With contacts in the film industry, Mitch Crook, creative director of the design practice Hotel Creative, was given first refusal on the bathroom used on the set of the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a faithful replication of the one in Garden Lodge, Kensington, the house that Queen’s singer-songwriter owned from 1980 until he died in 1991. Once filming had wrapped, the main components, which were all designed by Drummonds, were looking for a new home. Mr Crook, a fan of the band's music, bought the pieces and put them away in storage for the right project.
Three years later, an opportunity arose when he was working on redesigning a five-bedroom Queen Anne house in Surrey. The owners were particularly dissatisfied with the design of the main bathroom and asked Mr Crook to restore it using the collection from Drummonds.
A shower was the only missing element. ‘In many ways, it was the final part of the puzzle,’ says James Lentaigne of Drummonds. ‘Installed at the centre of the room, it leaves the beautiful wall coverings undisturbed. The glass structure allows natural light from the windows to flow through, keeping the room spacious and offering a 360-degree view from inside. Unlacquered, it will develop a distinctive aged patina over time.’
The bathroom floor needed to be reinforced to take the weight of the new sanitaryware. The boards were replaced with aged oak herringbone planks from Ted Todd. On the walls are panels of St Laurent, a wallpaper by de Gournay hand-painted on gilded paper.
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