Words FOR SCALE

We couldn’t have been happier, 20 years ago, to finally see property listings with some goddamn humanity in them. As calm-energy as The Modern House was, it was a f*cking lightning bolt, at least to a décor-archi-curious population segment, of which we count ourselves a part and of which we assume you are a part. (And so, we needn’t describe the precise dimensions of TMH thrill – you know it well.)

What seems absolutely astonishing is that as much as The Modern House did seem a faith-restoring singular bastion of home-selling actually selling “Home” (and not just “Property”), it still does seem so. And for this we credit a deep, unshakable, philosophical, cultural-theoretical, also-super-visceral, brain-on-but-hands-off commitment to the true meaning of Good Taste. To know that meaning, if we could be so bold as to suggest, is more complicated than it seems. And, this lies in the nuances of The Modern House aesthetic.

Permit us now, if you may, to consider that TMH Aesthetic. (Preamble: isn’t it so delicious when something can be so clear-cut, identifiable-at-snap, and also sort of be all over the place?)

The Houses of The Modern House are, structurally, very nice homes – of course! As it’s said: “good bones!” And they are, by appellation-parameter, of a certain era (the “modern” and contemporary ones, design-wise). But they present us with more: a skilled avoidance of the boring industry standard overly-“dressed” Décor For Commodification aesthetic, stripped of everything outwardly ‘personal’ or outside of some perceived “buyer-friendly,” banally palatable taste (see above: antelope?).

That’s not “the standard” here. These are not stripped, they aren’t even particularly zhooshed; the idea is not that these are a Blank Slate. Who the f*ck, honestly, dreams of living in Blank Slate; neutral, neutered? These, instead, were a fantasy of what “Home” could be to you, (1) if you “allowed” yourself to personalise it and (2) if you were assured that even when occupied with human life, they remained appealing. A Home should not appeal because of its blankness, but because of its ability to frame Your Life. Hoarding is allowed, if you do it with flare; even stains and mess, because we know the design-world spin – these can be ‘patina’.

Gaze upon this, for example. The kitchen (and exterior, for context) of the company's inaugural instruction: Six Pillars in south London, designed by Valentine Harding:

A kitchen that reads as very en vogue right now, but was less so in 2004, full stainless steel being more of an Obsessive Home Cook’s default then; eg Nigella, et al. It is decidedly high-spec; it is decidedly “a nice kitchen”; and yet it has not been – as would be the temptation, particularly today – “styled”. The things within it are regular and used. The arrangement isn’t a mess, but it’s not perfectly tidy either. Not a single arrangement of seasonal wildflowers!!!

All that, and yet, it stands up as “a nice kitchen.” It needn’t be fluffed, TMH has – from Day 1 – allowed for an aesthetic of “this has been a real person’s home,” when such an aesthetic was already in place.

Or, return to our first example: the antelope; teetering-tall piles of books; or, even, a wood-panelled wall. These, for the typical Property Listing-readiness, would be banished, redistributed, painted over. The impetus is to genericise at all costs! Because the metrics are location, square footage, number of bedrooms, whatever. The impetus for TMH hasn’t been to obscure the influence of a human or several, but to editorialise it. It demands you imagine: how much more exciting is it when an Architect’s “good bones,” say, meet the mess-collections-stains-choices of The Inhabitant? The “aesthetic” of domestic modernity is at its peak, The Modern House asserts, when these things are both allowed to radiate. (And, more appealing to a buyer, has been the proven theory.) 

It is not one human’s choice (an architect, a developer); and definitely not the erasure of human choice (in genericising staging, ie the sad, sad majority); it’s actually layers of human choice. It makes you feel that the homes of The Modern House really have something to say! And, don’t you wanna lean in and listen? 

We certainly listened very carefully to Murray Mews VI, in London – designed and lived in by David and Anne Hyde-Harrison, and sold in 2025. (Whoever said that to layer, architect and inhabitant had to be different people? Absolutely not the case! Architecture is a moment; inhabitation is time. And One can play at that game.) It’s useful to see just how particularly this was photographed by staff photographer Rachel Ferriman for TMH:

This above left image is not the type you’d see in the mainstream, open sea of property listings – because this doesn’t help you understand the layout so much; it doesn’t highlight a feature; it’s not a wide shot of room! It is sort of superfluous (at least, so it would be considered to be). It’s just a little tidbit for you to honour David and Anne and their taste: pink and orange together like a vertical display of summer-delicious Italian sorbet.

Or, above right: very distinct! Very dated. But “dated” might be a compliment for TMH, meaning “delightfully of its time.” It is not presented as a place to flip, as a place “needing updates” – though that is an almost inevitable outcome. (Can you even imagine where else the Dated is a compliment?) The Dated Home highlights a moment of personal establishment in one’s domesticity, where Things were purchased, walls were painted; and that’s often at the start of Inhabitation. And what a thrill to see!

There is no way Your version of Murray Mews VI could or should be like this. But, isn’t it appealing nonetheless to see it like this? To hear from the house that it can absolutely support Personality. You won’t be battled by the bones, you’ll be kept together by them.

Where maybe the world feels at times like its verging on soulless, and a house is equally becoming an emblem of a need-turned-“asset,” the real thrill of The Modern House was that home seemed never to be presented as a financial investment. It’s got a whole lot more to it than that.

The incredible, discerning, spiritually unwavering aesthetic of The Modern House – super evocative actually; you can absolutely tell that the folks who started it are magazine men. For them, a good looking home isn’t theirs to fake; it’s theirs to find.