Inside Tobias Vernon’s Chic Georgian Townhouse in Bath | Design Notes

Tobias Vernon welcomes us into his deeply stylish townhouse in Bath. The 8 Holland Street Townhouse, as it is called, occupies three floors of an elegant John Wood house on Brock Street, the road which links two of Bath’s most memorable landmarks, The Circus and the Royal Crescent. The ground floor houses a gallery, the sister of 8 Holland Street’s main space in St James’s, London.

The first floor of the Townhouse is home to a generous sitting room and kitchen with a dining area; the second floor has the main bedroom with a bathroom and dressing room, and two smaller bedrooms with a bathroom occupy the smaller rooms at the top. The interiors are largely a reflection of the 8 Holland Street ethos, which has always been about displaying and juxtaposing pieces in inventive ways against a relatively calm background. Furniture, art and textiles from the entire span of the 20th century mingle with contemporary pieces; each is distinctive and beautiful in its own way, but ideally one would like to take home the lot. Watch the full episode of ‘Design Notes’ as we tour Tobias Vernon’s 18th-century townhouse.

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every 2 to 3 days there are things
moving around in the
townhouse I think I love the fact that
it’s just always evolving and always
changing that’s part of the fun of
it that looks good do you think it needs
something else here I mean I think I
naturally have a short attention span if
you Tire of one corner then you can kind
of look to the next and there’s sort of
something unexpected there and something
playful I’m Tobias Vernon I am the
founder of 8 Holland Street we are in 8
Holland Street’s townhouse which is a
guest house in the center of
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bath creating an interior is a feeling
sometimes it’s possible to really
explain why something doesn’t work and
something does really work but sometimes
it’s just more abstract it’s that idea
of the kind of ying and yang and that
idea of creating a balance you need
something hard next to something soft
and something sculptural next to
something angular and something abstract
next to something figurative so you’re
always getting those different reference
points this is a painting by Terry Frost
I really like this piece and I think
we’ll try hanging it upstairs we should
actually try and hang this somewhere
near the magistrati chair I mean this is
going to be a kind of crazy green corner
right we’ll just be able to hold it up
there and see how it
looks so the kitchen is an example of
where we have really played with
contrasting colors we had the kind of
green chosen for the kitchen and the
bright yellow for the island the next
thing that came to mind were the shly
posters and again they give these like
incredible injections of color that
stops the green and the yellow and the
whitish walls being too tasteful yes
we’ve obviously considered colors and
how they work together but I also think
that you can overly consider all of that
and I perhaps shouldn’t be saying that
as a
designer we worked with plain English on
this simple kitchen the island I think
the interplay with the vitu shelving is
fantastic actually I haven’t seen vitu
with plain English before and both are
pieces of design that have a strong uh
identity but actually they just work so
seamlessly together this is like the
main drawing room or sitting room of the
townhouse we painted all of the walls
and skirting and Woodwork and corners
and ceiling just kind of out in this
quite soft off-white we work to give it
this sort of antique framework but for
all of the kind of plethora of modernist
and contemporary pieces that we’ve put
inside I love USM Hala and all of their
modular Furniture just really create a
sense of playfulness alongside Richard
Cook’s fantastic large oil painting of a
Cornish landscape this is a photograph
by Man Ray when you look up close it’s
kind of one of those things that’s just
very intriguing and you have to really
work out what’s going on this is an
illustration by John Broadley the
drawing shows the door into the
townhouse here from Brock Street there’s
Elizabeth Frank the sculptor sitting in
the bath in the dressing room there’s
chosen R EMS in the kitchen this is made
from hundreds of Bits of Paper and
printouts all stuck together and
everything’s drawn with a Sharpie
pen I was in India in Easter with a
friend and we were in the maharaj’s
palace in udur and there is a series of
rooms which are literally the spitting
image of this color combination you know
it’s definitely not a paint Scheme I
would live with I think it’s kind of
great as a space that you pass through I
love the idea of putting really
collectible fine objects next to
something vernacular and found this is
the main bedroom suite there are a few
particular highlights in this space the
giant Victor parore artwork over the bed
and the scale of it just feels like it’s
totally made for measure offet by Joseph
Frank pattern on the headboard the G
shamro what they describe as their boo
cabinet there’s something Sly kind of
medieval about it that’s actually a very
funny lamp that I think I found on Etsy
a few years ago which actually in a
strange way looks quite cool without the
shade because then the bulb carrier just
almost looks like the top of a
lighthouse off the main bedroom we have
a series of rooms including a dressing
room and this shower room so I imagine
this is a sort of collector’s bathroom
this is a ink drawing which actually is
a portrait of the Potter burnard leech
there’s a sort of slightly obsc obscure
French screen print of some kind but I
think with you know the marble and
classical like English fitting still
these kind of modernist touches just
work so well nothing jumps out at you
but there’s just a great
balance so this is the dressing room of
the master bedroom the wallpaper is one
of my favorite designs by Peggy Angus
the textile designer the blue feels like
that perfect framework for the paired
down artworks that we’ve put into this
room so there’s a construction by the
Irish painter Tonio Mali and then we
have a Andre Durant drawing which I
found last year in maresh and I saw it
but knew that this room needed something
figurative the rug is pretty out there
it cost an arm and a leg it’s
contemporary but woven Now by Sphinx 10
I don’t know what the creature is but
just totally adore
this this is a drawing by HRI garer
Braska he was a painter he died
incredibly young in a crash when he was
a pilot in the first World War I love
the sort of low ceilings in this top
floor right it’s on an attic but it
still has that kind of wonderful sense
of being kind of up in the Loft so this
is a small sitting room snug with this
kind of slightly crazy wallpaper the
naguchi floor lamp is a piece that I had
in my Cottage and then the rug um was a
very kind gift from uh Lucinda Chambers
and that’s a piece from The cville
Collection which again is just that like
perfect Shaggy n that just works so well
in this room you know I love that
feeling where people come and stay there
are pieces to discover but also some
kind of recognizable
elements this is another Suite on the
top floor of the townhouse as you walk
into the room yeah there’s this really
pretty vignette with this rocking chair
that we actually relaced and covered in
a Christine Vander Hood’s print the
curtains are actually just a upholstery
boot clay and it doesn’t look statement
but at the same time it kind of just
looks like it could been there forever
and it’s it’s
cozy there’s almost like a checklist I
go through this room we’ve got the kind
of quite simple geometric prints above
the bed there’s a sort of fiberglass
furniture with the bedside tables and
then there’s a contemporary woven Tex
stle by one of the artists Katarina
rabona so I think all of those things
kind of fused together into this kind of
wonderfully easy but kind of complete
hole this is one of my favorite rooms in
the house although it by far is the
smallest it’s got this voy wallpaper
printed by somebody who’s kind of
revived a lot of their designs in the US
at the moment this is a ebonized bed by
G shambro which I think maybe the
coolest bed I’ve ever slept in and
actually this is the room I normally
stay in when I’m in the townhouse this
sort of slightly cutesy but not Cafe
curtain that’s actually a design from
kadra this isn’t a home that somebody
lives in all the time it’s a space for
our friends and artists and guests to
pass through and just to stay for a
night or two or three you can
potentially be a bit more fanciful and
you can fill something with a few too
many things and people do walk in and
they smile you see them do that and you
see them kind of loosen up and you see
them let their shoulders down and this
place is a bit of fantasy in a funny way
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