, is inspired by the primary colours and graphics as seen in August on the flagstaff on the cliffs of Trearddur Bay. The '70s Room' in vivid blue caused a little consternation: when Anna presented velvet fabric options to Philippa and Charles, the irony of 1970s design was lost on them. 'It was an absolute no to velvet on principle,' recalls Amelia. Any frugal requests to cut around and make do with old curtains were justified by not having to pay to make new ones, as Anna's mother kindly stepped in to help. 'There was a bit of a good spirit. We didn't have to pay the kind of prices we usually pay in London, so we invited her to come and stay in the house, and it became a nice exchange point in decorating it,' says Amelia.){kind=link}
When Amelia Hunter took on the task of rejuvenating her treasured family hideaway, she had no idea of the challenges that lay ahead
Playing hide and seek in the sand dunes; enjoying a hot soak after a day of sailing; collapsing on the sofa in the veranda with a cup of tea and a newspaper… the architect and interior designer Amelia Hunter has many fond memories of Greystones, the holiday home of her late paternal grandparents in Anglesey.
Located on the beachfront at Trearddur Bay, which faces the Irish Sea, the Edwardian house is a place steeped in generational nostalgia, which made the task of overseeing its renovation in 2020 her hardest project to date. “The nature of what we do at Space A [the design practice she co-founded with business partner Anna Drakes] is so personal that I get through it by being at arm’s length. However, for this project, I wanted to represent my family and give them something that’s going to last, and that everyone was going to love,” she says.
The fact that there were four clients – Amelia’s father, Charles, her uncle Jim, and aunts Philippa and Kate, who inherited the house from their parents in the 1990s – made the task even more complex. While the idea of a holiday home anchoring a family to a shared place sounds idyllic, it is not without its own unique set of challenges. Aside from the odd patch-up job, Greystones had not undergone any major maintenance since Amelia’s grandparents bought it in 1960. It was originally a large, six-bedroom house, but was divided in half and sold to family friends in the 1970s.
“My mother complained that we never had an excuse to say to people that they couldn’t come and stay because we didn’t have enough room!” laughs Charles, who grew up in the Wirral and lives in Dorset, where Amelia and her brother Henry were raised. When he would drive up for the holidays, he remembers relishing the silence: “It’s such a change of environment. All you can hear is the sea on the beach.”