'I wanted this home to be a museum of me. For people to walk in and their jaws drop' – tour the eccentric home of club king Glyn Fussel

'Adult Camp Glamour' was the brief I gave myself when thinking about this house design,’ says the renowned events organizer, Glyn Fussell – known in the UK as the King of Clubbing. His 1840s home is on the edge of Epping Forest, bordering London and Essex is full of Dalmatian print, Murano glass, and opulent lighting. It’s safe to say he nailed it.

But for the man behind the era-defining (and now defunct) LGBTQ+ club night/fancy dress extravaganza Sink the Pink, and Mighty Hoopla festival, which saw 60,000 people show up this summer to dance to live performances, the house was designed to be an antidote to his party lifestyle, and that’s where the ‘adult’ bit comes in.

‘As I was getting older, I had an urge to feel calm and safe,’ Glyn says. ‘To have a relaxing home that I could turn into a nest, that would balance out my work life.’ Glyn’s way of creating a haven – one ‘that people will still walk into and know immediately could only belong to me’ – centered around color.

He had been working with Farrow & Ball on its 'Painting with Pride' initiative, which was developed to decorate LGBTQIA+ venues with the Carte Blanche collection of papers and paints by Christopher John Rogers, helping create public places the queer community could feel at home in.

‘I am so excited to make these spaces great again,’ Glyn said of the partnership, which has since seen overhauls of gay landmarks like the Margate Arts Club and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. So it seemed only natural to have Farrow & Ball’s brand ambassador Patrick O’Donnell help Glyn with this project.

‘Patrick gave me the confidence to go in some of the bold color directions I’d been considering,’ Glyn says. ‘He pushed me to paint the ceiling in the snug in Preference Red, a deep burgundy that makes the room feel like a camp theatre.’

The idea to pair this with the silvery blue tones of Sardine on the walls came from a vintage pinball machine Glyn owned, where the two colors worked in harmony, ‘but that I probably wouldn’t have thought to copy had Patrick not put it forward,’ Glyn says.

‘I would never have gone with a yellow kitchen but I’m so glad he suggested it. The India Yellow paint we chose for the units has a mustard tone that people gravitate towards, and works well with the warm light of the chandelier and vintage sconces.’ Each room has its own color theme, but Glyn says it doesn’t feel disjointed as his personality and love of dogs and canine motifs runs throughout.

Some of his more outlandish ideas were reined in by his fiancé Jermaine, who suggested keeping the en suite and bedroom neutral. ‘They’re the places I feel most at peace as there is no overstimulation,’ Glyn says. It was Patrick’s idea to flow the Stripe wallpaper from behind the headboard and over the ceiling. ‘It has the cocooning effect of a being in a four-poster bed,’ Glyn says.

It’s these decorative tricks that allow Glyn and his guests to be both uplifted and unwind. ‘That’s because upstairs is almost womb-like in the way the colors hold and soothe you, the house looks after you in that way. I wanted to prove that you could be playful and still grown up, that decor could be sophisticated without being boring. That glamour could be enriching, too.’

3 paint rules to take from this colorful project

Glyn Fussell shares the secrets he learned from Farrow & Ball’s Patrick O’Donnell

1. There is no such thing as just cream, or just white, and you need to look at the nuance when picking a neutral. In my hallway, I paired Farrow & Ball’s James White with the Whirlybird green because it has green undertones to it, so there is much more harmony.

2. There is a power in pairing primary colors together – they bounce off each other if you get them right. It works when one is really bold and one is more knocked back – if both are vibrant it can be overpowering.

3. Each room’s palette has to start with how the sunlight hits it. In a bright room, there will be glare that can dim even the brightest of shades, so you may need to go deeper in color than you feel comfortable with in order to counteract that.