INTERIOR DESIGN QUEEN AND FORMER ‘DRAGON’
When Kelly Hoppen first set eyes on what was to become her new home, a former auction house in London, it was 10,000sq ft of empty space and rubble. For most, it would be a nightmare. For the interior designer, it was a dream.
“It was just magnificent,” she tells hello!. “I’d had someone looking for a couple of years to find a place like this and I couldn’t believe it. How often do you walk into a space in central London that’s like a blank piece of paper, where you can create something completely unique? “I called John immediately and said, ‘You’ve got to drop everything,’” she says of her partner of five years, retired businessman John Gardiner, with whom she shares her home.