Fittingly, it started with a lamp. It was 2000, and Philip Vergeylen had just moved to London, where he wandered into Paolo Moschino’s antique shop. He fell for the lamp, but not its price. Still, he couldn’t get it out of his head. He returned twice; on his third visit, he bought it. When Moschino saw Vergeylen struggling to carry the lamp out the door, he offered to deliver it that evening. It was a Tuesday. They had drinks. Thursday, they had dinner. They spent the weekend together, and that was that: More than two decades later, the two are partners in design and in life, splitting their time between homes in London and Sussex, where guests are always welcome. (Their new book, An Entertaining Life: Designing Town and Country (Vendome), is a celebration of their devotion to hospitality.)

Here, they walk us through the evolution of the London residence they’ve shared since 2003. “It’s always the same flat, but the mood has changed as life has changed,” Moschino says.

Reception Room

2003: That year, we left our Chelsea maisonette for a much bigger apartment in Westminster. We knocked down a few walls to create a layout better suited to entertaining. Now, instead of five bedrooms there are two, with ample space for two large reception rooms and a dining room. This is one of the reception rooms at the front of the apartment. We began with white; very simple, not busy. But we kept amassing more things—we are both shopaholics!

2012: After doing the room in white, we wanted a different mood, something glamorous. Philip had the idea to re-create a Parisian apartment from the 1970s, with lots of brass and chocolate brown grasscloth walls. When we want to try something we’re not entirely sure of, we do it at home instead of with our clients.

2023: As you can see, the most recent incarnation is a return to the first—bright but cozy. White works well with our collection of works by Jean Cocteau. Philip used watercolors to design the leopard rug, which he had custom-made and then shaved to make it look aged—he wanted something muted, not shiny. His mother thought he was crazy! “You’re going to look like a dictator!” she said.

Dining Room

2003: When we moved in, the dining room had terrible proportions, and only one window. We had to move doors and create another fake door and a fake window—a whole load of things to trick the eye and make it perfectly symmetrical. It was inspired by a French dining room—pale green, very light, but quite formal.

2009: It stayed like that for quite a while. Same color, same 19th-century Bessarabian rug. Whether we’re alone or have guests over, we like simple food well done. It doesn’t need to be caviar all the time!

2023: Eventually, we realized, “What’s the point of a light dining room?” We always give dinner parties, never lunches, so wanted a dark, glowing room where candles would reflect in the lacquered walls. We replaced the 18th-century Italian chandelier with another, bigger one that was to scale.

Primary Bedroom

2003: In the beginning, Paolo wanted everything white. It’s very pleasant to sleep in a white bedroom. When we first chose this place, we were drawn to the high ceilings, and how they make it feel like a Parisian apartment, not a London flat.

2012: After a while, we got bored with white, and decided to redo the bedroom around a 17th-century Flemish tapestry we’d acquired. We took the blue and mustard from the tapestry for the color scheme. And when we got bored with that, we retired the tapestry to our warehouse.

2023: Once again, we’ve come back to white—though now with touches of neutral tans to add softness, and leather trim on the linen canopy. It’s clean, bright, simple, and masculine. This is as minimal as we get! The focal point is an oil painting of a male nude that we bought from the Rudolf Nureyev sale at Christie’s.

THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 9 OF FREDERIC. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!