A neglected Maltese house brought back to life by the owners of historic Villa Bologna Pottery
Sophie Edwards’ most vivid childhood memories are of family holidays spent on Malta. Every summer, her parents, designers Suzanne and Christopher Sharp – the co-founders of The Rug Company – would decamp from their house in London to the island, where Suzanne, who is Maltese, was born. There were daily trips to the grocer’s shop, its dark interior crammed with bright Mediterranean produce; picnics at rocky coves; and, in August, the festa, when the streets of the island’s old towns are bedecked with banners and locals turn out for communal suppers.
That neighbourly way of life – a quiet world apart from Malta’s sprawling resorts – continues in the coastal town, north of the capital Valletta, where Sophie and her husband Rowley now live with their two young children, Rocco and Zadie. For the couple, who spent four years living and working in Rwanda, designing and developing new housing, moving to Malta – a staging post between Europe and Africa – was ‘a happy compromise’, explains Sophie. ‘We weren’t quite ready to move back to the toughness of London life.’ The sea is only two streets away – ideal for post-school dips. ‘It’s a wonderful place to bring up children,’ she enthuses. ‘The pace of life is refreshing here – although we’re the youngest couple on the street, there is a real sense of belonging.’
It was not simply nostalgia that drew them here. In 2021, Rowley and Sophie, who has inherited her parents’ intrepid, entrepreneurial streak, acquired the island’s oldest pottery. Villa Bologna was established in 1924 in the palm-shaded gardens of a Baroque villa owned by the descendants of Sir Gerald Strickland, a former Prime Minister of the island when it was under British rule. ‘The pottery started out as a charitable venture, to provide local employment during a difficult time. Now, it is a household name. Peer inside any kitchen cupboard on Malta and you will be sure to find a piece of Villa Bologna,’ says Sophie.
Alongside revitalising classics – like the shapely ‘Pineapple’ lamp, a must-have souvenir in the 1970s for tourists who would bring them home ‘squeezed between their knees’ on aeroplanes – Sophie and Rowley work closely with the artisans at the pottery to introduce new pieces. All have the same hand-painted aesthetic and are sold at Villa Bologna’s headquarters in the village of Attard in the middle of Malta, as well as its west London store and online. This spring, the couple opened a restaurant in a whitewashed former stable block at the villa, where local dishes are served on Villa Bologna ceramics that have been made by hand in the studio next door.
The British were last in a long line of occupiers – Norman, Arab, French – who shaped the island’s culture and architecture. Sophie and Rowley’s house, built from limestone in the 1930s, has a typically ornate Moorish-style gallariji closed balcony, and the omnipresent Maltese Cross appears on the knocker that gleams on the panelled front door. Thick walls and shuttered windows keep the house cool in summer. At the rear, orangery-style doors lead from the kitchen to the lemon tree-scented courtyard garden, sheltering behind high walls.
It was Sophie’s estate agent uncle, Francis Spiteri Paris, who found the house, set on a network of streets with names like Norfolk and Windsor, which recall Malta’s time as a British colony (it gained independence in 1964). Bequeathed by the last owner to seven heirs, the property had been empty for a decade; a dusty air of neglect permeated its three storeys. Doer-uppers are not very popular on Malta. ‘This house cost the same as a two-bedroom new build with blasting AC. We did not need any convincing,’ says Sophie, who lived on the island full-time until her family moved to London when she was six.
In the past, the local planners had a relaxed attitude to alterations, but that has changed in recent years. The couple were allowed to add the neat, cork-walled spare room and bathroom on an area of the flat roof previously occupied by a dilapidated shed; the rest of the roof is now a romantic terrace within earshot of the church bells. But they were not allowed to update the traditional stone il-garigor. This vertiginous internal spiral staircase was built for servants so they could nip, unseen, from the kitchen past the first-floor bedrooms and up to the roof to deal with the laundry. Also at the back of the house is the original lightwell, which was installed for illumination and ventilation, where Sophie added a foliage-covered trellis that softens its functionality.
Tiles are another typically Maltese feature, used for both decoration and practicality. (Sophie remembers flinging herself, as a hot and bothered toddler, onto the floor in an effort to cool off in summer.) The house’s original tiles were beyond repair, but Sophie, aided by her mother – ‘she was crucial, as she knows Maltese history and design so well’ – tracked down similar ones made in Morocco, which had a suitably bright and Mediterranean feel, from Mosaic Factory. ‘The website allows you to work out different configurations and designs. My mother and I would WhatsApp each other every day with ideas. The whole house was very much a collaboration.’
House clearances are another Maltese tradition. The sitting room has a glass-topped, 1970s bamboo coffee table found locally by Rowley. However, Sophie broke with convention for the decoration. Instead of simple white walls, the surfaces bask in pattern and colour (most of the paint is from Sicilian brand Licata, chosen for its Mediterranean palette). ‘I grew up around design,’ says Sophie. ‘I would often come home after school and find that the kitchen was a new colour.’
Masking tape came in handy when painting the striped walls of the bathroom. The soaring stairway with its restored handrail – ‘so huge that it could have felt a bit stark’ – was brought to life with a large-scale wallpaper from Cole & Son. Deep Carrara marble surfaces rest on top of Ikea cupboards in the kitchen, where shutters sing with Farrow & Ball’s ‘Sudbury Yellow’ – a colour repeated on the walls.
In the main bedroom, the glazed balcony has become a dressing room. The bed, which is ‘wide enough for the children to climb onto’, was made in Lamu in Kenya, where Sophie’s parents built a holiday home from scratch in 2014. For their son Rocco’s bedroom, Sophie added the mouldings on the walls and repainted a bed that had originally been made for her brother. The boat-shaped lamp, based on a traditional Maltese luzzu fishing vessel, is a classic Villa Bologna piece updated for a new audience.
On the terrace, a carved wooden bench provokes another memory. It was a present from a former neighbour who was like a second mother to Sophie and her brothers. ‘She had no children of her own, but she’d pick us up from nursery, or cook supper for us,’ she recalls. Like Sophie’s neighbours now, ‘she was part of our community.’
Villa Bologna Pottery: villabolognapottery.com
Paul Massey1/11In this family space, abstract prints from Oka pick up on the colours of the Mosaic Factory floor tiles and create an eye-catching display above a sofa from a local house clearance, upholstered with vintage fabric sourced in Valletta. The shade on a Villa Bologna lamp echoes the lower part of the wall in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Sudbury Yellow’
Paul Massey2/11A chandelier from Graham & Green hangs above vintage chairs from Marché Paul Bert Serpette in Paris in this airy space, where vintage and new ceramics from Villa Bologna line marble shelves.
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Paul Massey5/11‘Pompeian’ wallpaper by Cole & Son and blue floor tiles from Mosaic Factory introduce subtle pattern and colour
Paul Massey6/11Cork-lined walls and Mosaic Factory tiles are the backdrop for a vintage bed painted in red gloss, and a ‘Dolphin’ lamp and wall light from Villa Bologna
Paul Massey7/11A bed made in Lamu, Kenya, is teamed with a colourful suzani and a red cushion, both from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul
Paul Massey8/11An inherited chest of drawers and an Italian table in the same red gloss set off a blind in fabric bought locally at JB Stores, a headboard in David Hicks’ ‘La Fiorentina’ and checkerboard tiles
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Paul Massey10/11A wall in stripes of white and ‘1/16’ coloured render from Licata showcases an Indian carved bench with cushions in Indian block print from The Cloth Shop
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