When searching for her new home in Margate, Charlene Prempeh considered the people who would visit it. ‘I think about what makes sense in terms of people being over and what’s comforting,’ the writer and founder of creative agency A Vibe Called Tech says of her seaside townhouse in Margate, Kent. Her childhood home in Canning Town, east London, was, ‘set up to host,’ she says. ‘On any given weekend there would be around 20 people over for dinner. It was a house that was meant to be lived in.’
That experience influenced her approach to decorating her current home, a four-bedroom Georgian property at the crest of a hill. ‘Ours is the only house on the street with views of the sea,’ she explains. She moved there from Borough, central London, in September 2021, with her husband James Goodhead (founder of the concept store Unified Goods) and their son, Lucky.
While Margate’s burgeoning restaurant scene and proximity to the sea were significant factors in the move (‘There’s something deeply calming about being by the water’), Prempeh was particularly drawn to the idea of ‘what a different kind of pace and focus of life would look like’ compared with London. ‘It was less about being part of a community. And more about seeing how creativity could manifest in a town like this,’ she says, adding that the freedom from the ‘overwhelming sense of having a million options’ in the capital ‘inevitably makes you more focused on learning what you enjoy’.
The house’s connections to the sea aren’t limited to its location and the not-so-subtle front door, painted the shade of crabshell orange, and its salmon-shaped knocker. ‘It used to be a fishmonger’s,’ Prempeh says of the four-storey property, with rooms quirkily arranged on different half floors. ‘The fishmonger would’ve operated in the front of the house, and then he must have built up the back to create more space for his family,’ she says.
Fortunately for Prempeh and Goodhead, who welcomed another son, Story, earlier this year, the previous owners’ renovations and similar design aesthetic meant they only needed to add their stamp to the property, namely with a basement reconstruction, a new kitchen and two bathroom renovations. ‘I’m very excitable when it comes to bathrooms – they’re so personal,’ Prempeh says. Just months after buying the property, however, the family uprooted to New York for three months for Prempeh’s work, forcing her to lead construction communication from across the Atlantic. ‘I was buying things online for the basement that I hadn’t physically seen,’ she laughs.
While the renovation process might have been less than dreamy, the result undoubtedly is. The space has been transformed into a ‘calm and peaceful’ office/meditation room, painted in Farrow & Ball Lichen green, anchored with seagrass rugs and featuring an Unto This Last desk and Naked Kitchen sliding doors. ‘As a mother of two, it feels like somewhere to retreat to,’ she says. Upstairs, the couple relied on the help of their friend, interior designer Sebastian Cox, to conceptualise the kitchen, with its geometric-patterned Bert & May tiles and pear-wood cupboards. ‘The process with Sebastian was so seamless, it brought tears to my eyes,’ Prempeh recalls of the collaboration.
As the founder of A Vibe Called Tech, a Black-owned agency and arts consultancy approaching creativity through an intersectional lens, it’s not surprising that art is an integral part of Prempeh’s home. A piece by the artist Jeremy Deller, called Thank God for Immigrants, gifted by Vibe creative director Lewis Gilbert, hangs in the hallway. A David Shrigley painting of a whale, given to Goodhead by the artist in exchange for a donation to a charity they’d worked on together, sits above the dining room’s banquette. A bright-red portrait, painted by Prempeh’s former housemate, the artist Remi Ajani, takes centre-stage in the living room. ‘I love the colours and the ambiguity of the face. I find it really emotive,’ she says.
In comparison to her Ghanaian mother’s maximalist home, Prempeh’s is a celebration of pared-back minimalism, peppered with intentional splashes of texture and colour, much like her own personal style. Compared with her blue Terje Ekstrøm’s ‘Ekstrem’ chair, Michel Ducaroy’s Togo chairs in yellow, and the main bathroom’s green Mandarin Stone tiles, Prempeh’s neutral-toned bedroom is stripped of superfluousness – including a wardrobe. ‘I try and cut away the fat,’ she says of her Donald Judd-esque aesthetic, which results in other storage in the property housing her extensive collection of white T-shirts, and the green and white Rival Schools and Unified Goods collaboration varsity jacket she’s wearing today. ‘We want the rooms to function for the reason that they exist.’
When it came to finding large furniture pieces, including sofas and dining tables, Prempeh relied on the expertise of vintage platforms and shops such as London’s Old Old Woods and Margate’s L’absurde. ‘They’ve got a brilliant eye and are keen to work with briefs,’ she says of the buyers. Ebay has also proved a steadfast source of bargains, from her Le Corbusier coffee table to the vintage Le Creuset saucepans. ‘My parents’ generation’s approach to furniture was focused on what would make sense, whereas now we can pass on items to the next generation that not only reference our culture but are a blend of what we’ve found.’
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
