Step inside the St Albans home of Caroline, an upholsterer, and her husband Marcus Hoggarth, the president and chief creative officer of Native Design, and their appetite for modernist design is evident in every corner. The light-filled house is a metaphorical conveyor belt of mid-century furniture – Caroline’s speciality – and their ever-changing collection sits alongside beloved permanent fixtures, including a Gio Ponti wardrobe and a Hans Wegner unit in the living area. If the contents of their home don’t affirm their love of design, the building sure will: from the sensitively restored 1960s structure with its sloping wooden ceiling to the spacious double-height rooms, it’s a celebration of modernism at its finest.

Here, they explain how they updated the house to accommodate family life with their four children, as well as Caroline’s upholstery studio and a Barbican-inspired terraced garden.

Caroline: “We were already living in St Albans when we stumbled across this place. It had been on the market for ages because people here only look for beautiful period properties, but we could see immediately that it was the right place for us.”

Marcus: “My heart sank a little when we walked in because it was out of our price range, but I knew it had to be our house. It feels like a mid-century Californian house that’s been tucked away in a pretty normal suburban street.

“The first thing I noticed was the double-height ceilings – it’s two storeys on the front but a single storey out the back, where there’s this huge space with very generous windows out onto the garden.

“You really get a sense of space here. We moved from a four-storey Victorian house where we were constantly going up and down stairs. Now, there isn’t a corridor or full flight of steps in the whole house.”

Caroline: “The garden was a big factor as well. Our old house just had decking at the back, so it was a big change to have a garden. It really feels as if it’s part of the house.”

Marcus: “We haven’t fundamentally altered the house, but it was in need of some love. The day we moved in it rained and water poured in through the beautiful wooden ceiling.”

Caroline: “It was awful! We were sat there with buckets of water everywhere.”

Marcus: “We put a new roof on and changed the layout of the house to create five bedrooms. In the original design, there were all these big spaces but only a little 1970s shower room that didn’t work, so we moved the main bathroom and put in a large skylight.

“The biggest job was excavating the basement. There had always been a storage room down there, but we ended up digging out a stepped terrace that leads out from the basement to the garden. It was quite a big undertaking – about 25 lorries-worth of earth was removed – but that’s now our main bedroom.

“Having our bedroom downstairs has completely changed how we used the house. There are now patio doors that open out onto the sunken terraces, which were inspired by the balconies in the Barbican that have flowers spilling over the edge.

“We also converted the garage. It was built for cars in the 1960s and 70s, which were a lot smaller than cars today. We turned it into a purpose-built studio for Caroline’s upholstery.”

Caroline: “It was very important for us to get the materials right. We spent a lot of time working on the pointing, making sure it matched the aged original. It was a lot of effort but now you can’t tell what’s new and what’s original.”

Marcus: “The only new material we introduced to the house was slate, which we used in all the bathrooms to link the inside with the patio outside.”

Caroline: “We thought a lot about the objects we brought into the house – specifically the art and the furniture. Marcus always asks if we can keep the pieces I’m working on but I have to say no.”

Marcus: “The house is a kind of conveyor belt for beautiful mid-century furniture. It’s great – when you have all these pieces to play with and a canvas of space and light, you can be quite dynamic with the layout.

“We’ve got a couple of Ole Wanscher rocking chairs that we picked up the other week, which are wonderful. They’re in the house at the moment but will be moved along to a new home at some point.

“There are some pieces we just won’t let go of though, like the huge Hans Wegner wall unit in the living room. It took a long time to find but it looks as if it’s been made to measure. And there’s a Gio Ponti wardrobe from the 1950s in our bedroom.

“Keeping these vintage pieces and being sustainable by not buying new furniture is important to us. We’re not trying to make the house a time capsule – you still want various contemporary elements, especially in the kitchen and bathroom.

“But in terms of the quality of materials, the quality of construction, and the quality of thought, there is so much from that era that is just incredible. In a way, this house is a homage to that.”

Caroline: “Furniture should be beautiful but it also needs to be functional, and I really get to see the extra care and thought that goes into these pieces when I’m taking them apart and restoring them. People think that you can’t have vintage furniture in a family space because the children will wreck it, but it can put up with a lot. It really is built to last.

“The house came into its own during lockdown. When the kids were doing their lessons from home, we had all four of them working on laptops at the table in the atrium room. Marcus took over the studio where he could shut the door and take Zoom calls all day, and in the evening, when it was sunny, we’d sit outside and have a drink together.”

Marcus: “It’s definitely helped lower the stress levels compared to being in London all the time. People try and escape to the country for that, but your own home can be a calming place as well. I think that’s really what modern living is about: creating a sense of space and light that’s integrated with your environment in a meaningful way.”

Is there a house for sale on our website that has caught your eye?

Caroline: “So many! And there are so many past sales we still think about, such as the Povl Ahm house. And of course Farnley Hey, which we really regret not buying.”

Marcus: “I think those two are really beautiful examples of homes that connect with their environment; they are very different styles but also have a very similar feel to them.”