Natural light. Nothing plays a role in design quite like it. But you can’t source it from a showroom or stumble across a supply in a vintage shop. And if we’re lucky enough to see it stream our way, we often find ourselves wishing for more. When it comes to sunshine, design consultant Henrik Walentin hit the jackpot. The summer home he shares with business owner Poul Lismoes is beautifully bathed in natural light, which enhances the almost elemental pieces that furnish each space.
The couple’s retreat is a 95-year-old thatched affair located about 40 miles north of Copenhagen in the seaside town of Liseleje. “When we took over the house, we found out that most of it was in its original state, so we became very passionate about restoring everything back to how it looked in the 20s,” describes Walentin, a former competitive figure skater and coach who once called Palm Springs home. “We replaced rotten floors with salvaged boards from a Copenhagen company, which I cleaned by hand, one by one. You can tell it’s old wood – the patina is unique. So with that in place, we decided to furnish the house with pieces that extend this celebration of the original, mixed with a few modern ones for contrast.”
While Walentin made most of the major restoration decisions, Lismoes joined him in visiting various flea markets for everything that makes a house a home. “Sometimes I had to tell Poul to hold his horses when he came home with too many old things,” shares Walentin. Their finds, such as ceramic bowls and pitchers, along with pieces they found in the house – including a rustic dining table – are disposed lightly throughout the home, given space to breathe but not read preciously as treasures in a gallery. Painted vintage furniture and a Moroccan rug warm the guest room. An antique table serves as a vanity in a bathroom. A diminutive Isamu Noguchi lantern and a cactus form a tabletop tableau beneath a framed poster for an Anni Albers exhibition.
The charm of these interiors rides on an almost crystalline simplicity. Plain in the best sense of the word, they exude a not-easy-to-achieve authenticity marked with unaffected functionality. Ceiling beams, raw and painted, express the straightforward structure of the place, as does the terracotta tile flooring in the intimate conservatory. Brass door handles and original Bakelite electrical sockets are among the smaller details that carry the home’s history into the present. “I wanted the rooms to be beautiful in themselves, without furniture,” explains Walentin, whose bedroom – aside from a bed – is set with only a spindle-back chair from FDB Møbler and a rice-paper floor lamp. He opened up cramped rooms to create more commodious spaces and added two new bathrooms, but kept the existing kitchen, incorporating only the necessary upgrades, such as the new Carrara marble countertop and a dishwasher hidden behind an old door.
“I think I’ve gotten to the point in life,” muses Walentin, “where I had the guts to be very honest and authentic in choosing the interior and style. Not worrying about what anybody else would think but being true to Poul and myself.” Clearly, honesty is the best policy.
Photography by Christoffer Regild.
Styling by Maja Regild.
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