Lighting and furniture designer Lee Broom is posing for portraits on the “Beyoncé chair” in the atrium of his south London home. A feat of engineering in lightweight steel, its official name is the Hanging Hoop chair (price tag: £5,125).
A few years ago the pop diva hand-picked it for her Black is King visual album, where she swings from it sultrily (daughter Blue Ivy is captured on it too).
“She loved it so much, she asked if she could buy it. So we were like, ‘We’ll make you a new one, you don’t have to have the sample one from the showroom. But she was like, ‘No, I want this one.’ So it’s the Beyoncé chair now,” laughs Broom.
The star piece befits Broom’s quirky home. On an unassuming residential street in Kennington, the split-level apartment is housed in what is thought to be the capital’s oldest fire station.
There are enormous, half-moon windows and a full wall of metro tiles with a jib door in the kitchen. “I just love that it’s so central. When I go outside, I can hear Big Ben,” he says.
Broom has lived here for more than 20 years with his husband and business partner, Charles Rudgard.
They bought it when it was first redeveloped and the enormous studded beams which are so central to its charm had been boxed-in.
It has since undergone several refurbishments; the lofty welcome “atrium” — once separate rooms — plays host to abstract art, Broom’s bouclé White Street sofa and a large skylight, all which lend a hotel lobby feel.
“We use this space when we have friends over for drinks,” he explains.
Naturally, what lends the most glamorous slant to the industrial-adjacent spaces are the designer’s own lighting pieces.
In the living room is the majestic Aurora, which he likens to a futuristic Murano glass chandelier, while many of the shelves are illuminated with strip LEDs.
“I dislike mundane things like windowsills, so I like to incorporate architectural lighting,” he says.
Go big and go clutter-free
Scale, he believes, is where many homeowners go wrong. “I think people tend to go smaller than they should with their fixtures. For example, a ceiling is an opportunity to create a conversation piece.”
Case in point: above the crisp-white Corian kitchen worktop is the futuristic Chant chandelier formed of blown glass bricks which resemble ice cubes. Nothing else vies for attention because the worktops are completely barren.
“I hate ‘things’ and ‘bits and bobs’ collecting dust. I have this rule that if nothing’s out, then things won’t start to creep in, because once that bottle of olive oil comes out, then there’s going to be balsamic, so I am disciplined,” he laughs.
Broom launched his eponymous brand in 2007 after a stint as an interior designer, which followed a degree in fashion design from Central Saint Martins, itself preceded by a career as a child actor … with a fork in the road paved by the late, great Dame Vivienne Westwood.
It’s a remarkable tale. Broom, who started acting aged seven and was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was 17 when he won a fashion design competition judged by Westwood (he came up with a costume for Madonna).
When he requested an autograph, Westwood jotted down her phone number with an open invite to visit her studio.
Broom spent two days in her office, where he was party to meetings and watched her mock-up garments on her miniature tailor’s dummy. “It was unbelievably generous,” he says, looking back.
Impressing the designer with his portfolio, he returned for a 10-month internship and mucked-in for the fashion week of 1995 in Paris, where he dressed supermodels Kate, Linda and Naomi, and went to “amazing parties”.
Westwood discouraged him from attending fashion college. “She said, ‘You’ll be homogenised, just do your own thing.’ But I felt at the time that I needed that formal education, and I’m glad I did,” he says.
To support himself while studying at university, Broom made decorative objects and mirrors which he sold to a bar in Notting Hill and before he knew it he was overseeing the design of a bar in Moorgate with a friend.
For four years they worked together on hospitality projects before Broom segued into lighting and custom furniture.
He hit the zeitgeist in 2012 when he launched the Crystal Bulb, a hybrid of an oversize, industrial light bulb with a cut pattern inspired by whiskey glasses.
With a much more accessible price point (they currently retail for £175) demand was such that he had to outsource manufacture to the Czech Republic.
Last week at Salone Del Mobile in Milan, the prestigious Italian design fair, he unveiled a lighting collaboration with Fendi and another with heritage Spanish porcelain-maker Lladró.
It marks the first time he has designed lighting pieces for others. “It combines my fashion background with interiors and my lighting skills,” he says of the union with Fendi Casa.
The great home entertainer
Broom travels frequently, spending a lot of time in New York where he also has a penthouse-cum-showroom as a base.
So, on the increasingly rare weekends in London, he and Rudgard, the cook of the two, will stay in — in style.
An important part of a home is not just about being there by yourself or with your partner — playing from home is key. We’ve had amazing parties here
“We’ll eat dinner, have a few drinks downstairs — I can make a mean cocktail! — and then go down to the bar and play records, followed by a film.”
Said bar is a decadent, ruby-red windowless retreat next to a fully mirrored powder room. It’s a bonus space created by extracting all the rubble from what was essentially a void.
Often friends will get an invite. “An important part of a home is not just about being there by yourself or with your partner, or working from home — I think playing from home is key. We’ve had some amazing parties here over the years and it’s a great space for that.”
