“I came to this house for love. The first time I walked through that door I was in love… although he didn’t know it.” He is Edgar González, Mexican architect. Ella, Francesca Heathcote Sapey (Madrid, 33 years old), architect and interior designer. The house is an apartment on Bravo Murillo street in Madrid.
Francesca liked the two balconies facing the street where a lot of light comes in and the branches of the old Bravo Murillo trees, despite being on a third. “It looks like you are in a nest.” She also liked that there were many books. “It was the house of a single man with all the implications that that usually has, the office was in the dining room and he ate in the kitchen. I thought two things: what an authentic and fascinating house and how much it resembles its owner, and almost at the same time: how ugly the gotelé is. “What a mania there is in Spain with gotelé!”
Francesca Heathcote Sapey poses in her bathroom, a windowless room that was lit in total yellow. “A very Barragán yellow,” clarifies the interior designer.Federico Reparaz
A year passed between that first visit and Francesca’s final move. “We became very good friends before,” she remembers with a laugh. But when Francesca moved in for Christmas 2019, she brought more books — “I go everywhere with them” —, more paintings, and some spaces had to be reorganized. “I moved with everything, I didn’t have much but I brought everything with me. I had lived in London for 10 years and had returned to work with my mother (the architect and interior designer Teresa Sapey). The idea was to stay at her house until I found an apartment, and in the end it was this one, which I wasn’t looking for but it appeared to me along the way.”
Almost everything remains from that house that Francesca visited: the books, the shelves, the desk table, the worn-out chairs that Edgar has been finding there, the sofa, the kitchen table—typical of a bar with a plaque that says “ Reserved”—and all the plants, from the decorative ones to an avocado, a loquat and a lemon tree that they pamper in small glass jars next to the kitchen window. From each trip they bring a species to see how Madrid suits them. “But they are all his, I am terrible at taking care of plants,” she warns. In short, the house has changed, but not that much.
The first transformation was to paint the hallway a very specific pink. “It is a magenta tone, a strong pink, very Mexican, that gives character; On the one hand, it is a tribute to Luis Barragán, and on the other, it is a very Sapey color that is found in some of our works.”
The sideboard, a 19th-century piece of furniture in the Piedmontese style, belongs to Francesca Heathcote Sapey’s grandmother. She has traveled through many family homes. “It gives me peace,” says the interior designer. On the wall, the house’s capitalized artwork, Luz sobre luz (2021), silk on wood, by José María Sicilia. On the table, a head of Adam, designed by Francesca’s mother, Teresa Sapey. Federico Reparaz
In the kitchen there is a table for two. In the window, a small orchard with avocado and loquat plants. Federico Reparaz
They were thinking about which space would be best to paint and decided on a transit area so that the color would not overwhelm them. “The heart of this house is the hallway that connects all the rooms, so we painted everything pink.”
The other radical change was painting the floor white. “The house had an imitation wood vinyl floor that I didn’t like at all. Since there are so many books and plants that generate volume, I needed to clean the visual space, organize the house through the finishes. Painting the floors white is a hobby that my mother and I have. “Everyone thinks that they are going to get very dirty and yes, that is true, but they are cleaned with a mop and work very well as a unifying element of the space.” Shortly afterward they also painted the fireplace. “It was made of a salmon-colored stone that I didn’t like at all and it created visual clutter.” So more white.
Drawing detail in the kitchen. Federico Reparaz
“Are many expectations created when you go to live somewhere?” we asked him. “I believe in myself, but no one has ever told me anything, nor have I felt pressure to have to prove that my house is this or that…, but one thing my mother says is true: ‘Would you go to a dentist?’ “Who has crooked teeth?” The only exception to that rule is right when Teresa Sapey comes home to eat. “There is pressure there, everything has to be perfect in the eyes of her mother and her wonderful professional. But I must say that we have passed the test and he likes this house very much.”
The living room, with two balconies facing Bravo Murillo Street, and, in the back, a large bookcase takes up the entire wall. The floor of the house was painted white to unify the space. “It’s a hobby that my mother and I share, painting the floors white,” says Francesca Heathcote Sapey. Federico Reparaz
The house was left half-finished because the pandemic arrived. When she was able to leave, Francesca went to her family’s storage room to look for things that she had in mind and loved: a 19th century Piedmontese-style wooden sideboard, which belongs to her grandmother and has been in several family homes. . “I want him with me because he gives me peace,” she says. Above, the work Luz sobre luz (2021), by José María Sicilia, hangs on the wall. She also brought the magazine rack, several paintings and her wine glasses. “I’m obsessed, I collect them in all shapes and colors.”
A windowless bathroom, painted bright yellow. “A little Barragán too,” Francesca points out, is the great extravagance of the house. “In the mornings I wake up with a lot of energy and vitality, I go into the bathroom and come out ready to take on the world. Look, if we leave the door open, it seems like the light is on even though it is off,” she says. And it’s true that the bathroom looks like a sun in the middle of the pink hallway.
The color core of the house is the hallway, which they decided to be magenta pink. It was preferred to paint a passage area so that the color did not overwhelm. On the right wall, a painting by Enrico de Paris. On the shelf, a head of Adam, a design by Teresa Sapey. Below, the minibar. Federico Reparaz
All the rest is in the bedroom. The different nightstands, one by Zanotta and the other by Carter: “I like asymmetrical things,” and the always white sheets with some color. “I like all colors, except brown, and I have had an unconscious passion for green since I was born.” Francesca is a twin with a boy. During the pregnancy, the doctor said that two children were coming, they would be James and Francesco, and the grandmothers began to prepare the trousseau in blue and green. Against all odds, and never better said, a girl was born who could have changed her name a little to call her Francesca, but the room and clothes remained as they were. So she remembers her childhood in green. “I think I have a frustration there and that’s why I like dressing in pink so much now,” she says, laughing.
In the kitchen, next to the window is the mini garden and the chaos that is expected of a house where a great chef lives – “Edgar is a professional, I only make some Italian recipes, a pasta or a focaccia, but his is Seriously, you need ingredients, utensils, weights…” On the walls they have begun to write the important things: recipes, for grandma’s pancake and for kombucha; the oven temperatures and their equivalents, and many coded messages because with so many work trips they have seasons of seeing little of each other.
“I like all colors, except brown, and I have had an unconscious passion for green since I was born,” explains the architect. In the image, Francesca Heathcote Sapey is drawing. Federico Reparaz
Important things are written down on the kitchen wall, like grandma’s pancake recipe, focaccia or kombucha recipes. Federico Reparaz
Heathcote Sapey, in the pink Barragán/Sapey hallway, and, in the background, a painting by Enrico Paris. Federico Reparaz
There are second-hand objects in the house and many more are expected. The latest acquisition was a sofa designed by Tom Dixon for Ikea, and among the new items, one of the lamps from the Varmblixt collection, by Sabine Marcelis, also for Ikea, which will probably end up in the hallway. “The house can still change,” Francesca warns, running her hand along the gotelé.
It is the first time that he has a house in Madrid, although he left his maternal home at the age of 14 to study in Turin. She then lived 10 years in London, there she studied Architecture, a master’s degree in Culture and Criticism and another in Urban Design and Planning. “They already thought I was lost, no one thought I would come back. My idea was not to spend a decade in London, but the city captured me. Then I wanted to go to Hong Kong, which for me is the London of Asia, or to Latin America, but I passed by here and my mother told me: ‘But what’s wrong with Madrid?’. Nothing. That I can always come back.”
Then Teresa Sapey offered him to stay in the capital as a partner in her studio (Teresa Sapey + Partners). “And you’re not going to interview me?” Francesca asked him. “I’ve been interviewing you all my life,” her mother responded. “And that’s how I returned to Madrid.”
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