TOP: A long dining table with chairs made by designer Thomas Messel is laid for dinner
LEFT: A collection of Sunderland lustreware is displayed in the bathroom
class’, ‘club class’, ‘world traveller’ and ‘economy’.
In the main rooms such as the drawing room, which is painted pale
stone colours inspired by a visit to the villas of Vicenza, Thomas and
Pepe have created ravishing and slightly theatrical backdrops for an
eclectic mix of objects. Both of them inherited furniture: from Pepe’s
parents house in Cumbria came eighteenth-century and Regency
pieces: from Thomas’s family are seventeenth-century items including
a superb marquetry cabinet, which was previously at Nymans, his
grandparents’ house in Sussex. In addition, many of the rooms are
enlivened by a number of more flamboyant baroque items, including
chandeliers, Venetian mirrors and carved blackamoors inherited from
Thomas’s uncle, stage designer and decorator Oliver Messel.
It was Oliver Messel’s encouragement that led Thomas to use his
artistic talents to design and make fine furniture. He counts among his
clients leading decorators such as Colefax and Fowler, Michael Priest,
Amanda Murray and Alidad, and works increasingly to commissionhe recently created a scagliola-topped centre table for Lady Derby. He
longs, too, to create complex ‘metamorphic’ dining tables. Already his
house is a showcase for Thomas Messel’s designs-with its long history
and beauty, it would be hard to imagine a more sympathetic setting for
these timeless pieces.
Thomas Messel
T: +44 (0) 145 384 3220 | www.thomasmessel.com
114 Bridge for Design December 2015