Star Turnkey

Can a London Spec Home Have Je Ne Sais Quoi? Most Definitely, if French a-lister Jean-louis Deniot is the Decorator.

- Ian Phillips

TO MANY, THE IDEA OF BUYING A TURNKEY HOME—ONE that is fully furnished and kitted out like a luxury hotel suite—may be a head-scratcher. Why purchase an apartment imagined and decorated for a fictitious owner when you’re wealthy enough to hire your own interior designer who could tailor it specifically to your tastes and needs?

Yet the turnkey craze is sweeping the globe, and among its fans is the superstar French interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot. He is currently working on several such projects, from Hong Kong to West Palm Beach. “I enjoy the financial pressure of creating a home that needs to sell,” he says, “and the fact that the design choices are more than just ‘I like blue, you like pink’ and are based instead on what adds real value to a property.”

While many interiors commissioned on spec inevitably tend to be bland and impersonal, Deniot’s approach is different. “I try to convey a sense of nonchalance so that the decor doesn’t feel stiff,” he says. The developer for whom Deniot decorated this 5,000-square-foot duplex in London’s prestigious Belgravia neighborhood is wont to agree. “Jean-Louis has this ability to design things that are truly unique and one-off,” he says. “He really understands how people want to live today.”