Unique home inspired by the property's heritage as an important local draper

Maxwell House is an award-winning, architecturally designed property, 7 mins’ walk from Hammersmith centre. This four-storey Victorian townhouse is a truly unique home, its design inspired by its history as a draper in the early 20th Century.

Situated close to the infamous textile haven that is Goldhawk Road, Maxwell has its own rich history as a family draper business. It was owned by the Roberts family for more than 60 years from the late 1800s, who likely used the downstairs as a textile and fabric-making shop, while residing upstairs.

At least 4 generations of the Roberts family lived in the house, but they eventually sold it on in the 50s. It was then that its history began to be eroded, as developers covered up the iconic 'Maxwell' sign on the front and turned the five-storey building into flats. For several decades, the building remained as flats, gradually becoming in need of repair... and few people remembering or even aware of its by-then distant textile past.

The property was sold in the early 2010s to a young couple, who decided to turn the sad looking flats back into a single dwelling. They appointed East London architects, Patrick Lewis, to help them tackle the challenge. When examining the building, Patrick Lewis and team uncovered a collection of trinkets, which led them to rediscover the Roberts family and the old textile history of the building. The young couple were amazed, and the architects then got to work on the new brief - to create a stunning and unusual house that paid homage to the property's rich history.

The house was completely gutted, with even the floors being ripped out. And this experimental textile house became one of the architect's "most inventive pieces of work, a townhouse that interweaves architecture and textile installations to celebrate the story of a family of drapers". The house was designed to resemble a sewing machine, with a mezzanine bedroom at the top representing the little box in the machine, and the fabrics that run through it representing the thread.

The fabrics were designed by two up-and-coming artists, Anna Glover www.annaglover.co.uk and Deepa Panchamia www.deepapanchamia.com.

The house was a finalist in the Architects’ Journal (AJ) Retrofit Awards as among “the best work and the brightest thinking” in Britain, and also featured on TV series, George Clarke’s Amazing Renovations.

In 2022, another young couple purchased the house and set out to take it to the next level. Keeping the interiors very much as the previous owners, they concentrated on the exterior - adding a stunning roof terrace, a beautiful Iroko decked garden and a revamped front. They also added a bespoke bar so that they could raise a toast every day to this architectural masterpiece!