Vogue Living
July 2011
Second Sight
Visionary British antiques trader Ken Bolan divined the potential of a ruined cottage deep in the English countryside, concocting a home where prized pieces with a past take pride of place.
ANTIQUE DEALERS are an unusual species who often put their passion before there concern for profit. This is at the heart of Ken Bolan's modest operandi. "I am drawn to pieces because I love them. I buy things to keep for twenty years," says the charismatic owner of Talisman, one of London's most diverse and adventurous design emporiums, where you're likely to find a French Louis XVI commode alongside an 18th-century Swedish grandfather clock next to a '70s sunburst mirror.
"Things flow in and out; is how I breathe," he says, when pressed for how an American industrial steel bar cart can enthral him just as much as a breathtaking sculpture by one of his favourite artists, Nicolas Lavarenne. "The first and foremost reason for me to buy anything is that it brings pleasure, makes me interested, excited, educates me and takes me on a journey, and I have fun doing it. If I also get my money back, that's great."
Scottish-born, twinkly blue-eyed Bolan has been in business a long time, long enough to see every taste in antiquities, from English 'brown' furniture and 1700s Swedish painted pieces to designs in mid-century modern steel, perspex and glossy lacquer, come in and out of fashion. The fabled dealer says he has often been lucky enough to be one step ahead of "the next big thing". "It is a trade of chances," Bolan says of his colourful history starting out in Europe at just 23 years of age in the early '70s without a degree or much of a penny to his name.
He landed in Switzerland after "bumming around" the Continent for a few years and in Berne spotted the astronomical prices of English antique furniture being charged by a dealer. His instinct for wheeling and dealing took hold and, at one point, he could even boast he had the most successful dealership in Georgian furniture in Switzerland.
By 1979, keen to move back to the UK to raise a family with his wife Yolanda, Bolan embarked on another adventure. "We longed for the tranquillity of the countryside. I soon discovered that the West Country antique market was surprisingly vibrant," he recalls. They moved to Somerset, where he established Talisman in an old brewery Gillingham, an old market town a short drive from their home near Wincanton. In the new shop he diversified into areas such as his now-beloved Swedish painted furniture, followed by pieces by iconic 20th-designers such as Karl Springer.
By its ancient Greek definition, talisman derives from telesma, a religious rite that initiates one into great mysteries. So too does the allure of Bolan's shop, which he moved to London in 2007, opening in an old Deco car garage on the New Kings Road. A second store launched late last year in Belgravia and Talisman, Dorset is due to reopen later this year in Gillingham. His own home in the countryside is just as visually intriguing. Here, the Bolan's have converted what was originally the head gardener's cottage of the local estate, Maperton House, into a deceptively large family home with a terraced garden and magnificent pond.
"At the time we bought, in the early '80s, we could have had a serious country house for very little money, but the idea of having to fill it and the sense of rattling around it when the kids had grown simply didn't appeal. This house still works, having brought up a family, as there's room for people to stay, but if we're on our own it's a nice place to live," he says, looking out through the large three-metre floor-to-ceiling doors he designed to bring a sense of the colours and textures of the countryside inside all year round.
The cottage had been a ruin with it's original features ripped out in a botched conversion in the '70s, "the house was trying to run down the hill", Bolan says. He wanted to make it sit into the land and stay true to its cottage roots, so the 18th-century facade is unchanged, but at the back a long extension was built to house the open kitchen, dining and living area, and to create a raised terrace.
Bolan opened up three bedrooms to create a large master bedroom and commissioned the Gothic-style arched window to work with the pitched roof. "I love living by the natural light," he says. Bolan's design secret lies in "tricking the eye in a whimsical way that gives pleasure," he says, so stripping back between the beams in the living area and bedroom was a way to gain more space and make it a feature. Tongue and groove used for the sitting room ceiling disguises that adjoining rooms are at different heights.
He also cleverly reinvents old pieces, such as a bathroom cupboard salvaged when a 16th-century Redlynch House was stripped bare. Various swathes of beautiful flooring, fashioned from 15th-century French convent boards are laid in patterns to disguise the fact that there wasn't quite enough to fill each space. In the hallway, the 17th -century Swedish flooring has the indentations of crosses pressed into the boards with chalk to ward away evil spirits.
"There is a beauty in living with things that have already stood the test of time," Bolan says of many thousands of pieces he has bought and sold, and the few he has chosen to keep. "The pieces that stay with us were always bought for ourselves and have become a part of us and our lives. It wouldn't occur to me to let them go as they give me constant pleasure." Much the same as the magical mystery tour of objects, chairs, tables and sculptures that he sells from his two London stores. "My job is to divine a piece's potential to become something people want to live with and hand to the next generation," he says. "I am not interested in turning Talisman into a brand with our name on dishcloths. It's about selling great, original things at a reasonable price."