Words Kate Jacobs
Photography Sam Grady

Minimalism is a term that seems to get thrown around without due care, but you only have to step into this apartment, on the first floor of a grand Queen Anne-style house, to realise that this space is very much the real minimalist deal. In the absence of other distractions, there’s an immediate sense of light and space, calm and clarity – the architectural equivalent of taking a series of deep, grounding breaths. Looking out onto a quiet, tree-lined garden square on the Kensington-Chelsea borders, this piano nobile apartment was conceived as a pied-à-terre for Catherine Walsh, who quickly realised it was special enough to make it her full-time home. This has been her eleventh home renovation and, in search of a full dozen, this perfectly pared-back home is now for sale.

Catherine Walsh has the process of editing and divesting down to a fine art. “I’ve been described as an orthodox minimalist and a pathological ascetic,” she admits. But she does have one collection that she’s always happy to add to: the thought-provoking quotes that she stores in her phone – perfectly space-efficient. As we chat, she reels off maxims: “He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing” from Epicurus, and “happiness is continuing to desire what you already have,” from Saint Augustine. “I’ve noticed that a lot of my favourite quotes have similar meanings,” she muses.

A perennially curious person, her lifelong passion for art brought her to study art history, investing in her first piece – a Harry Callahan photograph – even before she purchased a sofa. For 35 years she pursued a successful corporate career with beauty brands Coty and Estée Lauder, launching countless top-selling products while travelling constantly, living variously in Paris and New York, as well as at her home in Telluride, Colorado (in her native USA), designed by uber-minimalist architectural designer John Pawson, who she has known since 1997.

When, around a decade ago, she decided to call time on her corporate career, she wasn’t sure what her new life would look like. “I knew that the next chapter needed to be informed by culture and art,” she says. Today she’s involved with the V&A and the Royal Academy, and is chair of the commissioning committee at the Hayward Gallery, alongside further roles in London, New York and Venice. She’s particularly excited about the Peggy Guggenheim exhibition that she’s been instrumental in bringing to the Royal Academy in November.

Having realised that she needed a pied-à-terre in London, South Kensington was the obvious choice; an area she already knew and loved, having made Blakes Hotel her London base for many years. With her trademark laser focus, she viewed 11 flats over a two-day visit from Colorado; Evelyn Gardens, the last one she saw, particularly resonated with her.

“Without question, it was the vistas of green from all the rooms; I don’t think I could live somewhere that doesn’t have trees to look out on. The fireplace is wonderful too, and there’s the little terrace out front to read my book on. I loved the proportion of the rooms, the fact that it wasn't chopped up. As a New Yorker, you’re accustomed to living in a shoebox, so I considered it to be a pretty grand apartment because of the scale and the light. Back then, everything was painted dark grey, with espresso-brown floors and layers of curtains. It was very well done, very gentlemanly, the type of place where you wanted to sit and have a whisky and smoke a cigar. I asked Mr Pawson to come and see it, and I said, "What do you think?" And he said, "Paint it white and call it a day."

“So, all joking aside, I've done a tremendous amount of brightening and lightening up of the apartment. I wanted it to overflow with space. I asked, ‘How can we make the space itself the main focus?’ These houses are around 140 years old, I’ve never lived in an old house before. I’m working with the cornices, and other period features, so it’s not ‘white box’ minimalism, it’s more World of Interiors minimalism. I just stripped everything back and painted it white – I do love a white wall! I changed the fiddly sliding doors in the kitchen and removed the door to the bedroom – clean, clear, simple. I have uplighters over the kitchen cabinets so that the cornices are illuminated, and that has become the main source of light I use in the evenings. I wanted to have a warm, quiet aura to the place.

“I bought this place to be a pied-à-terre, but I felt so comfortable here that I decided to make it my main home. I don’t feel any limitations by living in a small space. I feel comforted by a smaller space. A good friend of mine came to visit it and said, ‘This is like the best hotel suite’, which was a great compliment to me, because I love hotels and I love hotel living, the simplicity and the clarity that I have in these spaces. When you open a closet, to see just a few of your favourite pieces hanging there, there's an aesthetic to it that is just so pleasing. So here, there’s no excess and there’s something beautiful about that.”

“To be a minimalist, you’re always going to need good storage. The bedroom already had great closets and I reconfigured the kitchen to make better use of the space, a place for everything from the tea station to the vacuum cleaner. To maximise this smaller space, what furniture there is, is integrated and the daybed and bed have generous built-in storage underneath. Everything is made from the same matt-finished pale oak that works with the oak floors, which I had refinished. In the bedroom, the console and bedside tables have beautiful alabaster tops. I knew I wanted just one piece of freestanding furniture for the main room, and it had to function as a place to sit, to work, to read. I don’t entertain much, but people can sit all the way round it. Mr Pawson very kindly designed it for me and it works so well with the calm and peaceful atmosphere here. He has an extreme appreciation for materials and how they meet one another, and an attention to detail that somehow creates warmth.

“I’m striving to create holistic spaces. I’ve always been influenced by Donald Judd, for whom there was no hierarchy between art, architecture and landscape. Nor do I want to be defined by the ‘purpose’ of each room. What I love about living in a small space is that I can choose to live in each room exactly the way I want to, to be able to sleep on the daybed in the main room or read in the bedroom. For me, art is not about display and it’s not about decoration. It’s part of the holistic whole. It takes a long time to get it right. I don’t class myself as a collector, but there is common ground in the pieces I select. From the Edmund de Waal installation to the Donald Judd piece, there’s an interiors theme, perhaps because I’m an introvert and I do live a pretty interior life.

“I’ve decided that London is my home and I’m very happy in this area. I find the people incredibly friendly and generous. I’m always in the V&A and there are lots of great cafes like Stillroom and Makers, and shops like The Flower Stand, Bayley & Sage grocers and Farmer Brothers hardware. Third Space opened a four-storey gym a few streets away, which has been a huge addition to Chelsea. I wouldn’t want to leave here – my new home is just a block away. I wanted another project and it’s an opportunity to work with John again. I love the process of building a house. I’m my happiest on a construction site.”