St. James's Square Private Offices

The Project

A private office in St. James's Square — reception desk, lounge seating and bespoke joinery for a Grade I listed address

5 St James's Square is a Grade I listed Georgian townhouse on one of London's most established addresses. The brief, led by LA-based Two Muse Studio for a private client, was to bring a quietly residential character to a suite of private offices — an alternative to the corporate fit-out that the building and its location would make incongruous.

Two Muse are known for interiors that blend mid-century ease with European formality. For St James's, they wanted furniture that felt unhurried, warm and precisely suited to a working day that also includes receiving guests. We worked closely with their team on proportions, radii, leg profiles and seam details to develop a cohesive collection that bridges West Coast comfort and London formality.

Our scope covered a monumental reception desk in dark-stained oak and blackened steel; a family of sofas and lounge chairs specified to residential seat depth and pitch; and a run of oak storage units and credenzas. Together, the pieces bring a members' club quality to the working environment.

Location Central London

Interior Design Two Muse Studios

Category Commercial — Bespoke Furniture

Setting Grade I Listed

The Reception Desk

Blackened steel and graphite oak — quiet authority at the threshold

The desk spans around three metres and is the first thing you see stepping from the lift. It is formed in dark-stained oak — finished in a deep graphite tone that reads as timber rather than a flat block of colour — with a blackened steel frame and plinth whose matte patina catches the light without harshness. Practical requirements are all resolved behind clean lines: concealed storage, cable runs, integrated power and a generous work surface. From the front, you read a single continuous gesture — planes of timber and steel, with carefully softened edges wherever a hand might naturally rest.

The building's historic layout and tight access routes made delivering the desk in one piece impossible. We engineered the steel framework and cladding to arrive in carefully planned sections, carried through existing stair cores and corridors. Our metalwork team assembled and welded it in situ — millimetre-accurate fabrication, sequenced to protect surrounding finishes, with blackening treatment and protective wax applied on site before fitting the final three-metre steel top plate. The result reads as a single, monolithic piece.

Sofas & Lounge Chairs

A residential spirit — generous seat depths for a working day

Beyond reception, breakout and meeting spaces are furnished with sofas and lounge chairs developed to feel more like a private apartment than a boardroom. Seat depths are generous, backs are supportive at working pitch, and arm profiles are softened and rounded. Mid-century references — clean-lined frames, considered proportions — sit comfortably within the Georgian rooms without competing with the architecture.

The upholstery palette was developed with Two Muse: textured neutrals, subtle colour, a mix of tactile fabrics that wear well over time. We worked with our upholstery partners to fine-tune foam densities, layering softer toppers over supportive cores for seats that feel inviting from the first moment and retain their structure over years of use. Details — stitched seams, tailored piping, correctly positioned maintenance zips — give each piece a couture finish without fussiness.

Oak Finishes & Storage

Minimal fronts, judged reveals — discreet storage throughout

Storage units and credenzas run through the office in a complementary oak finish. Carcasses are fabricated in high-quality birch ply for stability, then faced in oak veneers selected to sit alongside the dark-stained reception desk without matching it too directly. Discreet shadow gaps, handleless doors and soft-close hardware keep the visual line calm and uninterrupted throughout.

Internally, the storage is functional — adjustable shelves, cable management routes, ventilated equipment sections — but from the room, each unit reads as a clean architectural volume. The finished scheme sits somewhere between members' club, pied-à-terre and discreet workplace: an environment where the furniture anchors the character as much as the listed architecture does.