Lifestyle Blog: An Interview With Charu Gandhi

Charu Gandhi is the Founder of Elicyon. An Interior Design and Architecture studio that offers bespoke couture to high-net-worth clients around the world. In the first of our lifestyle blogs, Charu speaks to Agreus about what most Family Offices have in common, how to keep the family and office as separate zones within the home and why where we live, fundamentally shapes who we are as human beings.

She also offers a glimpse into the offices of some of the world’s most affluent families and if you have ever based your idea of what a Family Office might look like by watching the likes of Dynasty, Billions or Succession, it seems that you might be right.

How did you start working with Family Offices?

The ultra-high-net-worth community is part of the network I grew up with so it has always been part of my life. My first professional engagement however was when I was practicing architecture at Allies and Morrison and worked with the Al Thani family, the Royal Family of Qatar on a project called the Heart of Doha. Before that I had worked on large corporate developments such as the London Olympics and though incredible opportunities, they were very budget-driven and there was a lot of red tape to cross.

When working with UHNW clients, it made me realise that they had both a vision and a means. It provided an opportunity to be creative and visionary and I took it.

I continued to focus on similar projects in Doha during my time with Allies & Morrison and it inspired me to make a shift to Candy & Candy where I later joined as one of the leads on their Private Client Team which again cemented this focus on the UHNW community. I then set up Elicyon. I hadn’t realised it until that point but working with the UHNW community incorporated everything I had ever dreamed my career would be.

What do Family Offices need from a design perspective?

As most of your readers will appreciate, the majority of our clients do not have traditional jobs. Their work lives and private lives merge into one and so the most common task we are charged with is making a home elastic around both needs. Clients want to create meaningful spaces for their work lives but do not want this to take space or attention away from the needs of the family such as privacy.

In a recent project, we transformed a large penthouse in Dubai. We spent a lot of time discussing all of the different settings for the home which might, at any one time, include the Patriarch hosting a meeting over lunch in the dining room, the children walking into the kitchen after school, the staff walking in and out of the property and the Matriarch wanting to enjoy the home, away from the office. The first step we needed to take was to logistically map out how many entrances we could create into the penthouse. We marked out routes for each group and thought about who would need access to which part of the property, when and why. Quite often, one partner is quite private but the other wants to be heavily involved in the Family Office and so a lot of our early conversations with families who have these offices in their homes is about zoning and it all comes back to being elastic.

How can this home work around the ebbs and flows of the family and the office at any one time?

The next stage is about the particular needs of the family member leading the office. A lot can revolve around AV and technology because a lot of our clients will be tracking markets and therefore requiring massive screens for video calls and stocks. For others, it comes down to lighting – how to create a vibrant and productive workplace culture, even if it is at home. Some like to sit at a desk by day and read in the evening. Most of our clients are voracious readers, hungry for knowledge and so a lot of our offices might incorporate a desk in one side of the room and a chaise in another, allowing a separation of zones once more. Others however do not like a desk at all and have one large table to host meetings throughout the day.

Another trend within many Family Offices is, just like the vision created in the Billions and Dynasty’s of the world – a large fireplace to allow for intimate, fireside meetings that a large corporate table might not always allow. It really makes an office feel like family.

How does working with the UHNW community differ to any other and how does that alter what is expected of you?

Our clients are extremely busy which means we work to their timelines, whatever that looks like. Sometimes that requires phone calls in the middle of the night, other times it means hopping on a plane to meet them in their destination of the day. They have high expectations of themselves and of the people around them. They are leaders in their fields, captains of industry and simply people who are doing really incredible things in the world.

They also have this incredible exposure to the world. They have stayed in the best hotels and attended the best events. On the one hand, all of this exposure means you really need to create something special to impress them but often, because they have seen almost everything, their needs become very monastic, simple and functional. All that exposure leads them to the realisation that they only need a certain amount of things in life to function. They enjoy simplicity and functionality. They filter it down to a list of a few essential things and then we bring them to life.

It is not about grandeur it is almost a journey of self-discovery. The first project might have had lots of layers but as the years go on, actually, it is about having a simple set of requirements that facilitates the life we want to lead. After all, how we live fundamentally shapes who we are.

What is the most extraordinary house you have ever helped to make a home?

I always say our best project is our next one as we are always excited about the next ambition but on a similar tone to our last conversation, the most wonderful projects to me are not the ones that have the largest chandelier or the most innovative design. The most special projects to me are the ones where a client comes with a jumbled box of ideas and requirements and no understanding of how any of them will work together. We then make their dream a reality by bringing it to life.

It is almost like we string all of their ideas out like a DNA stream and take them from that jumbled vision to their perfect home.

We are not a design consultancy. Our role is to create homes for families to thrive in and helping clients to fall in-love with design and craft is extraordinarily special. It is less about what a space looks like and more about how it feels to them. Some could say it is therapy.

This was the story of Project White. Our client was a young Family Office Leader who while living and in-love with London as a city, did not want his home to reflect the darkness of the city. He wanted a Mediterranean inspired home but not pastiche, beachy but not cliché. He also enjoyed oriental references and described his vision of entertaining friends and family. There were many specific aspects he enjoyed but was not sure if they would complement each other or work together at all but we achieved it and it remains one of my favourite projects to date. We created this beautiful bespoke dining table with a Lazy Susan in the centre. We also imported these eclectic vintage Chinese vases and turned them into lamps as nods to both his oriental and Mediterranean dreams. We made a bespoke bar too and he loved it.

How has the pandemic shaped the way you work?

During the pandemic, Family Offices experienced four phases.

The first was safety and hygiene. This meant ultra-violet lighting in wardrobes, air purification and sanitisation to both detect and remove bacteria. We also saw secondary entrances to homes being created to both sanitise groceries and post and allow staff to work and live separately to the family. That was the early days. We were all afraid of this mystery illness out there and had to fortify our homes.

The second was functionality. This came down to acoustics mostly. Clients who both head out of the door in the morning have very different requirements to a couple who are now both home all day working and living in the same space. While our clients have the luxury of space that many others do not, the space was no longer just for living but working, entertaining and surviving. I had a phone call from a client one day during this phase to say they hadn’t realised their husband walks up and down all day while on calls. So, we came in and changed the floorboards. Similarly, if you have three children at home all-day, good acoustics were vital as was internet speed and lighting. If you are working within one large, shared space, you can wear headphones to block out the noise and buy boosters to amplify the connection but what you cannot avoid in modern-day homes is the lighting and glare we receive from certain screens. One part of this functionality stage was building joinery and media walls to enclose lighting and glares of televisions and so on.

The third was community: As the world started to re-open after the first lockdown, we saw a lot of affluent families with large homes decide to bring their parents to move in with them in fear of a second lockdown. Cross-generational living became very prominent, especially for those in care homes or assisted living. As part of this stage, we also saw a large group of families, particularly slightly older families, decide rather than going out, they would host instead. We coined the term tablescaping to describe the families who suddenly wanted to host dinner parties, kitchens were looked at from a catering perspective that were never used before, clients would call us to say the empty basement will now be a big back-of-house kitchen, when can we help. We also saw a huge number of families chasing property for the purchase of community. Rather than jumping on a plane or yacht in the South of France, families were now acquiring large countryside manors in the UK and transforming them into a family haven. They created whole floors of bowling lanes, dance floors, sushi bars, dart boards and things for an entire cross-generational family to enjoy.

The fourth and final phase was self-realisation: This entire pandemic has given each of us time to reflect and one thing we have all thought about is what home meant to us. We have had time to think about what we love from the outside world and what we want to re-create in our homes and to our clients, that meant that spaces that were otherwise ignored such as spare bedrooms or basements could become libraries, gyms, meditation spaces or arts and crafts rooms for their children. Some are of course dependent on budget size but with our network having the luxury of space and again, a means to transform that space, they spent this time repurposing their rooms. Right now we are helping a client to create a gift wrapping room for instance. It is amazing just how versatile our homes can be.

What is the secret to creating a beautiful home?

We engage with our clients on a very human level and in a very positive way, we do not treat our clients differently but rather, we are cognisant of the demands of their time and cognisant their expectations. Ultimately, whatever your net worth, we all share the same fundamental requirements. We all want to feel safe; we all want our children to feel safe, we want a space that allows us to be the very best version of ourselves. UHNW homes are becoming less about typical markers of luxury and more about living authentically and connecting with who they are and what matters to them.

It is not about proving a point or signalling but rather creating a beautiful home that is perfect to them.