About Us

Studio Killian-Dawson is a classically-focused, full-service interior design studio based in the ancient English capital of Winchester and Charleston, South Carolina. Operating internationally, the team create historically rich and layered homes using traditional techniques, often against the backdrop of listed building requirements. They also take on small commercial spaces including private members’ clubs, restaurants and boutique hotels.

Led by Renée Killian-Dawson, the studio is currently working on a townhouse in the historic district of Charleston, a private members’ club in South Carolina and a boutique hotel on the Greek island of Corfu. The studio has recently launched a new furniture and fabrics line, where the team are looking forward to reinventing some of their much-loved pieces alongside new designs.

How would you describe your style?

"Eclectic, architecturally focused and richly layered."

Please describe a recently completed project or tell us about the bespoke service that you offer

"Three years in the planning, the creation of Mugdock Castle was a long-held dream for our new urbanist client. The challenge for us was to meld the old – a nineteenth-century Anglican stone church which was already occupied by our client – with the medieval Gothic-style castellated addition that would replace a sprawling incoherent lean-to structure. Our client wanted the building to look older than the original and the medieval Gothic style was chosen as the architectural focus. We used modern technology such as a ground-source heat pump, KEIM fibreglass, meshed plaster hand-tinted with earth pigments, and triple-glazed French windows locally made and finished in oak. These were combined with a hand-carved Portland-stone chimneypiece, oak joinery, simple dyed and hand-waxed floors, and hand-fired terracotta tiles. Taking our interiors cue from the medieval period, we chose West Indian antique furniture commissioned in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bespoke beds were designed to fit into the cabin-like rooms that echo Dutch sailing vessels. Hand-dyed and woven textiles came from Chelsea Textiles, John Stefanidis, G P and J Baker, Scottish Woollens, Ian Mankin and Pierre Frey, while traditional and modern paints were from Farrow and Ball."

Banner: Simon Jones; 1-3: Renée Killian-Dawson; Image 4 Robert Killian-Dawson

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