London Eye

French designer Jean-Louis Deniot put on his best British accent for the contemporary revamp of this elegant Belgravia home.

- Ian Phillips

On the cover of the 2014 monograph devoted to the work of French interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot is a sitting room in Paris. The flat in question belongs to Eloise Goldstein and her property investor husband Peter, whom Jean-Louis initially met a decade ago. “Eloise is really great and extremely upbeat,” he says. “The first things she said to me were that she didn’t like recessed lighting and that she adored Gio Ponti. I immediately knew we could work together.” The feeling was mutual. “I remember Jean-Louis sweeping in and winning me over,” recalls Eloise. “All the suggestions he made were just fabulous. I loved it all.”

The Paris apartment is actually the couple’s pied-à-terre. Their main base is a Victorian house in Belgravia, London, which had previously been decorated by Eloise. The colour palette was largely beige and chocolate, with lots of Christian Liaigre furniture. “My husband thought it was perfectly good enough,” she says. “But, I can assure you that after having our apartment in Paris, I thought it was completely inadequate. I felt, ‘This is where we live and I need to feel the same sense of pleasure’.”