May 2, 2012Karen Howes teamed up with Gail Taylor to form interior design firm Taylor Howes in 1991. Photo courtesy of Taylor Howes
Newly arrived in London from England’s south coast at the tender age of 18, Karen Howes went to work for an art dealer and, serendipitously, shared a rented house with a young designer named Martin Waller. It was indeed a stroke of good fortune. Martin went on to found the highly influential design company Andrew Martin and became “a mentor and a friend for 30 years,” says Howes. “I was fascinated by his first shop, which was full of enthralling objets — he inspired me to leave my job, then at a PR firm, and set my sights on interior design, which I thought was just for wealthy girls who went to work for firms like Colefax and Fowler.”
So Howes found a job in real estate and bought her first London flat, fully mortgaged, at 19. The place was a wreck, so, with no money, she sanded the floors, painted the walls, made the curtains, tiled the bathroom and wallpapered the living room herself. Such was her energy, enthusiasm and resourcefulness that she was able to sell the flat for a healthy profit and upgrade to another — and then another after that. Her job meant that she was on friendly terms with local real-estate developers, chums who would come over for supper and compliment her on what she had done. By 21, she was married and building a budding interior design business based on those contacts and their recommendations. Twenty-five years later, her interior design firm is a testament to the same drive and passion that got that first flat renovated.
Throughout the 1980s, Howes worked informally with another designer, Gail Taylor, and in 1991, they officially formed Taylor Howes and took on their first significant project: a show apartment for a leading house builder. This, in turn, led to 50 more such commissions from the same company. She and Taylor did everything, from driving vans and moving the furniture to hanging the pictures and vacuuming the carpets.
For the living room of a home in London’s Primrose Hill neighborhood, Howes worked with a neutral palette punctuated with pops of bright color — a signature of her London design firm Taylor Howes.
In the glass-enclosed dining area of a Notting Hill kitchen, Howes hung spherical Moooi light pendants and surrounded the table with Flexform chairs upholstered in an exaggerated houndstooth.
They rented their first office space in the Belgravia home of fashion guru Isabella Blow (celebrity milliner Philip Treacy also rented a room there). “It was a mad, fabulous place to be,” Howes recalls. “We would be having client meetings and Izzy would appear in her dressing gown with red lipstick firmly in place, saying ‘Darling, I have such a f-ing hangover. Do make me a coffee.’ Luckily, the clients loved it.”
In the ensuing years, Howe says she “never stopped learning and never will. Every day presents new and exciting challenges, and that is what keeps me fired up. This sector of the market is very demanding, but very satisfying when you get it right. If a client isn’t happy, we don’t sleep.” Taylor stepped back from the business last year, to spend more time with her family, but she still consults and remains a partner in th:2, the duo’s diffusion line of furniture and furnishings. Based in London’s Chelsea Harbour district, th:2 also offers an in-house interior design service aimed at those who need a quick turn-around on smaller budgets; they primarily cater to London’s high-end rental market.
Meeting for an interview in her studio, located on a smart Chelsea street in West London, Howes arrives vivacious, pretty and breathtakingly energetic. She and her husband, Andrew, split their time between a pied-à-terre in Mayfair and a romantic, rambling farmhouse in Wiltshire, about two hours’ drive from town. Their two teenage daughters, Georgie and Isabella, at boarding school close by, join them most weekends, and family life proves as important to her as work. “The girls are hugely supportive of what I do,” she says. “I would absolutely love for them to be a part of the business one day, but who knows what will happen.”
In the Greenwich home’s office-cum-project room, Howes created a graphic gallery by setting custom-designed lacquered beige joinery and black accents against a seafoam green wall.
For a family residence in the Richmond section of London, Taylor Howes sought to create a contemporary feel while referencing the classic origins of the house.
These days, she employs a design team of 18, well supported by creative director Sandra Drechsler and design director Sheila El Hadery, who’ve been with her for 14 and 17 years, respectively — a testament as much to Howes’ likeable personality as to her flourishing practice. Interestingly, every single employee is female, though not by design. “We’re known for running the business like a family. Maybe that’s what attracts so many talented women,” she says. “It imbues what we do with a softness and an approachability that our clients appreciate — there’s nothing scary about dealing with us.”
Certainly, she has an impressive track record of repeat clients to bear this out. When an American family, for whom she had designed a home when they moved to London a few years back, recently relocated to Greenwich, Connecticut, they asked Taylor Howes to take on the total refurbishment of their new house. At 18,000 square feet, it’s the firm’s largest residential commission to date.
Howes maintains that relationships like this are as important as the firm’s design work. “People come to us because they know they will have a good experience — and that we’ll deliver on time. Our clients have good taste, but they are short on time and want someone to interpret ideas for them. What we do is give them a home that’s personal to them and perfect for their needs.”
While Howes loves undertaking residential projects — current ones include a farmhouse in the south of France and a converted church in Knightsbridge with fabulous triple-height spaces — the firm also excels within the commercial sector. There have been show apartments within The Knightsbridge, one of London’s top addresses, as well as similarly high-end developments within Lancelot Place and The Phillimores.
American clients who’d first worked with Howes in London asked her to design the 18,000-square-foot Greenwich, Connecticut, home they moved into upon their return to the States.
Although she says there is no obvious Taylor Howes signature — that would conflict with her goal of giving every client a home that’s particular to him or her — the handwriting is easy to spot once you know where to look. The firm uses color with boldness and confidence. (Even when neutrals form the foundation, punches of vivid greens, reds, blues, yellows and pinks enliven the scheme.) And it blends unapologetic glamour with well-considered practicality — storage is a specialty, be it whole walls of customized shelving for shoes and handbags or a recently completed boot room where each member of a family not only has a dedicated hanging space but also a monogrammed lacquered hat box and drawer for Wellingtons. “A lot of our clients have children,” Howes says, “so you have to think about where the double-buggy will go and where the children will do their homework. The trick comes in creating design solutions that also look drop-dead gorgeous. We always search for ways to push the boundaries.”
Karen Howes’ Quick Picks on 1stdibs
