Lighting makes a home for designer Lee Broom

The setting is also worth talking about. The former Victorian fire station (reputedly London’s oldest), complete with watchtower, was converted into apartments in 2000. Broom and his husband Charles Rudgard, CEO of the business, moved here in 2004 and have been doing it up ever since. “It’s had various iterations; the first was cosmetic.” Next, they opened up the main living area, revealing the original, cast-iron beams and high arched windows. Traditional staircases were swapped for the streamlined, minimal aesthetic that pervades the three-storey space. Recently, they sacrificed a spare bedroom for a gym filled with (tasteful) Scandinavian equipment. A giant clock, salvaged from a German railway station, is also illuminated.

The ground-floor kitchen is all white, including the tap. It feels serene, monastic. “I wanted it to be as unobtrusive as possible. So that I don’t get bored of it.” The white tiles also nod to the building’s industrial heritage. The snug banquette seats eight, framed by the strip lighting, which glows by night. “I trial our lighting at home to find out if it’s too bright, too muted; how the materials look in a different setting.”

The Chant chandelier, made of glass bricks, reflects an interest in Brutalist architecture that began during his childhood in Birmingham. One of his favourite buildings was the now-demolished Birmingham Central Library, which opened in 1974. “It had these lovely reading corners framed by pillars set into the fabric of the building, with walnut shelving that combined with the architecture.” The way architects of the time fused “minimalism with drama” – an effect enhanced by their use of light – is what he strives for in his own work.

Lighting is not all he does. He singles out another design, his Hanging Hoop swing chair, which dangles from a sturdy chain in the living room. It became a bestseller when Beyoncé chose it for her 2020 Black is King visual album. The musician liked it so much that she ordered one for herself. Guests find the “Beyoncé chair” – as it is now known – irresistible. “Any design that shouts out for you to try it must be all right.”

It sits opposite a serene pastel-toned artwork above the sofa by textile artist Serena Wells and other abstract oil paintings, mainly found on eBay. “We used to collect photography and large, Banksy-type pieces. Then we decided we wanted a change; so we put it into storage.” The bookshelves are sparsely populated with books on art and architecture and his favourite, Art Deco sculptures. “A collection will start building up and I’ll think, no, this is too much: we need a cull.”

He also paid close attention to the different finishes. Each one is picked for its reflective qualities. Dark wood for the floors and metal tiles, typically used in commercial settings, for the guest bathroom, which bounce light across the room. The bathroom off the main bedroom is lined in twinkly black mosaic tiles visible through the glass wall, like a constellation.

Broom’s career in design “almost never happened”. He was seven when he joined a local theatre group, eventually becoming a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I always looked young for my age so I got lots of roles – messengers or servants, a prince in the Tower.”

Everything changed when, at 17, he entered a fashion design competition whose judging panel included Vivienne Westwood. “I asked for her autograph and she gave me her phone number.” It led to a year’s internship with the label. “It was an extraordinary experience. Watching Vivienne at work while she talked about books she’d read, or pointed out a detail in a Van Dyke portrait, made a huge impression; her capacity to absorb ideas from the past but do something new.” He won a place to study fashion at Central Saint Martins. “It was a fantastic training.” But clothes were not for him: “I was interested in durability; design with longevity.”

Craft is an important part of this. Broom collaborates with makers in Europe and the UK, integrating different skills – glassblowing, metalwork or weaving – into his pieces. “Sometimes I’ll start from a place of naivete with a design that’s never been done before.” In Carrara, Italy, he worked with stonemasons to refine the technique that produced his marble “tube” light: a feat of engineering that required a new set of tools to achieve its slender profile.

Those early years on stage were also formative. “They taught me the importance of presentation.” A Broom show is always an event. Not for him the humble trade stand. For Salone del Mobile (Milan Design Week) in 2022, he took over an art gallery, basing each room on a place of worship: an altar, crypt, temple – lit by contrasting light sources made from Jesmonite and aluminium. The contemplative settings had an effect. “Milan is such a noisy hubbub, but when people came in they stopped talking – and looked. Lighting transforms an atmosphere. It can be highly emotive.”

His work balances the avant-garde with the commercial. “I don’t set out to design for a particular client or place in mind. So I’m always surprised at what works. And what doesn’t.” An early, cut-glass design is a case in point. Introduced in 2012, Crystal Bulb was a novelty. Now it is part of the Design Museum’s permanent collection, alongside the Edison light bulb.

The couple also has an apartment that doubles as a showroom in New York (the US accounts for almost half of their sales). London is for family and friends only. A “typical evening” starts with cocktails in the sitting room, followed by supper in the kitchen before guests drift downstairs to the home cinema – excavated from a disused lightwell. Here too, illumination is all.

Broom flicks a switch plunging the fabric-lined space into a cocooning half-darkness. That, as he would say, is good lighting.

For more information, go to leebroom.com

Photographs: Ben Anders