Covent Garden's luxury new flats: high-end design and rich materials at the heart of new boutique London scheme

For many people, Covent Garden is the real heart of London. Lively, quirky, individual — and without the rough edges of Soho — opera and theatre make it heaven for culture vultures, while the world-famous Piazza’s showmanship attracts over 45 million visitors a year.

When created by renowned architect Inigo Jones in 1630, the Piazza was London’s first public square.

The design of the open-air cobbled space and the Italianate arcade alongside it was fresh to the capital and greatly influenced town planning, becoming a template for the building of new estates as the city grew.

The land had been given to the Earls of Bedford by Henry VIII, who had seized it from the Church.

Fine houses were built to attract wealthy tenants, and before long there was a network of prestigious new streets surrounding the Piazza.

A later wave of Victorian development brought more modest dwellings and warehouses around the fringes of the fast-expanding market area — as at Parker Street, where a former tenement building, later a hostel, is being redeveloped into Covent Garden’s biggest private residential project for decades.

Called Chapter House, the scheme of 40 apartments in the Seven Dials conservation area retains the handsome 19th-century red-brick façade and adds elegant contemporary design that draws on the district’s theatrical history.

Interiors have padded-effect walls, chain mail curtains, velvet and wool carpets and jewel-toned fabrics.

Whereas recent high-end homes in Covent Garden have introduced traditional Mayfair-style luxury, this project has more in common with the cutting-edge design of neighbouring Clerkenwell.

Rich materials are overlaid with modern factory finishes such as bronze and copper, and of course, there is a home automation system with motorised blinds and dimming controls.

Londonewcastle, the developer, has carved a niche for such design-led homes.

“We’re in the lifestyle business as much as property development,” says founder Robert Soning. “Most of our buyers work in fashion, film, theatre, music, web design or the City and are prepared to pay a little extra for high-quality, highly individual design because their home is an important expression of who they are.”

A new line of penthouses with terrace spaces designed by award-winning landscaper Andy Sturgeon crowns the top of the Chapter House building.

Tucked away in a backstreet, the scheme’s entrance foyer sets the tone, and even the lift lobbies follow in true style.

Prices start at £995,000. Call 020 7534 1888 or CBRE Residential on 020 7240 2255.