“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s how it felt.”Once again good news came disguised as bad. To compensate for that intractable geometry—to trick the eye—he stole a couple of feet from an adjoining bathroom and created a nook, an indentation, at the end of the shorter wall so that he could extend the millwork beyond the corner. “It was a huge amount of work and a huge amount of waiting,” says Styler. The bad news was that she and her husband, Gordon Sumner—known to most of the world as the rock star Sting—had decided against renovating a New York City apartment. He could do nothing, however, about the awkward angle of the outer wall, which made one side of the room longer than the other. After finishing work on the top floors, Mindel then turned his attention to the ground floor, a long, basementlike space containing the kitchen, storage rooms and a staff apartment.

What better place could there be for a family room, particularly for a family so devoted to nature’s greenery? The seven bedroom, six bathroom posh abode with 8,500 square feet of living space is a masterpiece of striking Georgian and Queen Anne architecture. Arabella Lennox-Boyd designed the garden. It’s wide and generous.” It also needed a generous amount of work.What the couple wanted and liked was a house that would be a warm and hospitable home to two busy parents, six children and the Irish wolfhounds Styler breeds at their farm in Wiltshire (see Mindel worked in constant collaboration with Anthony Close-Smith. They had to be replaced with modern supports that allowed Mindel to excavate the space, lowering the floor and thereby raising the ceiling from a glowering seven feet to a smiling nine.Such extensive work meant that the rest of the house, weighing perhaps as much as 100 tons, had to be propped up and underpinned with a steel grid. It now feels as if it has a heart.”Our website, archdigest.com, offers constant original coverage of the interior design and architecture worlds, new shops and products, travel destinations, art and cultural events, celebrity style, and high-end real estate as well as access to print features and images from the AD archives.Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, tapped architect Lee F. Mindel to renovate their early-18th-century house in LondonMatisse prints and, above the fireplace, a Picasso are in the living room.

He has received 16 Grammy Awards and been nominated for several Academy Awards for his work.Here’s a look at Sting’s, and wife Trudie Styler’s, richly appointed London home.A Pursuitist contributor, Matt is blogging about travel, auto, gadgets, food and drink. So we used design devices to make what was a castaway into an integral part of the house.”Styler requested light, and light Mindel gave her. “It’s translucent, and it connects you to the outdoors,” he says. The low tables are by Yves Klein; a Barry Flanagan bronze is on the Diego Giacometti side table.Mindel installed a large skylight and glazed the rear wall to bring in natural illumination from the gardens above and just outside the family and dining rooms.

This house is not skinny.

Even changes to the garden, which, in arcane legal theory, belongs to the Queen, were subject to review. “The room has a warm, sun-drenched feel,” says Mindel.Everything about the renovation required more than anyone anticipated: more time, more energy, more money and more imagination. Gordon Sumner aka Sting, he of “Every Breath You Take” fame has listed his London townhouse on the market (for pricing, ask your well-paid people to contact his well-paid people). “It even allows you to hear the rain. “It was a big commitment for them,” says Mindel, “but they had the design rigor to ride it out.”Mindel’s excavation lowered the family room to garden level. The bad news was that the agencies insisted on the retention of the original brick arches, which prevented key alterations.

The shorter wall is still shorter, but because of the extension of the millwork, both walls now look even. Close-Smith, a director of Donald Insall Associates, one of Britain’s leading architectural restoration firms, was involved in the rebuilding of Windsor Castle after the devastating fire of 1992. Some highlights of the residence include marble floors, a corkscrew spindled staircase, a wood-burning fireplace, a media room, and an outer garden.Sting was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 as a member of the Police. Such subtle and not so subtle details send you subliminal messages that tell you you’re not confined.” In the living room, on an upper floor, he added silk to the wool rug for a glossy shine that acts like a photographer’s reflector, spreading light from the windows evenly throughout the space. Just beginning to enjoy their new house, Sting and his family had to pack up and find another London address for the year of reconstruction. With only a narrow road separating it from a park, the ground floor seemed almost a part of the park itself. I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” Trudie Styler told Lee F. Mindel.

7/11 Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, asked Lee F. Mindel to renovate their early-18th-century London house. The good news was that they wanted Mindel’s architectural and design firm—Manhattan’s Shelton, Mindel & Associates—to redo their London home, a town house in the center of the city.Sting and Styler—she is an actress, a producer and a passionate defender of the world’s beleaguered rain forests—loved both the location and the house, which was built just after 1700. In the dining room, two steps up from the family room, he turned an eight-foot-square light shaft into a skylight. In that instant the renovation took on a new dimension, changing from a big project to a very big one, with large and unexpected complications.Since the house is considered irreplaceable, an integral part of a neighborhood that has changed little in 300 years, no fewer than seven agencies had to approve any alterations, inside and out.
It sports seven bedrooms and six bathrooms as …
The floor extended so far beneath and beyond the main structure that its roof also served as the house’s rear terrace. To bring the outside in, he used the same Yorkshire stone in both the room and the garden.