A Private View: a multi-hyphenate Catalan couple transforms a 17th-century townhouse

Stepping through the door of Gallery BR on Tetbury’s Long Street is like stepping straight onto the pages of a minimalist design magazine. The stripped-back period building is drenched in white and accommodates an achingly cool collection of modern artworks and iconic furniture. 

“Our life is centred around our aesthetic, if it’s beautiful, it makes us happy,” explains Pep Boixader. Together with his wife, Cuca Riera, they manage the gallery, working with interior designers across the globe, locating rare pieces of furniture and artworks, and trading with dealers from LA to Tokyo. Across the street, their tapas restaurant, Lola & Co is inspired by their love of ‘sobremesa’ – the Spanish tradition of relaxing together at the table after a meal. The pair who relocated from Barcelona a decade ago, admit they, “Like to be busy.” 

Their home is a Grade II-listed Cotswold townhouse, once the town’s bakery, in the heart of Tetbury. Now, it reflects their design-led aesthetic, but the place was in a very different state when they moved in with their three sons almost a decade ago. 

“We had been looking at lots of houses but when we walked into this building Cuca said, ‘This is it,’” explains Pep. “We all looked at the place – which was filthy – and I turned to her and asked, ‘Are you sure?’And she said, ‘One hundred per cent, this is going to happen.’” 

“The feeling between Cuca and I is that we almost don’t have to talk – when she has a vision for something, like the restaurant or a piece of art, I trust her and I know it’s going to be amazing.”

Pep’s faith in his wife turned out to be, naturally, felicitous. They began to remove everything inside. “There was a fridge in the sitting room, plastic partitions, the carpets were thick and dirty, the toilets disgusting – it was awful,” says Pep. “We took it all away and returned the house to its original naked structure.” 

During the overhaul, they discovered two beautiful fireplaces that had been blocked up, original Bath stone walls and flagstones, and rare elm floorboards underneath the carpets in some of the rooms. They also found a hidden door to a cellar that had been covered up and inside an original stone staircase, which led to a beautifully arched, untouched cellar space. 

They began the next stage of their transformation in the dining room and kitchen, the heart of their home. “Our life is always around the table – whether it’s breakfast or supper, we love to sit here talking with friends and family,” says Cuca.

The dining room’s double-vaulted ceiling stretches to an impressive height and the addition of skylights allows light to pour in, while the stone walls are blanched with a pure limewash white, adding a sparse beauty that feels decidedly Mediterranean.

Light is more like a lifestyle choice for Pep and Cuca, whose Spanish heritage is more suited to bright sunlight and whitewashed haciendas, hence pockets of natural light are found and encouraged liberally across their home. 

The kitchen is set in contrast to the rest of the house, painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Downpipe’ – a dramatic lead grey – which creates a cosy, enveloping atmosphere, in a similar style to their restaurant. They installed an Aga and polished up the original flagstones, built open shelving, added oak counter tops and chose a very English Arts and Crafts–inspired fabric from Sanderson to cover the lower cupboards. “We wanted more of an English style in here, so we designed a mini Lola & Co, that was dark and cosy,” says Cuca.

In the sitting room, the minimalist white extends to the ceiling beams, allowing the large stone fireplace to take centre stage, and providing the perfect frame for their rotating selection of art. They removed the carpet and left the concrete base before painting it a gloss-white to add to the luminosity of the space. 

Across the house, they restored every window, including the 17th-century stone lintels. They stripped back the original doors and beams and revealed some of the stone walls. To keep warm in the long English winters, they added extra radiators, insulation and a new boiler, while also updating the electrics and tidying up the roof tiles. Downstairs in the cellar, they damp-proofed, added more heating and created a TV snug to retreat to.

The house neatly divides into two with a pair of staircases running on either side of the vaulted dining room, providing a natural parting for their family. Above the kitchen, a large self-contained double bedroom with an ensuite became the perfect den for their eldest son.  

In the other half of the house, two more double bedrooms on the third floor and a shared bathroom suit their other two sons, while the entire top floor is dedicated to the master bedroom. Here, Pep and Cuca included a large ensuite wet room and plenty of inbuilt storage. They replaced the rotting floorboards with large oak planks, exposed the beams and swathed the room in a soothing pale limewash to display the bones of the building and notable pieces of art. “We have a theory that less is more, like a white canvas and a piece of art,” says Pep. 

Now they’re looking to move somewhere locally, they reflect fondly on the journey they’ve crafted for themselves but also the history of their home. “It all started with the chimney,” explains Cuca. “We imagined the conversations it had seen, the life that had passed through. We built around it, always coming back to it; it’s the soul of the house. As we move on, we will hold on to that same feeling, and let it shape the next project.”

Further reading

Find out more about Gallery BR and Lola & Co.