With its pure white interiors, clean-lined walls, and full height windows, though, the house is a work of art in itself. Pawson, who would go on to design homes for Karl Lagerfeld and Calvin Klein, decorated Hays Mews with items that are now architectural classics. From the iconic handle-free door, to the marble Pawson Saatchi basins in the bathroom and the kitchen’s built-in stainless steel central island, the Mayfair house is an aesthete’s dream, regardless of what you choose to hang on its mirrored walls.
The collaboration between Saatchi and Pawson was massively productive, but the pair fell out towards the end of the house’s construction, she revealed in a 2017 Sunday Times interview. Pawson wanted black ebony floors, but Saatchi, who many consider to have been the discerning eye behind her husband’s famous Saatchi collection, was adamant: ‘John,’ she told the legendary architect, ‘I am not going to ask my friends to take off their beautiful Manolo Blahnik heels and leave them at the door.’
When Robert Mapplethorpe captured that piercing gaze in a now iconic portrait, an enraptured fan became obsessed with Saatchi. She was forced to leave behind the house she had so discerningly crafted. ‘I know the power a piece of work can have,’ she told The Sunday Times, reflecting on the ordeal, which culminated in a brick thrown through her window at 4am. The unique space was not to go to waste, however. Art patron Ralph I Goldenberg moved to Hays Mews from Chicago in 2000, bringing with him some of the most titanic works in contemporary art, from Jackson Pollock to Andy Warhol.
