Mayfair, London W1
The Lansdowne House
Curved reception desk, panelling & concealed storage
The project
A curved fluted timber and marble reception desk set the tone for the whole ground floor. Every flute was machined on a single radius so the shadow lines run unbroken around the curve, and the marble top was cut from one block to keep the vein moving through the return.
The effort behind it
The curve was the hard part. Three full-size prototypes were built and rejected in the workshop before the joiners settled on a laminated ply substrate ribbed at 12mm centres. The marble top travelled to site in one piece at 340kg and was craned through a temporary opening at 5am on a Sunday to avoid the Mayfair traffic embargo. Two makers spent eleven days hand-sanding and oiling the flutes before the client ever saw it.
Challenges faced
The The Lansdowne House brief looked simple on paper and was anything but on the bench. Working in Mayfair, London W1 meant tight delivery windows, a live household, and materials that each behaved differently through the seasons — timber moving against stone that never does. The fluted oak & calacatta marble combination demanded tolerances of ±1mm across long runs, and every component was dry-assembled in the workshop before a single van left for site.
Team & involvement
A dedicated team carried the project from first survey to final sign-off: a lead designer working directly with the client, bench joiners who made every component by hand in our London workshop, and fitters who treated the finished rooms in Mayfair, London W1 as if they were their own. The same hands that cut the timber installed it — no handovers, no lost detail, one point of responsibility throughout.
A successful outcome
The finished work was signed off in a single visit, with no snagging list — the outcome we aim for on every commission. The client has since referred two further projects in Mayfair, London W1 to the workshop, and the The Lansdowne House pieces remain in daily use exactly as installed: drawers that still close silently, doors still true, and timber that has mellowed rather than worn.
