Home Is Where The Heart Is: Inside The Beautiful Home Of The Ever-Stylish Heart Evangelista-Escudero
Heart Evangelista-Escudero (or Love Marie Ongpauco) has a thing for white. A significant amount of her clothes is in this pristine shade; she loves dressing up in white outfits, and she even started a hashtag for her white OOTDs: #LoveMariexWhites. This love for the classic, timeless, and versatile color served as a take-off point and a fitting canvas for her home, which is expectedly as stylish as the one dwelling in it.
READ: Top 3 #MetroMostStylish2018: Heart Evangelista-Escudero
In an exclusive interview with Metro Society magazine, Heart revealed that it had always been her vision to own “an all-white house with blue and white prints that would serve as a gallery space for her artwork.” She says, “Because my paintings are colorful, I wanted that to be the focal point of my house.”
Heart’s 530-sq.m. home is located in a highly-coveted neighborhood in Quezon City, along a street lined with huge balete and acacia trees. Upon entering the gate, one is led to an entry porch with Greek columns. Beneath the simple exterior lies an interior space that is characterized by minimalistic elegance married with maximalist tendencies.
READ: WATCH: Love Marie’s Latest Exhibit Reveals She’s Ready For Motherhood
The living and dining areas are on the first floor, while the second floor has the family room and the bedrooms. Both floors are predominantly white, but are given more style and character by home accents in various prints, patterns, and textures.
The attic is clearly Heart’s favorite space, because she considers it her sanctuary. It has her boudoir, walk-in-closet, and her work area. Dressed in dainty wallpaper, the third floor is a reflection of Heart’s utterly feminine and artsy persona.
Apart from the stylish eclecticism that defines certain areas of her home, another design highlight in Heart’s place is the incorporation of glass doors and windows that visually demarcate the indoor from the outdoor, but at the same time allow for better circulation.
“You can pretty much stay in any spot and not mind that there’s no aircon. We wanted a place where it’s not always necessary to have aircon. We wanted fresh air. And so, the house was built in a way that we had wind tunnels,” she says. “We made it in a way that it’s open wide to make it look more spacious.”
READ: This Is How You Should Take A Shoefie, According To Heart Evangelista
Metro.Style got the details on how this lovely home was put together, straight from Rossy Anne Rojales, Creative Director, and Bong Rojales, Marketing Director, of Hurray Interior Design Group (the new mother brand of Heima and Heim Interiors), the amazing design team responsible for making Heart’s dream home come to life. Bong also reveals that they are now working on the room of Heart and Chiz's baby, sharing that what was initially planned as a guest room is now being transformed into a nursery. Heart recently announced on Instagram that she is pregnant through an Instagram post that shows her with husband Chiz as she holds a cute Dior onesie.
Please share how your team met Heart. Have you worked with her prior to this home project?
She got our number from Solenn Heussaff, who is also our past client. We haven’t worked with her before, but we were happy to meet her the first time as she seemed easy to work with and her desired style was also something we know we can execute well. It was a good match from the start.
When you found out that Heart wants Heim to work on her home, what was your reaction and what style did you immediately associate with Heart?
We are familiar with her style and brand preferences based on what we would read about her and see on her social media accounts. But as we are very thorough in our interviews, brainstorming, as well as the design process, we always try to learn a lot more about our clients in order to create something really for them.
The initial association, in a way, is part of it, but we were able to do several visits to her old home, and had dinner with her and Senator Chiz Escudero a few times also.
As with most of our clients, we try our best to get to know about their lifestyles and specific needs and balance those with other factors. We had a lot of inspiration from them. Heart’s art and the surprising fact that Sen. Chiz also paints really became big factors for their home.
How was your first meeting with Heart like? What were her specific requirements for her home? What style was she going for? What inspired her?
For one, you can say they are more into a classic and timeless look—a mix of Mediterranean, Paris, and French fashion brands. At the same time, we also had to balance her and Sen. Chiz’s styles. She has her own areas, and some more traditional areas reflect their common taste.
We used tiles from Cotto Italia and Porcelanosa. Their choice was also an Italian kitchen from Scavolini. We had a mix of custom furniture and off-the-shelf from American brands like Pottery Barn. You may have probably seen the bold and exquisite wall covers from our premium supplier, Elements. We also assisted in other areas like the landscaping.
The house is not really extravagant, it still is very practical in some areas but very tasteful. They have good taste and art, as I mentioned, is a big part of their space.
We came into the project when construction was already in full swing. We normally prefer to come in really early, before the architect and contractor. Good thing, we were able to catch up and they allowed us to take our time designing and decide on the right materials and elements.
Our effort took about 12 months overall. In other large premium projects, our engagement is normally 12-24 months, so this was a little fast. They had a good team in place already that we were able to work with easily. And as clients, Heart and Sen. Chiz are very decisive if given enough information and choices.
Were there any challenges that the design team had to face in the process of putting together this home? Overall, how was it like working with Heart?
It was very satisfying, fulfilling and, I guess, they are very satisfied, too, as we are currently doing something with them.
See more of Heart and Sen. Chiz's lovely home in this gallery that shows the fashion icon and mom-to-be posing for OOTDs and selfies and setting up beautiful tablescapes:
[photos]
Photos from @iamhearte
Photographs by Paul del Rosario, courtesy of Metro Society
Top Stories
Metro Beauty Picks Of The Week
BEAUTYMar 14, 2023
