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"During a trip to Paris in 2008, San Francisco\u2013based decorator Steven Volpe came across a rather special set of pillows. They had been made for Yves Saint Laurent and were intended for the fashion legend&amp;#039;s ch\u00E2teau in Normandy. &amp;quot;He died before they got there, and they were sitting in an antiques store,&amp;quot; says Volpe. &amp;quot;I got to them first.&amp;quot; He decided to integrate them into a house in London, where they&amp;#039;re now placed on a Martin Szekely daybed coincidentally named K.L. for Saint Laurent&amp;#039;s one-time friend and longtime rival Karl Lagerfeld. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s probably the closest juxtaposition between Karl and Yves since their youth!&amp;quot; quips Volpe.  The house in question is in Knightsbridge. Dating from the 1880s, it has seven floors and five bedrooms and looks out onto leafy gardens. For its owner, Bita Daryabari, the home is quintessentially British. &amp;quot;Every time I watched movies set in London when I was younger, it seemed there were little houses that went all the way up,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I fell in love with the stairs and all the little rooms. It&amp;#039;s just very charming.&amp;quot;   The London home is not the first collaboration between Volpe and Daryabari, who was born in Iran and moved to the U.S. in her teens. The pair met in 2004 for a 17,000-square-foot residence in Atherton, California, and became fast friends. &amp;quot;Steven is a true artist and is very innovative,&amp;quot; she raves. &amp;quot;Every time you do a project with him, he surprises you.&amp;quot; This time her assignment was for an informal &amp;quot;family home&amp;quot;\u2014Daryabari is married to Reza Malek, an endovascular surgeon, and has three children. &amp;quot;She wanted to be able to use all the rooms,&amp;quot; Volpe says. She also requested a Picasso. &amp;quot;I have one in San Francisco,&amp;quot; she explains, &amp;quot;and I wanted one in London, too!&amp;quot;  Still, before the designer could go searching for Cubist canvases, there was structural work to be done. The place had barely been touched since the 1960s, and previous owners had installed a &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; kitchen and an elevator. The latter, Volpe admits, is a necessity in such a multistoried house. Still, he himself has never been in it. &amp;quot;I always climb the stairs,&amp;quot; he insists. The building process was no simple affair. Because the house is a landmark, every modification had to be approved by an architectural review committee. When workmen removed wallpaper and discovered a concealed original door, for instance, Volpe had to ask permission to dispose of it. Another quirky discovery was a safe in the basement. &amp;quot;It was like out of a bank,&amp;quot; he recalls. &amp;quot;You could actually walk into it.&amp;quot; Today, it&amp;#039;s used to store silver and china.  Once the bones of the house were in order, Volpe could tackle the decor. His goal was to create an urbane look with a few unexpected touches. In the second-floor drawing room, for example, he juxtaposed a lemon-colored Pierre Paulin daybed with a George III mahogany cabinet. In the first-floor dining room, 19th-century Scottish chairs were placed around Szekely&amp;#039;s lacquered-steel Tore table. Volpe also acquired a pair of Szekely&amp;#039;s Black Sun mirrors made from silicon carbide. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s one of the hardest, most reflective materials on the planet\u2014NASA uses it for telescopes,&amp;quot; he explains. &amp;quot;The mirrors are very, very complicated to make. It&amp;#039;s a coup that we got them.&amp;quot; Other pieces of note include a pair of bronze chairs that once belonged to the late French architect Ibu Poil\u00E2ne and several designs by Mattia Bonetti, such as his whimsical Chewing Gum side table. One of Volpe&amp;#039;s fortes is an eye for intriguing lighting, and this project was no exception. Early-20th-century Austrian glass pendants illuminate the entry, a FontanaArte light fixture hangs above the dining table, and Maria Pergay sconces add an elegant, artistic touch to the drawing room. He&amp;#039;s also a master of color, pairing luscious, unexpected hues to grand effect, such as using copper with yellow and camel with aquamarine. Just as much attention to detail was paid underfoot. Reclaimed 18th-century limestone paves most of the ground floor because, Volpe says, &amp;quot;I wanted something that felt very substantial when you walk in the door.&amp;quot; In the dining room, he used distressed oak planks, while graphic carpets enliven the rest of the house. Their largely geometric motifs are, he says, &amp;quot;a nod to David Hicks.&amp;quot; The slightly Islamic pattern of the floor tiles in the master bathroom, meanwhile, is meant to evoke Daryabari&amp;#039;s Middle Eastern roots.  What reminds her most of her native country, however, is a large second-floor terrace. Her childhood home had a similar outdoor space, and when she steps outside, she is often transported back to Tehran. &amp;quot;I see all these little houses next to each other, and people coming and going,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It has the same energy and atmosphere of my backyard in Iran.&amp;quot; The one notable difference? The climate. Daryabari points out that the apples in the London garden never get very big. &amp;quot;They keep falling off the trees because of the weather!&amp;quot; Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Revived Townhouse in London.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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