Tucked away down a west London alleyway and spread over the top two floors of an old warehouse is a thing of wonder. You wouldn’t expect it from the unassuming entrance and location (it lies behind a large metal gate around the corner from Bayswater station), but the two-storey penthouse apartment is extraordinary in scale, has plenty of style and it’s on the market. As its architect, Robin Lee, and developer, Crispin Kelly, explain in our new film, they’ve not only cleverly constructed a remarkable home with architectural merit, but concealed it within the thick of the city too.

Crispin has been something of a homemaker for as long as he can remember. Even as a child his favourite pastime was building camps for his friends to play in. “I’ve always had a natural enthusiasm for making environments for people,” he says. You can imagine his delight, then, when he got the brief for this project, which included converting a huge former factory into a home. “I’ve never done big projects. Instead, I have always developed small but complicated ones,” says Crispin. “This is the sort of thing I have always wanted to be involved with. It’s exciting to work on an existing building that you can bring something new to. This venture gave us the opportunity to ask things like: how far out should that wall be?”

Robin – who also designed this remarkable barn conversion – and Crispin took an unconventional approach. Most architects and developers begin projects by drawing or creating models, but this pair started out by experimenting on site. “Many of the decisions we made were in the space,” says Robin. “That made this project unusual, but it made it interesting too. We would come to work and not know what was going to happen.” This process might have meant the conversion took longer to complete but, as Robin continues, “it was more satisfying. There was less left to chance because we could test things out and verify the results based on our own experiences.”

As you can discover for yourself by watching our film, the remarkable revamp includes an upside-down layout, lateral and light-filled living spaces, soaring views of the city and rich interiors. Like what you see? Get in touch with our sales team to request a viewing.