Shoe designer Penelope Chilvers and her husband Steve Hastings’ Victorian house in Notting Hill conceals something rather unexpected. Behind the original façade is a minimalist interior that remains as modern in its simplicity as it was when first designed by John Pawson in 1992-94.

As their four-storey home comes onto the market, the couple reflects on a decade spent living in a space whose ethos of simplicity will be staying with them and why they’ll be resolutely staying in Notting Hill, their favourite London neighbourhood. Check out their home for sale here.

Steve: “We resisted for about half the time we’ve been here from putting up absolutely anything on the living room walls. We now have two pictures up and one or two other things, but not many. We can’t live a totally aesthetic, monk-like life… it’s impossible.

“So, there’s a kettle on the kitchen surface, there’s a toaster. But we’re both aware that the house looks best when we clear things away and we have it looking clean and sharp, so occasionally we have a clear out or a tidy up; until it gradually builds up again.

“I don’t know how Pawson did it because he had two small boys when he lived here. Apparently, he was true to his word, and brought out spare chairs from a cupboard when guests arrived and put them away again when they left.”

Penelope: “The minute I walked into that main room I recognised it. I was a big fan of John Pawson and I’d seen this space featured in a beautiful book I had called Modern London. It had always been a dream: that image of that house.”

Steve: “We were shown around by an agent who had warned us: ‘we’ve got this Victorian house, the only problem is that they’ve knocked out all the original features’ – he had no idea what he was selling. We’d seen photographs but when we came here we were amazed. We just looked at each other and knew we’d found the one. The promise of a John Pawson-designed house that was within our budget and in our area seemed too good to be true.

“When we arrived in 2009, Pawson’s design was 14-years-old and the previous owners hadn’t really looked after it particularly well. We had to do quite a lot of work. It was clear that when Pawson did the renovation, he got the glory shots but probably ran out of money. Where he would have, for instance, taken out architraves or raised doors, the upstairs still had the old Victorian ones in place. Using our own imagination, we carried on akin to how we felt he would have done it, which was to heighten the doors, remove the architraves, making sure the wood finish was the same throughout.”

Penelope: “One area we had to change, however, was the bathroom. Although it was a beautiful, iconic bathroom – it was a wet room with a stone tub in the middle of the floor – it was quite impractical.

“For me, the most outstanding feature is the galley kitchen with the beautiful slabs of marble and the sink that’s cut into the same piece of stone with no seams. Our kitchen is probably the most copied kitchen in the world but it was the very first one, no one had seen anything like it. It’s timeless now. Steve will probably say the floorboards!”

Steve: “Yes, the Douglas fir floorboards run the length of the house without a single cut and they are something like 60ft-long. You never see floorboards without a cut in them so you think how does that happen, how did he get them in the house, how do you grow a tree that big? They’re absolutely stunning.

“But I think more than that, it’s the sense of being in a beautiful, harmonious space, especially the main room, which goes into the kitchen and has doors that open onto a lovely little balcony.

“As the sun falls and the lights come on it’s a very beautiful space to relax in. In the summer it’s incredibly light and there’s a balcony at the top, which catches the sun all day long. You know that wonderful feeling when it’s hot and you can just throw open all the doors and feel like you’re living outside. We try to have breakfast on the terrace from May until November too.

“This minimal aesthetic is not an approach we had before living here. I love a minimalistic, clean finish but Penelope has her studio here, which we created a rear extension for, and it’s absolutely full of shoes, leather and swatches. She works by throwing things around in a crazy manner so it’s quite hard to be minimalist!

“The minimalist ethos of the house is a strong anchor though so, although we can’t be strict day by day, it is a guiding principle for the way we would ideally like to live.”

Penelope: “The house is a great blank canvas for a creative person to work from because you can get it all out, you’ve got the space, and then you can put it all away again. Although I need stuff when designing, I don’t need it in my life permanently. And my studios have always been white because if you’re looking at colour, you firstly need to have as much light as possible but also, you have to have a neutral white background in order to see the colour.

“If we could take the main room and our bedroom with us it would be ideal! Before we were living here on Stoneleigh Street, we were just two streets behind, so we’re big fans of the area. Also, I like being in the Notting Hill area because I use Portobello all the time for ideas. I go to Portobello vintage market and I find it one of the most creative areas in London, full of lots of other artists and designers.”

Steve: “When you’ve lived here for a little while you walk along the street and see people you know, and if you don’t know them you see people you recognise. It has a nice neighbourly feel about it.

“I’d like to think I have a relationship with my home, it looks after me, it nurtures me, it shelters me and I look after it as well because I love it. Although it can’t speak to me, it’s almost as if it can sometimes. I’m so conflicted about leaving as it’s my favourite house I’ve ever lived in and it’s got so many little unusual touches that all add up to a completely unique place that we won’t find anywhere else.

“I suppose practically, the idea of this home and, indeed, modern living, is a mixture of a beautifully cocooning place but one that is completely connected as well. You’re not just buying square-footage here, you’re buying an idea, and that’s important.”