The interior designer Peter Mikic stands in the kitchen of Keepers Farm, the home in Oxfordshire he shares with his television-producer husband, Sebastian Scott, and their dogs, Trigger and Henry. The space is filling up with lunch guests. A long dining table, hewn from a single piece of wood cut from a London plane tree, is decorated with vases of spring flowers and surrounded by Pierre Jeanneret-style chairs. It is positioned in front of a vast wall of glass, designed to slide open in summer to bring the indoors into the walled garden where overflowing borders and structured yew bushes designed by gardener Tom Stuart-Smith frame a sleek swimming pool.
The guests include broadcaster Mariella Frostrup and her husband, the human-rights lawyer Jason McCue, Me + Em founder Clare Hornby, Chanel’s president of arts, heritage and culture Yana Peel, Agent Provocateur co-founder Serena Rees, and other friends from the worlds of fashion, media and the arts. Yet, despite the bustle around him, Mikic is preoccupied with something more immediate – a large hunk of beef resting on the counter, fresh from the bright-yellow Lacanche oven. “It’s not falling apart,” he mouths in despair. I take a poke and the meat collapses into tender strands. Mikic sighs with relief and starts carving, while Scott stirs a copper pot of polenta. The man is a perfectionist.
This is the essence of their world: a space created for gathering friends. Once a small weekend retreat, Keepers Farm has since been transformed into a striking architectural statement. From the outside, it appears almost minimalist – an industrial-inspired structure in Herefordshire stone. Inside, however, the space becomes a riot of exuberance and creativity, reflecting the couple’s bold sensibilities. The glass walls wrap the house, inviting the wild beauty of the surrounding 170 acres – meadows of bluebells, dense woodlands, sprawling wildflowers – into its very heart. “I wanted light everywhere,” Mikic explains. “It’s a real nod to my Australian roots.”
The house encapsulates the bold, playful design aesthetic that Mikic has espoused throughout his career, first in fashion and subsequently at the namesake studio he founded in 2010. He credits his great friend, the late interior designer David Collins, with teaching him about colour. “He used to let me go to his studio and play with fabrics long before I thought of working in interiors,” he says. “He taught me to love yellow!” And his adoration of design legends – David Hicks, Ettore Sottsass and Jean Royère – is evident throughout. The floors are covered in rugs featuring ’60s-style swirls, dashes and dots. Sofas are as plump and inviting as marshmallow puffs. The house is filled with ceramics; a glass coffee table, laden with books and vintage glassware, holds one of his favourite reads, Maximalism: Bold, Bedazzled, Gold and Tasseled Interiors by Simon Doonan. “It sums me up,” he chuckles.
An invitation to Keepers Farm makes for an indulgent escape: long lunches stretching into the evening, countryside walks with the dogs, swims in the pool, film screenings in the deeply cushioned private cinema, late-night saunas and, invariably, dancing in the aptly named playroom. It’s the embodiment of a lifestyle that has drawn an impressive clientele of film producers, media moguls and hedge-fund executives. “My clients live well, they love to entertain,” says the designer. “I create the environment for them to do that.”
As such, his design theory is loose and occasionally eccentric. He values a flea-market gem as much as a pair of Giacometti bedside tables. He likes to buy pieces from young artists at the graduate shows. His appreciation for midcentury furniture sits comfortably alongside his own custom designs like the sideboard he designed for his friend Laura Bailey, complete with compartments for her sunglasses collection. “Peter is an empath, he gets me, there is an ease and comfort to his vision that feels joyous and welcoming rather than show-off,” she says.
Another friend, Caroline Massenet, the French ex-model, stylist and founder of leather clothing brand SKIIM, credits Peter’s fashion background as a key factor in the Holland Park house he designed for her: “I had such a clear sense of what I wanted. Peter’s understanding of that and his playfulness related so well to my own style,” Massenet says. Whatever the challenge, such as tackling large-scale projects like private planes and yachts, Mikic has an innate ability to translate his clients’ ideas. “When I started, I had never designed a plane or yacht before. I had to Google what ‘aft’ was in the middle of a meeting,” he says.
Mikic has been commissioned to collaborate with Argentinian hotelier Alan Faena on a range of hotel projects, which will see him bringing his theatrical maximalism to venues in New York’s High Line, Tulum, Saudi Arabia or the Red Sea. With each project, however, he brings the same ethos. “Alan has taught me so much,” Mikic says of Faena, who is more impresario than hotelier, creating immersive experiences that fuse theatre, art, fashion, food and music. “He has taught me about storytelling through design. He told me that if it doesn’t have a story it’s just decorating – and that has no life.” Faena is clearly delighted: “Peter has a one-of-a-kind, holistic way of interpreting the Faena spirit – translating his vision into spaces that feel layered and alive. Collaborating with him has been a true joy.”
Mikic was born in Australia in 1968. His parents, both Yugoslavian refugees, had fled to Vienna before emigrating in 1950. “They arrived with nothing but $20 and a hostel bed. My father started working on building sites before eventually launching his own business: in time he built a beautiful house for us above a surf beach south of Sydney,” he says. He has fond memories of what seems a very glamorous, somewhat bohemian childhood: “We would drive in a camper van to stay on the site, we would barbecue – it was an amazing time.” His mother had a great sense of style. “There are old photos of her in knee-high boots and go-go dresses,” he says. “My parents weren’t wealthy but they had incredible taste.”
After earning a BA in fashion from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, he co-founded the successful menswear label Stonewood & Bryce with his friend Theo Vanderzalm. They both moved to London in the early ’90s to become part of the emerging scene. “It was the era of the supermodels. I was obsessed with the theatre, the glamour – all of it.”
Glamour, however, did not immediately await them. “We were really quite poor – we rented rooms in some very dodgy places,” he says. “I remember one landlady wouldn’t let us bring in a heater, and the bathroom window wouldn’t shut. But we didn’t mind, we were so thrilled to be in London.” The label started gaining traction. “We were selling in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, showing in Milan – our slot was right between Prada and Dolce & Gabbana,” he recalls. “But I wasn’t wedded to fashion. I liked challenges.”
A commission from the property developers the Candy brothers to design uniforms for their yacht crew precipitated Mikic’s move towards furnishings and interiors. He gradually phased out the fashion brand. Having entered as an outsider, today he sits at the centre of the new establishment. Mikic is one of a group of interior designers creating rooms at the WOW!house, presented by London’s Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, and sits on the PAD art fair judging panel, alongside names such as Jacques Grange, Peter Marino, Veere Grenney and Tom Dixon.
Claire German, CEO of the Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, credits Mikic for “bringing his glamorous style and love of colour to our designer showcase. He instils a sense of adventure in every interior he creates. He is also a dream to work with, an industry treasure.”
Today, Mikic leads a team of 32 in east London’s Charlotte Road. Despite an ever-growing roster of high-profile clients – he has just been awarded a new Burberry store in Milan as well as the redesign of its London flagship – he remains grounded. “I ride everywhere on my Tokyo bike, rain or shine,” he says. Neither is he the party boy that one might be forgiven for assuming him to be. In fact, he’s quite the hermit. “During the week, I stay in my tiny flat above the office, cook just for myself and see no one. I love it – I need it,” he says.
Lunch at Keepers Farm finally draws to a close and the guests set off to make the one-hour journey back to London. After some vigorous washing-up, Mikic and Scott light the fire in the teak-lined snug and sink into a huge sofa upholstered in a graphic black and white fabric by Schumacher. “This is where we watch TV. We had to remake the sofa,” he admits. “It just wasn’t deep enough for the dogs to be able to sprawl out and we simply could not have that!”
Maximum impact: five spaces with a story
A house in St Tropez, 2023
KXU Gym, London, 2017
A house in Notting Hill, west London, 2023
Upstairs at Langan’s Brasserie, Mayfair, London, 2021
A house in Islington, north London, 2023
