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A five-story Hampstead townhouse designed by South African architect Ted Levy in 1968 has been carefully reworked for a young family without erasing its modernist character. Louis Hagen Hall kept the house’s skewed room arrangement and original Paraná pine paneling, then used pocket doors, clearer sightlines, cherry-veneer cabinetry and a stainless-steel kitchen to make the 2,400-square-foot home work for contemporary life.
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A 1968 townhouse with its original character intact
The house stands in Pine Heath, Hampstead, North London, as part of a group of nine homes designed by Ted Levy, five of them townhouses. Its five-story plan, including a small converted attic, contains approximately 2,400 square feet of living space. Louis Hagen Hall’s renovation did not begin with a blank slate. Much of the off-kilter 1960s arrangement had survived, along with the visual language that made the house distinctive.
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The brief: make an unusual plan practical
The family needed storage, easier circulation and rooms that connected visually. Hall therefore concentrated on how people move through the existing plan, where doors interrupted views, and how cabinetry could absorb everyday clutter. The intervention was deliberately selective: improve the way the house works while allowing its 1960s geometry to remain legible.
Three precise interventions changed the experience of the house
Floor-to-ceiling pocket doors open the sightlines
Several old doors were removed and replaced with floor-to-ceiling pocket doors. The openings were also realigned slightly. That small adjustment lets a view run from the front of the house toward the rear, making the rooms feel more connected without flattening them into one open-plan space.
In a house with an irregular, diagonal layout, a door is more than a privacy device. Its position determines whether one room ends in a wall, a corner or a framed glimpse of another room. The revised openings preserve the separation of the original rooms while creating a stronger visual axis through them.
Storage stretches over four floors and the attic
New cabinetry extends across four floors and into the small converted attic. This is a practical response to family life, but it also gives the renovation a consistent architectural element. Instead of adding freestanding cupboards wherever space remained, Hall used built-in storage to reinforce the house’s vertical organization.
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The cabinetry is made from stained cherry veneer. It is not original to the 1968 house; it was selected because its color and grain closely resemble the existing woodwork. That distinction matters. The renovation does not pretend that every timber surface is historic. It uses a new material to sit comfortably beside the old one.
The kitchen becomes part of the main visual route
The living area now looks toward the kitchen along the renewed sightline. The dining area sits one level above the living room and looks into the kitchen through a hatch. Together, those connections allow activity in separate rooms to remain visible and socially connected while retaining the split-level character of the plan.
Original and new materials: continuity without imitation
| Element | Status in the renovation | What it contributes |
|---|---|---|
| Diagonal Paraná pine paneling | Original 1960s fabric, retained | Preserves the house’s distinctive grain, direction and period character |
| Cherry-veneer cabinetry | New, stained to resemble the original timber | Provides storage across four floors and the converted attic while visually linking levels |
| Floor-to-ceiling pocket doors | New replacements for older doors | Improves circulation, privacy and long views through the skewed plan |
| Kitchen worktop | New stainless steel | Introduces a durable, reflective work surface against the warm wood |
| Upper kitchen cupboards | New cupboards with sliding glass doors | Keeps stored items accessible and lets light pass through the upper zone |
| Bathroom finishes | Square, light-colored tiles and a tiled bathtub niche | Maintains a restrained, graphic finish in the smaller rooms |
The original diagonal paneling is made from Paraná pine, an aged South American wood that the feature describes as endangered today. Preserving it therefore protects both the visual identity of the interior and a material that is no longer an easy contemporary choice. The cherry veneer is a visual conversation with that paneling, not a substitute for it.
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The living room and the green view
The living room remains a sunken space, a characteristic move in many 1960s interiors. The revised openings make it possible to look toward the kitchen rather than ending the room’s perspective at a misaligned doorway. Daylight and a view of greenery remain important parts of the experience, so the room feels connected to the rest of the house without requiring a completely open floor.
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A sofa with an integrated record player was custom made for the project. The tinted-glass coffee table is also custom made. Neither is identified as an off-the-shelf model, so the furnishings should be understood as pieces designed for this particular room rather than products that can be matched from a standard catalogue.
The dining level and the Akari lamp
The dining area is positioned one level above the living room. Its hatch to the kitchen provides a practical serving connection and a visual link to activity below. An Akari lamp by Isamu Noguchi hangs above the dining table. The source identifies the Akari family but does not specify the exact model, so the image should not be used to infer a particular product number or retail version.
The kitchen: stainless steel, glass and a controlled palette
The stainless-steel worktop supplies a hard-wearing surface and a cooler counterpoint to the timber. Upper cupboards have sliding glass doors, a detail that keeps the upper storage visually lighter than a run of opaque fronts. The kitchen’s role in the renewed sightline means its finishes are seen from the living room as well as from the work area itself.
Bedrooms, bathrooms and the roof
The house includes guest sleeping space under the roof and a small work alcove in the attic. These compact rooms show how the renovation treats leftover volume as useful territory rather than forcing every function into the principal floors. A roof terrace adds an outdoor destination, with a large concrete table as its defining piece.
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Bathrooms use square, light-colored tiles, including a tiled niche around the bathtub. The treatment is simple rather than decorative, allowing the geometry of the rooms and the changing daylight to carry the design.
A Frama T-Lamp appears as an accent in one bedroom. It is one of the few named products in the feature; the custom sofa and coffee table, by contrast, are made specifically for the house.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Modernist continuity, not a retro set
Hall’s central design decision was to avoid turning the house into a period display. He explained: “We didn’t want to create a replica or a retro scene, but rather respond to the original architecture in a contemporary way that’s not restricted to any particular references.” That principle explains why original wood can sit beside new cherry veneer, why a 1960s plan can receive contemporary pocket doors, and why a stainless-steel worktop does not feel out of place.
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What this renovation demonstrates
Preserve the fabric that carries the identity
Not every old surface needs to remain, but the diagonal Paraná pine paneling clearly carries the house’s character. Retaining it gives the new work a reference point. Where original material is vulnerable or irreplaceable, document it, repair it where feasible and let new finishes acknowledge it without pretending to be the same age.
Use circulation as a design tool
The pocket-door intervention shows that circulation can be improved without removing every partition. Before changing walls, map the views that matter: from the entrance, across the living room, toward the kitchen and out to the garden or other green outlook. A small shift in an opening can have a larger effect than a wholesale demolition.
Build storage into the architecture
Family storage is most effective when it is planned with the rooms rather than added afterward. The cabinetry here runs over four floors and the attic, giving coats, books, equipment and household supplies a designated place while keeping the irregular plan readable.
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Let new materials be visibly contemporary
Cherry veneer, stainless steel and sliding glass doors do not copy the 1960s literally. They create continuity through proportion, warmth and restraint. For a similar project, match the character of an existing material—its tone, scale or grain direction—without manufacturing a false history.
A practical framework for renovating a period modernist house
- Record the existing plan. Photograph every room, note level changes and draw the current door positions before deciding what to remove.
- Identify irreplaceable elements. Mark original paneling, unusual joinery, stair details and other features that define the building’s identity.
- Trace the desired sightlines. Decide which rooms should connect visually and test whether a repositioned opening or pocket door can achieve that connection.
- Plan storage vertically. Look at underused landings, roof spaces and full-height wall areas before sacrificing more floor area.
- Choose a complementary, not counterfeit, palette. Select new veneers, metals, glass and tiles that relate to the original materials in tone and proportion.
- Separate documented antiques from new work. Label retained elements, newly fabricated joinery and custom furniture clearly in the project record.
- Check every product identification. An item described only as an Akari lamp, for example, cannot support a claim about a specific model. Verify the exact specification before ordering a replacement.
The lasting lesson from the Hampstead house
This renovation succeeds because it treats the townhouse as a living piece of architecture. Levy’s 1968 design remains present in the skewed plan, sunken living room and diagonal pine paneling. Hall’s additions make those qualities easier to experience: doors disappear into walls, views travel farther, storage follows the family through the floors, and new materials perform contemporary work without disguising their date.
For readers interested in midcentury interiors, the project offers a more useful model than a literal period recreation. Preserve the elements that cannot be replaced, correct the parts that obstruct daily life, and allow new work to be unmistakably of its own time.
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