Qatar First Bank (QFB) and Alchemi Group have brought style and glamour back to the heart of London in their Leinster Square development, which offer properties starting at £3.95mn.

Gulf Times had a glimpse of high end living during a private tour of the recently completed Leinster Square development in West London in which QFB has a 40.5% stake.

Over the last four years, QFB has worked with the development manager, London-based Alchemi Group, to rebuild and restore the building to its former Victorian glory.

The 7-12 Leinster Square development consists of five luxury town homes over basement, lower ground, ground and first floor levels. The houses boast 3.5m floor-to-ceiling heights throughout the first floor, restored windows with French shutters and private terraces. Six lateral apartments are situated on upper levels overlooking the also newly redone garden square to provide 27,500sft of saleable space.

The development benefits from southerly views and access to a private garden square, very rare in central London.

Gulf Times was shown around one of the show home town houses which has also been decorated by Alchemi co-founder and creative director Laura Marino under her newly launched interior design company, Studio L, London.

Italian marbles, German kitchen fittings and appliances and bathroom fittings and furnishings by quintessentially English company Samuel Heath and internationally renowned Devon & Devon have been used for the project.

Marino has worked closely throughout with English Heritage which ensures that restoration work on listed buildings is done in a way to preserve their unique character.

For the magnificent oak floors this meant keeping the exact layout of the original floorboards which entailed removing and marking each and every board in order to do the restoration and produce the exceptional quality seen today.

This attention to detail is also evident in the fabulous staircase with restored balustrade and ironmongery and the exquisite corniches, which makes the property very special.

“I have tried to honour the Victorian era through traditional wood panelling and all the joinery with thicker wood doors and the ironmongery being unlacquered brass instead of nickel or chrome and the parquet flooring,” said Marino.

The sitting room is elegant, warm and welcoming. Marino has a very good eye for choosing furniture, fabrics and colour that seamlessly combine the modern with the traditional.

The dining room with wallpaper by Zoffany is spectacular and the kitchen with its white Macaubus work surfaces is absolutely top of the line.

The kitchen and dining room both benefit from a view out onto an innovative and charming two-storey light-well ‘garden’ with lattice covered walls and abundant greenery, designed by Ginko Gardens who also did The Ivy Chelsea Garden.

Marino has taken a practical approach in wiring both the dining and sitting rooms in such a way that that the family can decide how they want to utilise the spaces. They may, for example, prefer to the use the dining room as the family sitting room and the sitting room as a grand dining room.

The huge amount of cupboard and storage space and the practical and well-designed utility room are among the other attractions.

In the townhouse the absolute ‘wow’ factor space is the master bedroom on the first floor with its sweeping view over the leafy Leinster Square garden.

Gulf Times was also shown around a lateral 4th floor apartment, another show home, which had a stunning living room with views over the garden and a magnificent kitchen.

The kitchens throughout the development, all bathed in natural light, have been shortlisted for best residential kitchen of a value over £50,000 by Design et al for The International Design and Architecture Awards. To date 75% of the apartments have been sold and the town homes have just been launched to market.