This detached neoclassical villa from 1914/1915 appeared virtually untouched by time from the outside. The owners turned to Düsseldorf-based architects Khavari-Lahme Architektur & Raumkonzepte to reclaim the original spatial generosity within. The principal challenge: honoring the home's historical character while meeting the practical needs of a six-member family.

By removing post-war partitions, the architects restored the villa's original sightlines and reconnected interior spaces with the garden beyond—opening the home to contemporary living. The entrance's curved vault becomes a defining spatial axis. Reinterpreting rather than slavishly copying the original plan, the architects positioned a generously proportioned kitchen at the heart of the ground floor, anchoring an east-west axis between the street-facing library—now a music room—and a semicircular covered terrace colonnade. South-facing rooms include a living area with garden access and a dining room that flows seamlessly into the kitchen. The original historic kitchen has been reimagined as guest quarters, with its own entrance through the former servants' passage. With little of the original interior remaining, the designers took an interpretive approach: expansive herringbone oak parquet and terrazzo in the kitchen echo historical precedent while feeling entirely contemporary. Refined stucco moldings articulate the length of the living and dining zones. Glazed steel-frame doors—both the arched entry and kitchen passage—signal the shift to modern living. The new charcoal-grey wooden windows frame garden views with striking clarity, their muntin bars reinventing the home's classical vocabulary for a new era.

www.khavari-lahme.de

Photography Credits:

Annika Feuss
www.annikafeuss.com

(Published in CUBE Düsseldorf 01|24)