In our new series ‘My Modern House’ we’re revisiting some of the properties we’ve previously sold, to hear first-hand from the owners what it’s like to live in some of the UK’s finest modern architecture.

Nearly three years ago, Gerard and Andres purchased an apartment on the sixth floor of Ernő Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower. Designed by Goldfinger in the late 1960s, Trellick Tower – with its bold silhouette and distinctive concrete walkways – is now recognised as one of London’s most iconic Modernist apartment blocks.

Gerard, who works for a Silicon Valley-based tech company across the UK and Europe, has spent the last six months managing an extensive renovation of the apartment. We caught up with them to hear about the work they’ve done to the property, and to learn more about what it’s like to be part of the community in one of London’s most iconic estates.

How did you first come across the apartment?
We’ve both always been big fans of The Modern House, and often visit the website for inspiration. On one such visit we saw our flat and decided on a whim to arrange a viewing.

What were your initial thoughts when you viewed it?
We immediately fell for its charm and character, but also its potential. Looking back we can’t believe our luck as flats at Trellick Tower rarely come onto the market.

Our offer was accepted, we exchanged on Christmas Eve 2013, and moved in shortly afterwards.

Where were you living before?
Like many of our friends who live in London, we had fallen into the routine of moving from place to place on an almost annual basis. Each of the properties were the traditional Georgian and Victorian stock of West London, the polar opposite of Trellick Tower.

How long did it take before it felt like home?
Honestly about five minutes. The flat has such warmth and we were really lucky that the couple who lived here previously had clearly put a huge amount of love into the flat which shone through.

Tell us about the renovations you’ve done to the property.
We lived in the flat for over a year before working on some plans with our architect. We looked into how we used the space and discovered that we spent 80% of our time in the kitchen and around the kitchen table, next to no time in the living room, and the study was purely aspirational! So we decided to open the kitchen and living room into one space.

We go to Berlin quite a bit, and on a recent trip ate at Das Lokal – the sister restaurant to Chipperfield Kantine. There we discovered the most beautiful oak tables made by Buchholz Berlin. The founder, Katja Buchholz, set up her practice after an eight-year stint working for David Chipperfield. We initially commissioned a table and the experience was such a joy that we asked her to send a proposal to design the kitchen and all of the joinery for the flat. It was the best decision we made.

Early in the process we decided that we wanted a beautiful parquet floor, based on the herringbone design at Goldfinger’s Willow Road home. Previously the flooring in our flat was a combination of carpet, lino, and a plywood floor, and we wanted something consistent throughout. A friend recommended a local parquet floor specialist, Solid Floor just off the Portobello Road, and their work was flawless.

How did you go about deciding on the aesthetic for the interior and the furniture?
The interior is very much influenced by the space. We deliberately wanted to strip the flat back to its raw materials and expose the steel door frames, the concrete flank walls and, in places, the ceiling, to celebrate the building.

We both have a very similar aesthetic preference, and most of the furniture we bought over the years fits in perfectly. The only new pieces are the sofa – which we had both wanted to buy for a few years – and the table and stools which we commissioned Buchholz Berlin to make. The incredible rugs are from Knots Rugs on the Kings Road.

Is there anything further you’d like to do to the flat?
We’ve done the majority of the work inside – the next project will be the balcony!

What is your favourite thing about living there?
The Goldfinger proportions are so generous – our hallway is the size of another room – and everyone has generous outside space with their balconies. Our flat, on the sixth floor, gets the tops of the trees, which in the spring and summer means we look out of the wall-to-wall windows onto a sea of greenery.

The thick concrete walls, ceiling to floor, also mean that we are so well insulated from both noise and the weather. It’s the quietest flat we’ve ever lived in with zero noise from the neighbours – a real cocoon after you close the front door.

Are there any downsides?
There are parts of Trellick Tower that aren’t property utilised, such as the Club Room above the entrance, and the Boiler Room (the amazing glass box at the top of the service tower) which has remained under lock and key since the Iranian Oil Crisis in 1973 (just a year after Trellick opened) which rendered it obsolete. However, we currently have a proposal to bring the Boiler Room back to life as a community cultural space. Fingers crossed that the council let us breathe life back into it!

Is there a strong community within Trellick Tower?
One of the biggest attractions for us is the vibrant, creative community here. There’s an active residents committee that we’re members of that’s really helped us to get to know our neighbours.

As an example, a couple of weekends ago our neighbour, Shan, worked with graffiti artists to host a family day in the gardens by the graffiti wall with a sound system and barbecue, and the artists helped teach local kids some spray painting techniques.

On the subject of the graffiti wall – it’s an endless source of fascination and inspiration as we can see it from our bedroom and the art changes on an almost daily basis.

Are there any other properties in the UK that would tempt you away from Trellick Tower?
We could be tempted away from our current flat to another one in the building – one of the triple aspect flats that look over the canal towards the city. Somewhere around the 19th floor in line with the horizon would be spectacular.

Outside of the UK though, we recently stayed with a good friend in Venice Beach who when relocating from London discovered one of Frank Gehry’s wooden-framed and corrugated-iron clad beach houses on Craig’s List. It’s so well designed – the downstairs is incredibly cool on hot days – you can feel the temperature drop as you descend the stairs. There’s also a great roof deck, and it’s about 20 paces from the beach … something like that could definitely tempt us!

We also both admire Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work, and would love to move into one of the many houses he built in Brazil.

Finally, what’s the most important thing you look for when buying a property?
A friend who works in property gave me some great advice – he told me to ignore everything inside the property and look out of the windows. You can change anything in a property but you have no control over the view. Having said that, our experience with Trellick Tower was that we simply fell in love.

Photography: Elyse Kennedy