Past and present, plus travels far and wide, are all interwoven in the exquisitely detailed home of textile designer Tigger Hall
meet & greet
Tigger Hall (interior designer), daughter Beatrice Lewis (musician), and Juno and Max the spaniels.
the property
Renovated four-bedroom ’70s bungalow.
Self-described ‘textile maverick’ Tigger Hall is a passionate collector, gathering objects and ideas from her life, past and present, and weaving them together into a richly layered tapestry.
On a recent trip to Paris, Tigger squeezed two zinc finials into her bag and they now grace her roofline, the final flourish on her renovated home. “I have collections from all over the world,” she says. “These objects are imbued with the memories and connections to people and places. I also love a sense of surprise in a home, some little thing to make you smile and look again.”
This repurposed home, a once-modest 1970s bungalow, makes everyone “look again”. It stirred strong emotions when the design doyenne first saw it in 2020. “On a rainy day, my daughter and I inspected five places and this was the last,” says Tigger. “As we walked up the stairs, the house felt kind, like we’d known each other forever.”
In its scale and its sense of the bohemian, it evoked homes of her youth. Most striking was the spacious living area, boasting a five-metre pitched ceiling with exposed beams. “I like high ceilings, because they make the spirit soar,” explains Tigger. “I grew up in homes with huge scale and I remember visiting my cousins’ grand homes in England and France. This lofty room also echoes the trees outside.”
And, with its deep veranda draped in wisteria, the house recalled avant-garde family homes, with their steady flow of visitors. “Homes of my childhood were full of craft and colour, where we sewed, embroidered and painted, and shared music and stories,” she says. “I love entertaining, with live music and poetry readings, for which I thought this space would be perfect.”
But the house needed her deft interior designer touch to make it home. Strangely, there were no doors connecting that huge open plan to the garden, while other rooms felt poky and the tired decor needed a pick-me-up. Tigger retained the existing T-shaped floor plan, with the living area at the top of the ‘T’ and a wing consisting of four bedrooms enclosed by a veranda on three sides.
In the living room, she repainted the exposed beams white and installed two salvaged round windows, “very old, from Argentina, to draw the eye up into the pitch and to bring in more light”.
She also added an ornate limestone mantel and extended the room by adding two balconies, with French doors and railings, again from Argentina, “which arrived in various states of disrepair”.
She remodelled her kitchen around a new Aga. “I love how delicious everything tastes when cooked by radiant heat in the old-fashioned way,” says Tigger.
Beside the kitchen, in what had been the laundry, she extended out onto the veranda to create a library or snug. A pair of French doors, literally from Paris, sit at one end, while a sense of cosiness and familiarity is created by her own custom wallpaper and 1880s parquetry, rebirthed from a bank in Buenos Aires. “It has a wonderful sense of age and beautiful oak patina,” she says. “It arrived in tubs, black with age – a friend and I laid it ourselves.”
Leading off the living area, the hallway to the bedrooms felt low in comparison, so Tigger asked her ever-resourceful builders for a lightwell in the ceiling with an oval detail in the pitch. “I love natural materials and am a fan of sustainability, giving salvaged materials a new home,” she says. “Their magic hands made everything, both new and recycled, fit just beautifully.”
In the garage, she created a studio with a coffered ceiling and panelling, where she works on her signature fabric range, Nine Muses Textiles, for which she draws inspiration from her travels and from mentors such as designers Nina Campbell and Kit Kemp. In time, she plans to run workshops on the property so others can share her passion.
Tigger’s distinctive textiles are peppered around the interiors of her home, creating an in-situ showroom.
“I have created a house for my textiles, in a mix and match of colours and patterns,” she says. “It proves you can blend any number of patterns, as long as they are in a similar hue, so nothing jars.”
Her favourite hues, calming sea-glass blue and vibrant red, are instantly apparent.
“My homes are full of textures,” says Tigger. “Everything is tactile, with a sense of history. I have curated furniture from previous houses, including items bought at auction, items from my travels, heirlooms and new pieces. I love being the keeper of these treasures.” They include art by her great-grandfather, Lindsay Bernard Hall, gracing the walls.
But while inspiration comes from far and wide, this home remains firmly rooted to its location. “Those finials look so striking against the trees,” she says.
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