Theatre designer Bob Crowley has enough drama at work - that's why his home is calm and simple, he tells Eoin Lyons.
Theatre designer Bob Crowley is in Bristol overseeing his current project, the Disney and Cameron Mackintosh production of Mary Poppins, which will move to the West End in December. Being in Bristol - even if it's only for a few weeks - must have a feeling of coming full circle for Crowley. He lived there when he first left Cork at the age of 21. Since then he has designed more than 50 theatre productions, winning Tony awards for Carousel and Elton John's musical, Aida. Crowley also designs for ballet and opera, and what he does has been described as creating dreams: magical, extraordinary worlds encapsulated on stage.
Crowley has lived in Bristol, London and New York. His home is now in Bloomsbury in London: a flat on two floors of a Georgian building, bought five years ago. "I'd been getting my hair cut for about 10 years around the corner," he says, "and always wanted to live on this street. One day I saw a for sale sign, called the estate agent, saw it, and decided to buy it immediately. It was the most disgusting place you can imagine - salmon carpets, Indian takeaways all over the room, 1970s wallpaper, socks on the radiator, sink full of moulding dishes ..."
He called in his friend of more than 20 years, Caroline Holdaway, an actress turned interior designer, to help turn the place around. It took two years to complete. Because it is a Listed building, there were problems with a plan to fill in a space at the basement level and install a glass skylight, not to mind the addition of new floors and restoration of a stone staircase. "Doing what I do, I suppose I had a few ideas," he says of the decoration, "but most of the furniture was things I already had."
All the rooms are calm and uncluttered. "Working in the theatre means dealing with difficult people. It's stressful enough - I don't want drama at home."
The flat runs over the hall floor and garden level of the house on a quiet street beside Gray's Inn Fields. On the lower level are Crowley's bedroom, bathroom and workroom. Up a stone stairs are the kitchen, library and living room.
KITCHEN AND GARDEN
"The kitchen is really a thoroughfare to the garden, so I tried to keep the presses as plain as possible," says Crowley of the lacquered wood kitchen units that have press and release catches instead of handles. The splash back between them is made of small stainless steel tiles. "I designed the table because I couldn't find anything the right size. A furniture maker called James Codrington made it. The chairs are Scandinavian."
The garden is peculiarly quiet for central London. "I wanted to recreate a similar feeling as in Gougane Barra, one of the earliest monasteries in west Cork with a tiny church by a lake." A monastery bell is hidden behind ivy, a crucible from a smelting factory holds water, and flagstones have been turned into planters.
LIVING ROOM
The walls here are bare. "I'm saving to buy a really good piece of art," says Crowley. A Yeats sketch sits on one of the shelves in the adjoining library and other pictures are stacked downstairs. The lamps are unusual: "Caroline found old wood print rollers and had them made into lamps. They would have been used to print wallpaper or fabric."
The shades are from Nicky Haslam, and Crowley added a glass panel to diffuse the light at the base of the shade. They rest on French café tables. A tapestry chair was found in Judy Greene's shop in Chelsea, and the piece of African fabric covering the ottoman was bought from a female friend who supplied fabrics for the theatre. In one corner sits an antique table restored by Crowley's father, and the simple fireplace is limestone. Iron chandeliers hang here and in the adjoining library.
LIBRARY
Crowley designed the light grey painted bookshelves with asymmetrical openings that run across both sides of the room. The original door to the flat is behind one panel of the bookcase that is on wheels so it can slide across if the door needs to be used.
BEDROOM, BATHROOM AND OFFICE
These are all downstairs. What Crowley calls a junk room at the front of the building also has a small office where there are shelves with pictures and mementos. Actress Judi Dench dances in silhouette in a photograph from a play Crowley worked on in 1999 called Amy's View, and another photograph is of Crowley's favourite playwright, Tennessee Williams, given to him by the writer's best friend when he died. Sitting humbly together in a corner are Laurence Olivier and Tony awards. Next door is a bathroom with shower and beyond that Crowley's bedroom. There are no windows but a large lantern skylight from the garden above lets daylight in. To one side of the room sits a cast iron bath, with a door to the bathroom proper. The furniture is again a mix: 1950s chest of drawers, antique wardrobe, a bamboo ladder to hold ties.
Caroline Holdaway (00-44-208-3416525); Mary Poppins opens at the Prince Edward Theatre, Old Compton Street, London on December 15th