Having the best of times

Meredith Lee's Grey Lynn villa doubles as a showroom for her business, European Antiques. Photo / Babiche Martens

Meredith Lee is a master of change. Even though she has lived in the same Grey Lynn villa for six years, her immediate environment has been through at least a dozen transformations. As owner of European Antiques and Furnishings, a business that offers predominantly French one-off pieces to a New Zealand audience, her home is her showroom - and if that means occasionally living with a 19th-century chaise perched elegantly atop your dining table, so be it.

"It doesn't faze me," says Meredith. "I always knew this would be a working house so I just feel surrounded by things I love. I don't see the price tags on the pieces anymore."

When Meredith discovered this dramatic white-on-white villa, renovated by model Brigitte Berger, she couldn't believe her luck. The 3.6-metre stud, pristine palette and bleached kauri floors lent an uplifting sense of space she craved after living for six years in a cramped London pad. "Brigitte had given this place a timeless appeal with a contemporary edge," says Meredith.

The lofty villa was a key property in the area at the turn of the century. A neighbour in her 70s remembers playing on the stone entrance steps; at the time, gigantic concrete balls out front left no doubt as to the status of the home's owner.

Meredith felt its inherent grace instantly. When it came time to hang paintings on the walls and affix lighting and chandeliers for display, she found it hard to sully its lovely clean lines.

"I just about cried when I had to put hooks in the ceiling," she confesses. For the very same reason, this past winter she's been rugged up to the nines: "I would rather wear every layer of woollies I possess than stick an ugly heat pump on the wall."

Living in a semi-showroom amid pieces from the 19th century to the 1960s certainly has its drawbacks. Apart from the obvious restrictions of a pre-occupied dining table, friends found it difficult to relax surrounded by so many exclusive treasures. "They were afraid they'd spill something: they'd be on edge and so would I."

Entertaining, then, is confined to the summer courtyard, a work in progress Meredith is moving from the tropical patch she inherited to a more European layout.

"The brief was for a tranquil green and white garden with fragrance - hence the port-wine magnolias and gardenias; a bay tree hedge adds formal structure.

Inside, the tableau is repainted every time a container comes in, but some pieces remain constant including a carved French sofa that's been re-upholstered in men's wool suiting ("It's so wear-able and practical) and plumped with chocolate and gold scatter cushions in an Andrew Martin fabric. "I love that mix between old and new," she says. Then there is her collection of design, architecture and art books. "I adore books - they're like my babies," she laughs. "Most are from Novel Bookshop on Jervois Rd. The owner Andrew Maben calls me up when something new comes in - I think I must have paid off his mortgage by now!"

Indeed, Meredith gleans much of her inspiration from books. Her last buy, The Classic Italian Interior, is secreted away in her bedroom, away from public view. "That's the problem - people think they're for sale. They don't realise they're mine."

Meredith grew up on a farm in Whitford and her parents were avid collectors of English antiques. "Dad was a barrister with his chambers above an antique shop - that was fatal, as most of it ended up in his office." While her twin sister Charlotte loved colonial New Zealand furniture, Meredith became enchanted by the French style. "French design is not only beautiful, it's practical. Their armoires dismantle to get them up narrow stairways, and their beds all come apart, fixed together with long, long screws."

Like most antique dealers, she is self-taught and her taste has broadened to include the Italian and Belgian aesthetic. Axel Vervoordt, an antique and art dealer based in Antwerp, is one of her mentors. "His book Timeless Interiors is my all-time favourite because he shows how to successfully blend antiques and mid-century design with muted colour schemes and architectural salvage in a way that does not look too contrived."

Luckily for Meredith, a basement area under the house is big enough to hold the finds of her new infatuation: industrial mid-century design. "I love the delicate, grey-patina of the metal."

A set of corkscrew Singer stools are proven collectibles, even in Europe. "They've gone up in price about three times," moans Meredith. Then there's a basket of metal Jieldé lights designed by Jean-Louis Domecq. "He invented it in 1950. It has moving sockets so you can concentrate the beam for fine-detail work and he put a rim around it so you wouldn't burn your fingers when you moved it."

A Tilly lamp built by the British for the Swiss Army is another eclectic object on offer. "My taste is unexpected and unpredictable. I might see a metalwork basket that was made to hold tools in the early 1900s and think, 'that'd make a great planter box'." And it seems Meredith is on to a rising trend. She finds that a lot of her older female clients are moving from stand-alone homes to apartments and times

Meredith Lee lives surrounded by her treasures, though entertaining usually takes place outdoors.

becoming more experimental with style. They like the eclectic look of the industrial design.

Upstairs she enjoys living with an ever-changing array of items she has sourced overseas. These biannual trips are not always glamour-packed. "My French hosts and I head off at the crack of dawn squeezed into the front of a truck to the fair, spend hours negotiating, and then drive back in the near dark."

Her coffee table is now filled with a collection of French crystal centrepieces from the 60s. Rather like our beloved Crown Lynn whites, each one is sculptural and original. "They're so fluid," says Meredith. "They remind me of water drops that have exploded on a surface and then been caught in suspension."

She appreciates the technical skill that goes into creating some of the items, such as the French three-piece table with its eglomised mirror top. "It's actually a piece from the 50s that has been treated to give a sense of age. Restorers in New Zealand are still experimenting with this technique - it's really laborious."

Another practice that has found favour in Europe is bleaching furniture - antique oak is taken back to a more natural look. "It's only certain wood they do it to - you'd never bleach mahogany. Lighter-coloured furniture just suits our current lifestyles more," explains Meredith.

Little wonder this committed Francophile has an eye for the artistic. After completing her degree in art history, she dreamed of one day owning a gallery. Instead, after a string of high-pressure jobs overseas and an almost-fatal bout of meningitis, she sat down with a piece of paper and asked herself: "What do I really want to do?" "This business back home ticked all the boxes. And it's worked out better than I could ever have imagined."

Meanwhile, living in Grey Lynn provides a much-appreciated community connection. "Every year we have a street barbecue that kicks off with a table-tennis tournament in a neighbour's backyard."

And, joy of joys, the Italian/French/Spanish tapas bar Mondial has opened up just down the road, providing Meredith with the taste of Europe she so hungers for - right on her doorstep.

"I was there the very first night," she laughs. Could life get any better than this?