How a tired department store was turned into prime real estate

Malls have always played second fiddle to London’s iconic shopping thoroughfares, from Oxford Street to the King’s Road. But then there was Whiteleys – from ice-cream sundaes at the soda fountain to the actual fountains under its grand dome, it offered visitors a taste of American-style glamour.

Starting out as a draper’s on Westbourne Grove established by William Whiteley in 1863, it soon outgrew that location and in 1911 moved to a purpose-built store on Queens Road – now Queensway – in Bayswater. In its heyday, the emporium was called ‘the most beautiful store in the United Kingdom’. It changed hands several times (Harry Gordon Selfridge took it over at one point) and closed in 1981, reopening under new ownership as a shopping centre in 1989. Whiteley’s frontage started to look a little shabbier as its fortunes declined.

The site was purchased in 2013 by Meyer Bergman (now known as MARK) and closed for redevelopment in 2018. The project is being led by development manager Finchatton, with MARK and CC Land as joint venture investment partners, transforming this former white elephant into something altogether new: the Whiteley.

Working with Foster + Partners architects, Finchatton has overseen the development of both the Whiteley and the Queensway Parade opposite. Its Grade II-listed façade lovingly restored, the Whiteley is now home to 139 apartments, plus the UK’s first Six Senses hotel and spa, a members’ club, Everyman cinema, Third Space gym, prime restaurants and retailers.

Ushering the Whiteley into its new era is a trio of formidable design talents. Kelly Behun, Linda Boronkay and Joyce Wang have created three very different but equally elegant show apartments in the ‘Designer Collection’. Here, they explain how their cultural influences, passions and personalities have resulted in homes that are a fitting tribute to William Whiteley’s ambitious, global vision.

Joyce Wang

Memories of the Whiteley as a shopping mall were forefront in Joyce Wang’s mind when she took on this project. ‘I was one of those kids who’d go [there] and watch movies. It was a grimy place, but I loved it,’ she recalls. When she was approached by Finchatton to design a show apartment, ‘it was a no-brainer’. She was allotted the largest apartment to design – ‘I was like, “sure, we’ll take that one!”’

Wang’s studio is known for its work in hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, the US and London. Finchatton founder Alex Michelin gave her free rein on the design: ‘I’m not sure there was a brief, actually! He wanted our point of view.’ She took that literally, and imagined someone like her – a Chinese designer who studied and worked in the UK and US – as the prospective client. ‘I thought about what I would want, to draw an audience that might have Asian heritage but has spent a lot of time in the West. We don’t want everything to look Oriental,’ she explains. Subtle details, like a table set with chopsticks, nod to what she calls an ‘Asian sensibility’.

‘I’ve spent time in LA, I love mid-century modern, going to antique fairs, looking at Tudor furniture. There’s an Asian-lifestyle aspect, but it’s not overt.’

This wasn’t a typical show-residence project, where the focus is on pleasing a lot of people (which means it can’t be too experimental). ‘Here,’ she says, ‘we’ve been specifying antiques and bringing in custom pieces from all corners of the world. For emerging designers or smaller production houses, it’s a great platform.’ Her studio brought in New York-based artist Armando to create a large-scale piece, and collaborated with third-generation tapestry and rug maker Pinton – known for producing work for Picasso and Alexander Calder.

Panelling with different wallcoverings was a smart way to stay within budget and ‘divvy up large rooms into more manageable spaces’, while a bespoke L-shaped bookcase brings the living area into focus. ‘There’s a sense of enclosure,’ she explains. ‘You’re sitting within the depth of a bookcase, so there’s this level of human scale in that vast space.’ Each of the four bedrooms has its own colour scheme, but to ensure that they all felt coherent, Joyce filled them with antiques from specific eras, mixing late-1800s mirrors and chandeliers with mid-century armchairs and modern bedside tables.

The shopping mall of her teenage years is unrecognisable today. ‘As a kid, you never looked outside. It was such an introverted experience. You didn’t even know what direction you were facing,’ she muses. ‘The Whiteley now is very airy and there’s a view. There’s no resemblance, zero. I don’t think anybody will be wandering in and saying, “that used to be where I bought my sneakers.”’ joycewangstudio.com

Kelly Behun

As a self-confessed ‘mall rat’, Kelly Behun was delighted to get the call to design something for the Whiteley’s ‘Designer Collection’. ‘London feels like such a human-scale city despite its size and how cosmopolitan it is,’ she observes. ‘The building itself was a siren call for me. I saw images of the high ceilings and these very cool heritage windows. I was like, “sign me up!”’

She calls show apartments ‘a particular beast’ that can be fun and liberating to design. In the past, developers were more prescriptive, but now recognise that their buyers know good design, so are happy to let designers express themselves. Kelly tried conjuring a client to build her scheme around: ‘It’s this couple, they’re empty-nesters who live mainly in the US... but in the end, the client is always me and my family. Like, “Oh yeah, I could see us here.”’

Art underpins all of Behun’s projects, but in this case, she wasn’t responding to a client’s collection, but rather building it into the design from scratch. She used a local company to source work by British and European artists, procured pieces from the US and commissioned a set designer to paint the artwork over the dining table.

‘That layer was really important,’ she says. On a sunny day, the original windows’ square mullions cast striking shadows, and even when it’s overcast, the rooms are suffused with light. ‘No matter where I am, I’m thinking about the light, the views and which palette feels most harmonious with that, so your eye doesn’t feel like it’s stopping abruptly,’ she says. As a result, her palette has depth but isn’t super-saturated. There’s a ‘slightly sun-faded quality’ to the tones, she explains, ‘because the apartment has this lovely golden colour, almost like a late-afternoon sun. In certain rooms, we punched that up a bit – there’s a beautiful space down the hallway that doesn’t get natural light, so we played with this deep, almost-denim blue.’

Kelly’s studio managed the project remotely from the US, travelling over when needed. This post-Covid way of working may have its drawbacks, but unlike her New York projects, where she can ‘stroll over, muse and look out the window’, she relishes how it forces her to keenly focus on what needs to be done. A taste of her home city infuses the airy interiors. ‘I don’t think I can outrun my New York point of view!’ she laughs.

She loves the open-plan kitchen and living space at the heart of the apartment, where ‘you really get a sense of the scale’. Rather than a separate living room ‘where nobody goes and it feels like a museum’, here there are plenty of spots to sit with a laptop or read a newspaper. A formal dining area was a must, even if it’s seldom used, as ‘it feels like such a staple of a home’. Conjoining these areas ‘represents a modern way of living so perfectly, like you’re really in the mix’. kellybehun.com

Linda Boronkay

When Linda Boronkay heard that Kelly Behun and Joyce Wang – designers she’d long admired – were on board, she needed no convincing to take on a show apartment at the Whiteley. She was intrigued by the building, which shares similarities with historic sites she reimagined in her previous role as design director for Soho House. The target demographic was vague, so she took it as an open brief: ‘we love curating objects from different eras, layers, colours and eclectic choices. They were very encouraging.’

Her approach comprises three parts. The first is architectural, drawing on the building’s original features ‘and William Whiteley’s vision in creating this immense symposium of arts and crafts from around the world’. Next comes furniture and lighting: ‘this curated grand apartment, something Renzo Mongiardino would have designed, is rooted in European and English values’. The third pillar is the muse, with the team pinning a picture of a woman up in the studio to inspire their narrative – ‘just a stylish lady on a vintage couch, well travelled and interested in literature and the arts’. With this character in mind, they scoured markets in the UK and Italy, picking up books, vases and random pieces to build up a sense that ‘this is a home that has been curated over time, an accumulation of holidays, memories and treasured pieces – not everything is there for the design value, but for the story it tells’.

Landscaping the terraces that bookend the apartment was a logistical challenge, but they became one of Linda’s favourite elements. One opens off the living room and main bedroom and enjoys views over the skyline. The other overlooks the internal courtyard and is more private. ‘We created an oasis. You forget where you are. It’s really atmospheric, even at night.’

She’s pleased with how much they managed to pack into the compact dining and living room, calling it ‘somewhere I could hang out from early morning ‘til late at night’. A hand-painted screen by Gergei Erdei brings the space to life: ‘because it’s figurative, even when it’s empty it feels like people are there’. The cast-bronze candelabras are by Milan-based artist Osanna Visconti. A raffia wallcovering provides a neutral backdrop full of texture, while sumptuous red mohair curtains speak to the glossy, lacquered coffee table and act as the ‘lipstick’ of the room.

Linda resisted the temptation to peek at her fellow designers’ apartments during their installation, confident their diverse approaches would ensure each had a distinct identity. Her greatest fear was falling into the ‘too safe’ trap – where the end result is invariably ‘a bit meh’. ‘I always want to create something that feels charismatic and quirky,’ she says. ‘It might be risky, but with everything special you’re going to end up with that.’ lindaboronkay.com