The interior designer wife of the Harry Potter “super-producer” has landed London’s most prestigious A-list decoration job — doing up the Beckhams’s new Holland Park mansion.
Rose Uniacke, who is married to multi-millionaire David Heyman, has taken over the £5 million refurbishment of the couple’s five-storey west London villa.
The job is the highest profile commission yet for one of London’s best connected interior designers, whose style has been described as “classic English cosiness meets minimalist rigour”.
Ms Uniacke takes over from Dragons’ Den panellist Kelly Hoppen, who was hired to work on the earlier “heavy lifting” phase of the overhaul.
David and Victoria Beckham paid £31.5 million for their seven-bedroom London base — dubbed Beckingham Palace II — last September.
They have been living with their four children in rented accommodation in Kensington while work on their Grade II-listed home, a former “boarding house for single ladies”, is carried out.
Pimlico-based Ms Uniacke, the daughter of antiques dealer Hilary Batstone, is best known for her work on the refurbishment of the Gloucester Place headquarters of fragrance label Jo Malone.
Describing her approach, the 50-year-old designer has said: “I don’t like furnishing just for the sake of it. I like referencing the context.”
It is thought she will likely give the home a more traditional English look than the international “East meets West” style of Ms Hoppen.
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Ms Uniacke was previously married to Old Etonian adventurer and reformed heroin addict Robie Uniacke, who is now the partner of former Bond actress Rosamund Pike. In 2007 she married Heyman, who secured the film rights to JK Rowling’s wizarding series in 1999 and is now said to be worth more than £70 million. He is currently working on a film version of the Paddington Bear stories starring Hugh Bonneville and Nicole Kidman.
The couple spent three years on a lavish refit of their own £11 million Victorian home in Pimlico — described as “the house that Harry Potter built.”
Planning documents lodged with Kensington and Chelsea council say that the alterations to the Beckhams’s home will “raise the property to a higher standard overall, primarily by refreshing the interior design and decoration, and also updating outdated or substandard items”. Celebrity interiors guru Ms Hoppen — described as the Queen of Taupe — previously designed the interiors of the Beckhams’s six-bedroom Los Angeles home. But she is stepping aside for the final “look” in London to be applied by her rival.
A source close to the Beckhams said: “Kelly Hoppen was very kindly helping with the initial phase of the house renovation. Rose Uniacke has been engaged to oversee the final stage.”
A spokeswoman for Ms Hoppen said: “As David and Victoria’s close friend Kelly Hoppen was brought in to help with the planning and layout phase and due to the traditional style of the project she also advised on a designer to do the interiors.”
Ms Uniacke was not available for comment.
