Retro renovation of parents’ Hong Kong home by architect and his interior designer wife creates unexpected pairings – think Papa Smurf and antique furniture
- A kitchen fit for a Wong Kar-wai film, Chinese rosewood furniture, a Jeff Koons balloon dog – couple’s 2,700 sq ft Hong Kong apartment is a study in contrasts
- Architect and artist William Lim and his interior designer wife, Lavina, opted to keep many of the items his parents accumulated there, while adding their touch
There are two flats on the floor where William and Lavina Lim live in Mid-Levels on Hong Kong Island. The entrance to one is sleek, minimalist; surely it heralds an architect’s residence. The entrance to the other has a decades-old curlicued grille and one of those floral-carved doors that you don’t see so often in Hong Kong these days. The visitor hesitates.
“Exactly! People come out of the lift and they wonder which is our apartment,” grins William Lim, architect, art collector and, now, artist. “And they go to the other side […] They’re very surprised when they come in. They normally see my work as more contemporary and clean-lined.”
He’s standing in a lively room of unexpected pairings: rosewood furniture, modern Chinese paintings, Thai Buddhist statues, Ettore Sottsass sculptures. In a glass cabinet, a green Jeff Koons balloon dog gleams perkily alongside a blue limited-edition Papa Smurf.
But what Lim has collected in this 2,700 sq ft, four-bedroom flat isn’t only things: it’s memories. He’s been living here, on and off, for half a century, since his parents moved in when the block was completed, in 1972, and he was a 15-year-old at La Salle College who loved art.
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It wasn’t meant to be like that. When he went to Cornell University, in the United States, to study architecture, he met fellow student Lavina, they married, settled in Boston and had their first son, Kevin.
In 1987, they returned to Hong Kong and, temporarily, moved in with William’s parents. Their son Vincent was born; and as time passed the family grew up, grew older, together. The boys married and moved out. William’s father died in 2017, his mother in 2020.
I feel like we still have the happy memories but now it’s also part of us
He says the question he had to ask himself then – as both a son and an architect – was: how do you renew a home when someone’s passed away?
“We did think, ‘Why don’t we have something to do with our living style now?’ I actually did a brand-new design. We thought we’d get rid of the bar, we don’t need it […] Then we started to think about some of the furniture.”
He points to the classic Chinese rosewood dining table, purchased long ago by his parents. “My kids liked to climb under this table when they played hide and seek and now our grandchildren are doing the same thing.”
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It stands on a Tai Ping carpet his mother had made; it had become so frayed, he had to find someone to restore it. “But it has so much memory we don’t want to replace it.”
For the same reason, the drinks bar has stayed. It takes up space in the sitting room. “But my father put it here and it has good memories and we thought we’d just repaint it.”
Painting was at the heart of their gentle renovation. There was no brutal ripping out and very little dumping. Rosewood cabinets were slicked over; walls took on a softer hue; a glass panel was put in the kitchen door. Contemporary art flourished.
The kitchen itself remains so wonderfully retro it could feature in a Wong Kar-wai film. It still has its original wall tiles and those on the floor, damaged by the years, have been judiciously replaced.
“The colours now are very muted, a light-greyish blue, and we enjoy that,” says Lavina.
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She used to work as an interior designer for an investment bank, setting up new offices, advising contractors and generally being the project manager, so she’s good at accommodating strong views. With two sons who are also Cornell-trained architects, there was no shortage of professional interest in, and about, the family home.
William is one of nine children, three of whom live in Hong Kong, so he was additionally aware of conserving his family’s heritage. But ultimately, it came down to husband-and-wife decisions and those, says Lavina, were 50-50 mutual.
Friends thought the couple should move into his parents’ bedroom but the idea didn’t sit comfortably with them and it is now William’s studio.
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The headboard is still there although the bed has been replaced by a new daybed/sofa. A photograph of William’s parents hangs above it amid a tight cluster of family photographs, which used to be dispersed around the flat.
A cabinet stands in a corner, with his mother’s photograph and flowers on top, “almost like a shrine” as her son agrees.
That cabinet remains in its original state, exactly as it was when his mother bought it. But the space is filled with William’s canvases.
At about the time his parents moved into the flat, William was enjoying art classes at school. Some of those teenage works, including one consisting entirely of the words Home Sweet Home, were in his recent show at H Queen’s in Central. A few years later, he’d moved on to architecture.
His mother’s death coincided with Covid-19 and, in the personal and professional pause that followed, he picked up a paintbrush again. “At the beginning it was almost like therapy,” he says.
“A lot of people say the work is very warm, very happy and maybe it’s a result of painting in this room. She always loved colour; maybe that’s why there’s so much colour in my paintings. I do feel the memory and the connection.”
For her part, when Lavina is asked how her sense of the flat has changed since the renovation, she thinks for a moment. “I feel like we still have the happy memories but now it’s also part of us,” she replies. “We have done it with our own feelings.”
Studio
William Lim at work in what used to be his parents’ bedroom. Some of the arched paintings are based on Tai Kwun, some on La Salle College (now demolished). The sideboard glimpsed behind the Lim paintings is from Nature Evolution (natureevolution.com.hk).
The painting on the wall is Meditation No. 2, a 1975 work by Wucius Wong bought at Sotheby’s in London (sothebys.com). Next to it is a jade ornament that belonged to William’s mother.
Living room detail
The rosewood cabinet was bought by William’s parents and repainted during the renovation. The Japanese doll was his mother’s. William picked up the Buddhist statues in Thailand and Malaysia.
Above them hangs Liu Kuo Sung’s work Primeval State (A), from Hanart TZ Gallery (hanart.com). The green and blue pair of Split Vases were made by Lim + Lu.
Bar
The drinks bar survived the renovation. The lamp was bought by William’s mother on a cruise. The wall light is by Openuu (openuu.com), the design firm founded by Kevin Lim – William and Lavina’s eldest son – and his wife, Caroline Chou.
The painting of King Yin Lei, the green-roofed 1930s mansion nearby, was done by Kevin at school. The black stool came from Thailand.
Kitchen
The kitchen wall tiles date back to the early 1970s. The green floor tiles are also original; the patterned floor tiles are decade-old replacements.
The overhead Prandina Notte S3 light came from Eurolux (56 Morrison Hill Road, Wan Chai, tel: 2572 6118). The white cabinet was designed by William and made by a local contractor. The rest of the furniture belonged to his parents.
Dining room
The rosewood table and chairs were bought by William’s parents, as was the carpet, from Tai Ping (taipingcarpets.com). The painting on the wall behind is Lam Tung-pang’s Wandering Around (2008), purchased from the artist (lamtungpang.com).
Dining room detail
William kept his parents’ rosewood cabinet and chairs. The modern sideboard is from Nature Evolution.
Sitting room
The sofas, lamps and centre coffee table were bought by William’s parents; the rug was purchased by William and Lavina on a trip to Morocco; and the chandelier came from a Happy Valley shop years ago.
The painting on the main wall, Spring in Mount Huang (2012), by Hung Hoi, was bought at Christie’s (christies.com); to the right is William’s flower painting Evening WL 22.
The fluted vase, artist unknown, was bought at a pop-up shop on Wellington Street. The rosewood cabinets on either side of the sofa were repainted with Nippon Aquatec Wood Brushing Finish Paint.
In front of the Tang horse is Remembering White, a sculpture by Yuta Nishiura from Touch Gallery (touchgalleryhk.com).
Guest bedroom
The sofa below the window and the custom-made bed are so old their provenance has been forgotten. The chair is by Philippe Starck for Kartell (kartell.com) and the coffee table is from Colourliving (colourliving.com). The ceiling light was designed by Lim + Lu.
On the wall is a painting by Vincent, for William’s 60th birthday, in 2017. On the top right, the black-and-white artwork is by Swedish artist Joakim Ojanen, bought from Aishonanzuka (aishonanzuka.com). Just visible above the desk is Mountain Trail (1976), by Luis Chan Fook-sin, bought from China Guardian Hong Kong (cguardian.com.hk).
The recessed bookshelves were installed by William and Lavina 20 years ago. The blinds are from Sun Sun Interiors (24 Fleming Road, Wan Chai, tel: 2511 2008).
Tried + tested
The bathroom taps were designed by William Lim, founder and managing director of CL3 Architects (cl3.com), as an artistic response to the general belief that taps should always be symmetrical.
Styling: Flavia Markovits
