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Lydia Pang

With everyone coming in and out through the kitchen door, the main entrance doesn’t get much use beyond book storage—except when family is over. Then “it’s a perfect room for mahjong,” says Pang.

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ydia Pang either likes something or she doesn’t. She’s all in or she’s out. And after a decade Stateside—first in New York City, then Portland, Oregon, ricocheting from one big visual branding job to the next—the British

creative director was, very much so, out. “We pushed ourselves so hard,” she says of herself and her now husband, product designer Roo Williams. The adventure was constant, but so became the loneliness; their families were a 25-hour flight away in Wales. The year 2020 had been an especially difficult one, not only for Portland, where political and social tensions had reached a boiling point during the pandemic and wildfires had ravaged the land, but for the couple. “We got to a place where we were like, let’s just put down some roots and be where we can be nourished and looked after by our family,” says Pang. Moving home has gotten a bad rap—“Everyone thinks, Oh, you’ve gone backward,” she notes—but for Pang, relocating from the West Coast to the Welsh countryside would be an optimistic (and tangible) leap forward.

Gothic

Revival

Photography by YUKI SUGIURA Words by FLO WALES BONNER Styling by JENNIFER HASLAM

Despite its location in the verdant, fairy tale–esque Welsh countryside, this creative couple’s 500-year-old cottage invites you to the dark—and delightfully cozy—side.

Launching two companies from home sparked a mindset shift around a work-life balance for the couple. “We just have to make a decision to design it into our lives,” says Pang. Cue the implementation of a four-day workweek, which Pang says has only positively impacted their businesses. Now Fridays are for mornings in the garden and afternoon hikes. The rest can wait.

There’s something undeniably punk about the couple’s new lifestyle, its fearless, modern blending of the digital with the natural and feral. The move continues to change Pang even now. She had become used to ordered, restrained, meticulously curated urban spaces; their Welsh cottage has been a lesson in letting go and letting be. Its lines are wonky; it’s drafty; and plants and creatures are always working their way in through the cracks. But that’s part of the wonder of it. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

It took about a year for the couple to establish a well-honed morning routine that Pang deems “slow and lovely.” The early hours are spent walking Betty, their miniature pinscher, through the forest; sipping coffee in the garden with its burgeoning meadowland (they are keen on rewilding it for biodiversity); and visiting the paddock where Williams grows fruits and vegetables. The home practically insists they spend time outside, particularly as every window looks out onto vivid green, which paints the interior of its own accord. Come evening, the fields turn into a backdrop for family dinners and date nights, where they sit with a drink—Williams a local beer, Pang a homemade elderflower cordial and tonic on ice—among the beetroot.

As the couple reimagined the cottage, they were undergoing another form of transformation. “There was an element of putting ourselves back together,” says Pang. Launching her own company, digital strategy studio Mørning, isn’t something she thinks she would have done if she hadn’t moved back to Wales. The peace of her idyllic new surroundings, cloaked in green, with the chirping of birds as one of the few interruptions, gave her the welcome headspace to fathom her next steps. With Williams simultaneously founding a creative technology studio, converting their detached garage in the garden (previously a “concrete box filled with ivy and weeds”) into a shared office became a symbolic act. It was putting a stake in the ground, explains Pang, “saying, we’re here, and we’re going to build our businesses from here, and it’s going to work.” Like the rest of the renovation, updating the space cost hardly anything, in large part due to Williams’s resourcefulness and repurposing or locally sourcing most pieces. They simply cleared away the vegetation, raised the floor, and insulated the room. It’s impressive what a coat of white paint—and a Hay desk, custom-made in an extra-large size (and in black, of course)—can do. The sun-soaked office’s doors open straight onto views of trees and the neighbors’ horses trotting by, offering Pang something she has never before felt with work: a sense of freedom. Its physical separation from the house, albeit by just a few yards, makes entering each day something she actually looks forward to.

Pang cites the Noguchi Museum in Queens—and architect Isamu Noguchi’s masterful manipulation of light and shadow—as a major interior design influence. “I don’t know why people are so afraid of rooms being dark,” she says. “When there’s a candle lit and you just accept that the space doesn’t get light, it looks amazing.” Rather than somber or intimidating, deep, moody tones are soothing to her, a visual respite from the stream of colorful imagery and trends in which she spends her working life immersed. For the same reason, minimalism reigns supreme in the house, including when it comes to art—only a few choice pieces made it onto the walls, like Eike König typography and works by emerging artists sourced from her curator mother’s neighborhood establishment, Gallery at Home. This way, the historic leaded windows, traditional Welsh quarry tiles, and handsome central staircase can really sing. Yet some of the streamlined pieces that emerged from the couple’s shipping container suddenly felt a little jarring. “Everything in me wants clean angles and for the house to feel synergistic visually, but it fights against that,” Pang admits. The humble home called for soft and comfortable spaces. In came sheepskins, woven rugs, and a sofa upholstered in worn French linen, handmade locally. Another favorite find, a traditional Welsh dresser picked up on Facebook Marketplace for 150 pounds, takes pride of place in the dining room. “It’s like therapy because I can’t control it,” she explains.

Any home of hers must have both, plus cocoon-like corners to retreat and reflect. Another round of painting was in order. The living room, in particular, already didn’t receive much natural light, so instead of attempting to brighten it, Pang enhanced the darkness, swathing the room top to bottom in a soft black and rich dusty gray. Farrow & Ball hues are used throughout—“I wanted to make sure I paid homage to the space and did it properly with really beautiful paint,” says Pang—including a mossy green in the dining room across the hallway. In her compact dressing room, she again went “wild with black,” specifically an inky tone warmed by a hint of purple. There, Pang can indulge her love of fashion without worrying about tidying up afterward, overlooked all the while by her voluminous ruffled black wedding dress: “I’ve reappropriated it as a wall hanging because it’s massive.”

For the couple, home is where their Japanese Kokeshi dolls are. Each resembles a family member: Pang, Williams, and Betty the dog. “We’ve moved a lot and they’re the first things we unpack,” says Pang.

In a step that Pang describes as both “terrifying and amazing,” they left their jobs, crossed the Atlantic, and moved into Pang’s mother’s house near Abergavenny, a town on the southern edge of the picturesque Brecon Beacons National Park. The hunt for a place to reestablish themselves—both personally and professionally—began. It was important that they found a home that offered “extremity,” as Pang calls it—in other words, a sharp contrast to their old life. Rather than settle somewhere that could have just as easily been in upstate New York, she says they thought: “Let’s live in a 16th-century goth cottage and really go for it.” That cottage turned out to be a Grade II–listed former parsonage from the 1500s, perched on an acre of land in the bucolic Usk Valley. It charmed them with both its ramshackle imperfection (“It’s held together by birds’ nests,” swears Pang) and proximity to loved ones—it’s just down the road from where both Pang and her husband grew up and their families still live. The house is also, poetically, a few fields away from the site of the couple’s marriage ceremony. “It felt very energetically right,” she adds. After signing a 10-year lease (owing to the property’s protected status, it will likely never be sold), Pang and Williams quickly threw open the doors and windows and painted all the walls white, a much-needed reset. The previous tenant, who had lived there for 50 years, was a devout maximalist—the space was a riot of shag carpet and chandeliers. Though Pang admired this “super-extra” aesthetic—they saved one light fixture as a memento—it was starkly at odds with her preference for black and white Man Ray photography and creepy crawly–emblazoned pillows.

Lydia Pang

after by our family.

Despite its location in the verdant, fairy tale–esque Welsh countryside, this creative duo's 500-year-old cottage invites you to the dark—and delightfully cozy—side.

We got to a place where

we were like, let's just

put down some roots

and be where we can be

nourished and looked

Credits

Utility Shelf, Franke; Teapot, Hasami Porcelain.

Credits

Top: Vintage Rug and Cabinet; Lomond Dining Table and Bench Set, Made; Custom Neon Sign, Yellow Pop. Above, right: Studio Green Paint, Farrow & Ball; Vintage Coat Hanger.

Credits

Above: Mobile Chandelier by Monika Mulder for Pholc, Lumens. Right: Vintage Dresser; Black Iron Candlestick, Baileys Home; Hailey Planter, Abigail Ahern. Plummett Paint, Farrow & Ball; Below: Linen Oval Lantern, Abode Living; Bedding by Abigail Ahern for Secret Linen Store; Stitches Rug, Nordic Knots; Nightstand, H&M; Pao Portable Lamp, Hay; Painting by Lydia Pang. Glassware, Baileys Home; Painting by Sonia Pang, Gallery at Home.

Credits

Left: Copenhague 10 Desk, Hay; Aeron Chair, Herman Miller; Guerrilla Girls Print, Tate Shop; Trotten Cabinet and Chair, IKEA; 3D Printed Mobile, Roo Williams. Below: Chunky Woven Jute Rug, Dunelm. On Pang: Shirt, Prada; Pants, Issey Miyake; Shoes, Maison Margiela.

Credits

Below: Godmorgon Mirror Cabinet and Sandvedel Roller Blind, IKEA; Bottom: Metal Table Mirror, H&M. Off-Black Paint, Farrow & Ball; Vintage Vanity; Natural Linen Curtain, Secret Linen Store; Painting, Gallery at Home.

“I don’t know why people

are so afraid of rooms

being dark. When there’s a

candle lit and you just

accept that the space doesn’t

get light, it looks amazing.

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Studio Green Paint, Farrow & Ball

Copenhague 10 Desk in Black, Hay ($1,495)

Stitches Rug in Indigo, Nordic Knots ($545)

Mobile Chandelier, Lumens ($2,275)

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Below: Vintage Armchair; Akari 1A Floor Lamp, Noguchi Shop; Pour Ottoman, Baileys Home; Mirrored Side Table, CB2; Linen Loop Curtain, Secret Linen Store; The New Normal Times Print by Eike König; Still Number 1 by Dot Wade, Gallery at Home. Below, right: Linen Loop Curtain, Secret Linen Store. Bottom: Akari 21A Ceiling Lamp, Noguchi Shop; Vintage Rug; Ottoman, Baileys Home; Reading Light, Zara Home; The Man, the Bat, the Bug, the Dog, the Fish and the Snake Carpet Cushion, Soosumsee.

Credits

issue

the

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Molly Baz and Ben Willett’s house serves up good meals, epic marble, and that sweet indoor-outdoor California lifestyle.

A light-filled Northern California property was home at first sight for interior designer Emily Ward.

Homework

Two couples left busy New York City for a circa-1928, 14,000-square-foot school-turned-residence upstate.