we all wear it and then you see me like climb up a little
05:40ladder with my really big pole and I try and like grab and put new things away.
05:44So it's good because it pushes me to kind of have to think my weeks through.
05:48We make it work for us.
05:52This is our crazy French parlor meets Wes Anderson, but also very English bathroom.
05:58Having a bath felt like my biggest luxury and we customized it by making the marble
06:03top for it.
06:04When I'm in the bath, I'm drinking sparkling water, I'm reading, I'm covering the whole
06:07bath in candles.
06:08So I needed a surface to place things on.
06:10We did antique mirror for all the walls, which this actually, anyone who has a smaller apartment,
06:15mirroring anything really changes the whole space and meant that we didn't have to clean
06:19it after showering because you had all the spots kind of on top of it.
06:22We have a original Faye Wewe painting.
06:24I've been obsessed with Faye Wewe since uni.
06:26I framed it in an Ikea frame myself and what I was really proud of myself for is I took
06:30the wallpaper from the room and I actually stuck it behind.
06:33So when you look at it, it gives this fun effect like it's built into the wall.
06:36We did these fabulous velvet curtains that wrap the whole space.
06:41And when you're in here at night, it's literally like you're cocooned away from the world.
06:44So if my fabulous husband is running up and down the hallways on a loud call, I have my
06:49own little sanctuary.
06:58This is my husband, Eitan, who I'm finding in the kitchen.
07:01This is our lovely little cozy kitchen.
07:05This is the coffee machine that he had to get.
07:08And the fun fact about your coffee machine is no one knows how to use it besides him.
07:11And if you ever come over and want a coffee, I can't help you.
07:13It's one of those things that it's not easy to use, but I love how not easy to use it is.
07:18It was in our vows, actually.
07:19It was in our vows.
07:20Eitan makes me coffee every morning, which makes me sound like a diva, but he has Sundays off.
07:25We haven't talked about the most important element of the whole kitchen.
07:28My water tap.
07:29Yeah.
07:30Before we knew the place we were going to get, we knew we had to have one of these.
07:33I was watching one of the first episodes of Kendall Jenner's Architectural Digest open door video.
07:37And the way she talked about her pot filler, I was like, I need a pot filler.
07:41What am I feeling with this pot filler?
07:43Nothing.
07:44But no, that's a lie.
07:45I use it all the time for floor arrangements, but I don't use it very much for cooking.
07:49We kept all the original cabinets and they're all stainless steel.
07:53And this had this huge bank of like massive cabinets that really took up the whole space.
07:58So the first thing that we did is we ripped all of it out and did these kind of fun floating
08:01shelves that visually look really beautiful.
08:04I think it turned out great.
08:05And we have a lot of like knickknacks, like, you know, from our travels and from friends.
08:07We have like a bit from a train that was signed by Wes Anderson because he designed like one
08:12of the Belmont trains that we went on a date on.
08:14It's a painting of Harris's dad.
08:17Yeah.
08:18My dad just watching me as I'm washing dishes and just like eyes of disappointment.
08:21Just kidding.
08:22It is kind of hysterical that it's right out my eye as we're doing everything.
08:25It's funny.
08:26I think everybody always ends up in the kitchen and to have such a kind of hallway kitchen,
08:30you still end up spending more time here than maybe our living room.
08:33It's great because you kind of have friends on every side that you're literally passing
08:35coffees, cocktails, everything to.
08:37And then I usually just sit in my and objects, Martin Burdynski chair and ponder life.
08:45Come with us to the last room of the house, which is all glass doors.
08:49Our library, study, office, TV room, media room.
08:55All my clothes are literally stored underneath the sofa because there's no storage room.
08:58This is probably where you find us the most besides the garden at the moment.
09:01I think we binge watch all of our favorite shows on this TV.
09:04It's a frame TV.
09:05This room is also one of those things that when we got the place, we're like had no idea
09:09what we were going to do.
09:10Because there's two entry points.
09:11Like this is the only way into the back garden and then behind you are the glass doors.
09:15So it's hard to be a guest room.
09:16It's hard to be TV room.
09:17There's a lot of natural light.
09:18So finding ways of like curtaining off this entire wall.
09:22It was just about like creating a space that could be like totally and super functional.
09:27The pull out desk.
09:28Here so you can have a desk if we need it, which I haven't used once.
09:31My favorite art piece in the room is probably, okay, it's not really an art piece.
09:35It's my favorite thing I own.
09:36It's this signed picture from Britney Spears.
09:38Peak.
09:39Oops, I did it again.
09:41Signed to me.
09:42This is if there's a fire besides my fabulous husband.
09:44This is what I'm grabbing to take with me.
09:46And I think a running theme, especially in this room is like the outdoors inside.
09:50Like all the wallpaper from Fermentel was like meant to kind of look like a stormy sky,
09:54which is perfect for London.
09:57And then, you know, we have these fungi lights that Puerto Romano did again, bringing the
09:59outside kind of indoors.
10:06Outside we have this tiny little deck that you could barely squeeze onto and we extended
10:10it out.
10:11So now you have all this amazing light and you can see my favorite thing, which is my
10:14big palm tree.
10:16This really, for me, sold me on the house because who gets to have a palm tree in London?
10:22This garden did not look like this at all when we got the place.
10:26It was a complete swamp before.
10:27You had mosquitoes everywhere.
10:29You had tons of poisonous bushes.
10:31And Lisa Collins, who did the garden design, killed it.
10:34And she really helped like define all these spaces.
10:37I was pumped because I finally got to have a fountain.
10:39The sound it makes is just like really magical.
10:43We spend all of our time here.
10:45This table is full of friends at all times.
10:47We have really wonderful furniture.
10:49Esholtz killed it.
10:50But when it came to the lighting of the garden, I had no idea how much it costs to actually
10:54put electrical into a garden.
10:56So all the lights are all solar and they're all from Amazon.
11:00At night, this entire garden illuminates.
11:03And all my neighbors were literally asking me like, who's your like outdoor lighting
11:06designer?
11:07And it was just me obsessively shopping on my phone, but it's really made it so magical.
11:11And what I love about it is if I get tired of one design, I just replace and move things
11:14around.
11:15So we're at the back of the garden.
11:16This for me is probably one of my happiest spaces and most proud spaces.
11:20We have our little blow up hot tub.
11:22It's not wood.
11:23This was a dream of mine.
11:24Shout out to Amazon.
11:25It literally was like, I think we can have a hot tub.
11:28It arrived.
11:29And this is where you find me every night.
11:30I like get off the Eurostar.
11:32I kick off my platform boots.
11:33I run back here.
11:34I pretend like I'm eating figs off my tree.
11:36They're not ripe yet.
11:37I wish they were ripe.
11:38My husband had so much to do with the garden because he wanted everything to kind of be
11:42a bit more minimal.
11:43So all the furniture back here is from Esholtz.
11:46For this space, I knew I wanted like a really wonderful sectional and I wanted something
11:50that was really cozy and really easy.
11:53And I have friends from all walks of life that we just come back here and we talk the
11:57night away.
11:58And even the couple of days it's been raining, we're still out here literally holding little
12:01umbrellas and having deep conversations and drinking way too many martinis.
12:06This is my shower.
12:08This is the biggest running joke with my contractor, Scott, because it arrived and he was like,
12:12I think you made a mistake.
12:13You just bought an outdoor shower.
12:14And he was like, no, we don't do this in England.
12:16You don't have a shower.
12:17And I was like, yes, we do.
12:18And so actually, funny enough, I haven't used the indoor shower in the past month.
12:21I've just been showering out here.
12:22I like, again, big bath person, so I take all my baths in there.
12:26But this is my shower.
12:27This is my ride or die.
12:28This is my life.
12:29The shower, my husband in my outdoor shower and my rod for my closet.
12:33Those are my babies.
12:34Bye, AD.
12:43Thank you for coming to our home and literally making this queer kid's dream come true.
12:47I need to now go make a bunch of food for my friends and learn how to cook.
12:50So I'll see you guys later.