Dressing up a home for when royalty comes calling

How does one make a home presentable for royalty? Deck the halls in tinsel? Too Christmas-y. Install plush drapes heavy with gold velvet appliqués at every available window space? Unless you live in a manor – or mausoleum – it’s bound to make any reasonable urban living space look like a coffin. Fill wall space with various versions of your family’s coat of arms? It’ll make you look like a pretentious wannabe, particularly after your guest realizes you purchased your family heirlooms from a flea market.

Renowned decorator Ito Kish, the man responsible for the chic furniture and home accessories that adorn the walls of his namesake store in Greenbelt, thinks the answer is simple enough: a little resourcefulness and a lot of paint can go a long way. Tasked with revamping the townhouses at the Manila Polo Club, the exclusive club in the heart of Makati – where you can find more dapper gentlemen talking business over a game of tennis or Lilly Pulitzer-garbed ladies who lunch in this small space than in the whole Philippines – Ito set about pulling together themes to reference for the interiors.

"A lot of important people have stayed here," Ito says of the townhouses. "Men of state who come here to meet with members of government. Even a member of the foreign royal family stayed here on a visit to the Philippines." But we can’t say which member from which family because the club likes to maintain the privacy of its guests.

The townhouses owned by the Manila Polo Club are located at a small adjacent gated area on McKinley Road, just a few meters down from the club itself. A townhouse with a good view overlooks the club’s vibrant green fields – with maybe a thoroughbred or two cantering by, their jodhpur-clad owners idly walking them.

The Polo Club prides itself on providing its members with the most luxe of amenities and the townhouses are just one of them. Open to members or friends thereof, they serve as a halfway home for families who are perhaps in the middle of a home renovation or for guests of members who want the amenities of a home (a townhouse comes with a kitchen, living area and dining room) and the comforts of a hotel (a service staff member comes in every day to maintain the premises), the townhouse affords them the ideal combination of luxury and privacy.

But the décor of the townhouses had begun to take on an outdated look with their chunky wrought-iron furnishings and spartan, all-white interiors. They are steeped in the minimalist atmosphere popular in the late ‘80s through the ‘90s, and so Ito decided to bring in some warmth and color and add softer yet still modern elements to the apartments to update the look without making it too radical. Taking into account that even members of royalty from different parts of the world enjoy basking in the native attributes of each country they visit, he made sure that furnishings of distinctive Asian origin decorated each room.

"The theme I visited time and again was cross-culture," explains Ito. "The guests who stay here come from different parts of the world and I wanted to incorporate that into the décor, while keeping the space clean and simple. So maintenance is easy, but the entire effect is still dramatic." Avoiding the hotel tradition of monochromatic wall and light fittings juxtaposed against furnishings in the same dull color, he mixes in certain elements from different locales, like a Venetian photograph placed next to a lamp made in Cebu. None of it appears run-of-the-mill. There’s nothing mechanistic in Ito’s decorating methods. "It welcomes all guests from different traditions," he says of the technique. "The design is simple yet it has a personal touch. It gives you the feeling that you’re back home."

Beginning with the living room, a compact space with a vaulted ceiling, Ito paints layers of wheat and light moss in wide stripes to bring the eyes up, adding depth to the space. In one corner, a Filipino butaka chair anchors the space with its strong architectural lines and ethnic style. A coffee table in a dark rattan weave captures the essence of Sante Fe, a New Mexico spot famous for its Latin flavor. Ito appropriates imagery from a few other continents – a trick he uses for all the rooms in the house to tie everything together – like a Chinese ornament he sets next to a rustic vase filled with flora of Mexican origin. Large hanging lamps from Japan add a dramatic touch.

The dining room, which leads out into a petite patio, is a simple affair. Awash in a light, refreshing green, it’s an airy and tranquil space. "I wanted to expand the feeling of green," says Ito, "from the polo field into the home." He makes a play again of crossing cultures, framing a black-and-white scene from Central Park in New York against a heavy chandelier with an antique-finish mirror and black metal trim reminiscent of light fixtures at castles in Scotland.

Upstairs, a sumptuous contemporary master bedroom awaits guests. Plum brown walls and heavy drapes create a feeling of intimacy. Instead of a headboard, Ito makes clever use of color to demarcate the space, painting a light green square over the bed’s side. It draws the eye and gives the appearance of a larger space. An art deco wall ornament made of glass, which is a Philippine reproduction of a vintage piece, makes an elegant but not over-the-top statement. Black-and-white photographs of Venice, all of which are by Rafael Laurel, are a thoughtful addition to a desk area, so guests can write thank-you notes or muse over their journals while facing the splendor of the Italian seaport.

A few steps take guests to the master bath, a marvel in efficiency, with its chic chocolate walls and upscale bath fixtures. A rain showerhead, a steel disk that hangs vertically from the ceiling to recreate the feeling of being in a rain shower, makes the feeling of luxury all the more authentic.

The guest bedroom, which isn’t too shabby with twin beds and its own bathroom, is painted a light green. A nightstand, made in the tradition of modern furnishings, is juxtaposed against a Scandinavian-inspired lamp.

There is a feeling of almost inspired decadence all throughout the townhouse – even though, according to Ito, the budget for the revamp wasn’t quite the stuff of legend. He creates a charming contemporary space through the juxtaposition of interesting elements, like ornaments from different continents, and a clever application of paint. If only all of us had a little Ito Kish inside of us, ready to transform the dreariest of places into a home fit for a queen – or her niece – our homes would be a better, and more importantly, much chicer place.

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For more information on Ito Kish and his designs, visit www.gallanodesigns.com.