Making room for the light - The Jewish Chronicle

She first came to fame for a smart country barn she furnished for an old school friend which appeared in the prestigious magazine House and Garden. But it was the astonishing transformation of the once unloved, dark and cramped cottage Giselle de Hasse now calls home into a fabulous bright, welcoming space which commanded ten pages this year in another leading design title, Country Homes & Interiors.

“I bestowed everything I’ve learned about space configuration and capturing natural light on this little project,” says the designer, who was born Giselle Goldich, in Buckinghamshire. Her Antwerp-born mother had converted when she met Giselle’s Jewish father and moved to England.

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Giselle’s childhood home was unhappily not the country idyll she presents now in her Sussex kitchen, where you invariably find something delicious baking to enjoy with coffee in the cottage garden beyond. Her mother’s addiction to alcohol compounded difficult issues at home and the young family found themselves homeless for a while, living in a tent near Amersham before moving into social housing nearby.

After her parents’ marriage broke down and a serious event meant Giselle found herself homeless at the age of 16. However, happier times were to come. She credits her survival to a local Jewish family found with the help of Rabbi Jonathan Romain. “Mark and Sue Michaels offered me a room in their home and a chance to recover from the horrors of what I endured during my childhood,” she explains softly.

“I managed to organise funding from the DHSS to pay for my lodgings and was able to continue my sixth form education at art school.

“Mark and Sue were so kind to me at a desperate time of my life, welcoming me and sharing their home — the warmth of their friends and family was totally unforgettable. It gave me insight into not only a comforting, peaceful and kind home, but also the traditional practices of Jewish family life like celebrating Hanukkah and Passover together which I had not known before.

“I am still in touch with Sue and Mark, and feel so grateful to have met them.”

Having moved to Somerset to continue her education at art college, with nowhere else to go Giselle returned to Amersham for half-term. During that week she arrived at her mother’s house after an evening out to find her mother’s body at the bottom of the stairs. “I was only 19 and the shock was horrible, but I dealt with all the arrangements assisted by a family friend.”

And thus the transition she never expected from textile design into interiors a few years later: “My passion for creating beautiful homes is rooted in the need to create harmony and beauty a world away from the existence I was forced to endure in my formative years,” she admits.

It was her own daughter Frederique, now 24, beginning grammar school in Kent which encouraged Giselle to move to the Tunbridge Wells area, where for two years she ran an enticing shop selling architectural salvage and vintage finds before giving it up to concentrate on residential projects.

“I placed an ad in a parenting magazine when Frederique was tiny, small projects soon grew to larger ones, and I was able to continue to work and be around for her during her younger days at school,” says Giselle. She now offers kitchen, bathroom, joinery and lighting design as well as specifying furniture and finishes.

Giselle has designed a reception area for London’s Francis Holland School as well as a shooting lodge in Devon, a flat in Mallorca and several large family homes in London and across England. “I have been asked to create concepts for 28 different spaces within a [1] 7,500 sq ft luxury home, including bespoke basins for seven bathrooms,” she says of a project so high-profile the location is a secret. “As well as the design, I commissioned the joinery and architectural metal work as well as all the lighting layouts and finishes for the spa and pool as well as the home.” As with all her work, the use of natural materials is a watchword; she has a real feeling for stone, linen, sisal, timber and grass paper.

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Clever ideas are everywhere to be found in the Sussex country cottage she flooded with light by opening it up into the roof void. The disruption during this major renovation was an unavoidable challenge, as she had not finished the garden cabin which has transformed the cottage [2], creating an additional self-contained bedroom complete with its own bathroom and kitchen area.

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Curtains here, as in the kitchen, are made from antique shop linen finds cut and sewn by Giselle and hung from simple hooks, while high-level narrow shelves provide storage for essential items which do not need to be used every day. She finds it useful to keep spices not in a rack, but a basket close to the cooker where she loves making Ottolenghi dishes: “I’m very into fresh, healthy but simple food which delights the eye as well as the tastebuds, and I have made so many dishes fromJerusalem, one of my favourite cookbooks.”

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Giselle has taken pleasure from country life since her schooldays in the hamlet of Chesham Bois: "As a child I loved the freedom of cycling to the dells on the village common with friends. We’d collect tadpoles and cycle down to the watercress farm on the river Chess in the valley on our bikes. We’d fish with nets on rods and jam jars with string handles. Nothing much was ever caught but the thrill of trying was exhilarating!”

Today, on the cusp of Kent and East Sussex, she adores being close to a reservoir where she is a keen rower, and loves being able to step straight out into fields to start her three-mile walk every morning.

She is, however, equally at home in the city and abroad when it comes to applying her professional skills. “I can design for any style and feel, visualise space inherently and take account of architectural considerations.

“I do love colour and use it for clients, but my passion for natural materials will always drive my private projects.”

Go to https://www.dehasseinteriordesign.co.uk

Topics:

New Homes & Interiors