Blandine de Navacelle is waiting with an ample collection of mood boards. Illuminated by the afternoon sun, she looks every bit the person who should be shaping London residences to love. So it’s appropriate that de Navacelle is Creative Director for Lodha UK. Thus, she has also been personally involved with shaping living spaces to bring their future residents maximum, individualized happiness—even before she knows who those residents will be.
How Lodha Is Shaping London
What does Lodha UK do? “The easy way to describe the company is to say we’re a property developer. But in reality, we’re much more,” says de Navacelle. “Property developers normally just acquire land, build a development, and that’s pretty much it. While, obviously, we have that part covered,” she continues, “we will also have our own architect and design team. And we have also created our own hospitality brand.”
This brand—part of how Lodha UK ensures continued excellence—is their private management hospitality company, Saint Armand. “Normally, when you open your development, you just buy a package with an external company or a hotel brand,” explains de Navacelle. “But we decided to actually create our own team of concierge, staff, security, doormen—to make sure we can have a really personalized approach.”
Saint Armand will stand behind the services of Lodha-developed residences at Lincoln Square London, No. 1 Grosvenor Square (pictured, above) and Holland Park Gate. Lincoln Square London is located within walking distance of the restaurants, theaters and boutiques of Covent Garden. No. 1 Grosvenor Square, former home of the U.S. Embassy, is located in Mayfair. And Holland Park Gate, previously an art deco cinema, will be transformed into a collection of residences overlooking the famed 54-acre park for which it is named.
What do the three have in common? “Attention to details, quality of design,” says de Navacelle. “The vision of the company is to make sure we are really customer-focused. So everything we do—even when we sketch the first architectural plan—is to make sure the people in the development have a great life.”
Shaping London for the Future
De Navacelle notes that ensuring quality includes aspects from shaping apartment layouts to choosing premium building materials. But, perhaps most importantly, it involves anticipating what the people who live there will want. “You must already have in mind who your customer is going to be,” she explains. “So we do quite a lot of work on the future customer profile to make sure we’re going to be able to offer them exactly what they need.” That includes keeping in mind how families may grow. “For example, in Lincoln Square, we do not have a kid’s room, which is fine because most of our residents have children above 15 years old.” However, Lodha UK is expecting Holland Park Gate to attract families with younger children—in part due to the neighborhood’s profusion of parks and schools. So they styled kids’ rooms to help young and growing families see themselves in the space before buying.
But for de Navacelle, anticipating the needs of future residents extends well beyond leaving room for family. “I put a lot of pride in thinking that no one will be able to just copy-paste this entire scheme anywhere else,” says de Navacelle of the decor. “We work with different artists, and buy lots of antiques, which I find all around Europe.” She admits that she could make her job easier by giving each residence the same look. But instead, she insists on individuality—because it’s what she would want as a consumer herself.
Speaking to Individuality through Design
De Navacelle loves to incorporate color into the residences. “The image that luxury apartments are all beige and gold is completely wrong,” she explains. “We’ve had lots of European paneling on the walls with bright colors and antique pieces and very fun pieces from contemporary artists. We work with lots of galleries to have art on loan; then residents can decide to buy it or not. But it really feels like someone lives there. And actually, at one of the first apartments, the residents said, ‘God, it’s such a happy place—it is exactly for me.'” Though they’re high-end, de Navacelle doesn’t think people want to live in intimidating homes. “I want them to be able to picture themselves having a lovely life here,” she says.
Scattered around de Navacelle are the mood boards that inspired the design of many of these individual residences. Each is a little world of wallcoverings, textiles, and inspirational photos. Here’s a handle; there’s a little dish. Amidst one collection sits a beautiful brush. “We had quite a few clients coming from Asia,” explains de Navacelle. So she pictured a couple: perhaps the husband might be British or American and married to someone of Asian origin. “How can we see if we can have any sort of touches of Asia?” de Navacelle and her team wondered. “That’s why we had the Chinese calligraphy brushes framed in in the living room.” She also points to a rug chosen to pair beautifully with a hand-painted collection of porcelain and a wall border with a very subtle reference to an Asian landscape. It’s all part of her effort to allow residents to feel that much more at home from the beginning.
Shaping London Residences with Superior Service
So who is moving into these upscale addresses? “We had lots of requests from families and people who really want to be located in London for six to nine months of the year, so we know it will be a primary residence,” de Navacelle explains. But others reached out because their lives were disrupted by pandemic lockdowns, and they no longer felt comfortable assuming temporary accommodations would be available. “There are lots of people who have been traumatized by hotel closures,” de Navacelle notes. “They used to live in a hotel—three months, four months at a time—and just got fed up.”
With a Lodha property, such residents can enjoy greater personalization of their space without missing hotel-worthy help. “They want a home to have their own design but also don’t want compromise on the quality of the services,” says de Navacelle. “So we’ve come up with the perfect solution because we are in the right location, they have an amazing apartment, and they’ve got five-star hotel services.” She points out that residents can even make requests to have their refrigerators stocked and or their favorite wine waiting.
The Relative Values of Past and Present
How does one balance a desire to preserve the history of such locations while also providing state-of-the-art living? In the case of Grosvenor Square—where such notables as John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt have all crossed the threshold—this seemed particularly pressing. “We could have done what pretty much everyone does: retain the facade, knock down everything at the back,” says de Navacelle. But she points out that this way of thinking sometimes dictates less-than-ideal ceiling heights or floors that straddle windows strangely. “So what we’ve done in our building,” says de Navacelle, “we have taken down the building—brick by brick, stone by stone, cleaned everything, and restored.” She says this leads to residences with elegant proportions, plenty of light, and the appearance from the outside that nothing has changed.
Meanwhile, at Holland Park Gate, they’re holding onto a piece of Art Deco architectural history. “We are renovating this cinema with a beautiful Art Deco arch,” describes de Navacelle. “We’ve taken down the arch, stone by stone, the stones have been numbered and will be cleaned, repaired, and it will all come back together.” Behind the arch, will rise beautiful, contemporary apartments. Meanwhile, cinema lovers will appreciate ample new area for film viewing underground. “This is a really good way to show that we care about the city, the history, the architecture of London,” she says. “But we also find a way to make sure people inside have the comforts of a modern building.” And the public is happy to have a cinema back on High Street Kensington.
Things to Love about Shaping London
In this world of carefully chosen details and extraordinary amenities, there’s one in particular that stands out for de Navacelle. “I think it’s the pool,” de Navacelle says of No. 1 Grosvenor Square. “I think we have one of the longest, if not the longest indoor pool in London. And the beauty of the entire amenities floor is: we’ve managed to create something really smart, cozy, and homey,” she says. “Again, it shows how much effort we’re ready to invest to make sure everything is super nice and comfortable and enjoyable for the customers.”
But what de Navacelle may love even more is the chance to take on the next project—envision new developments, shape more residences, and anticipate the needs of the next person who will call them home. “Every apartment is a new thing,” she says. “And I just love it.”
Learn more by visiting Lodha UK.
Paul Hagen writes for aspire design and home.
All photography is of No. 1 Grosvenor Square and courtesy Lodha UK.
Like what you see? Get it first with a subscription to aspire design and home magazine.