AXEL VERVOORDT

Axel Vervoordt was just 14 when he set out on his first solo antiques-sourcing trip to England in 1961. At the time, hundreds of pieces from the collections of stately homes were being sold off because their aristocratic owners could no longer afford the upkeep. Equipped with a few suitcases and a reasonable sum of money he’d made from working in a local antique shop in his native Antwerp, Belgium, he took the ferry from Zeebrugge to Ipswich. He stayed with relatives and family friends, spending his days riffling through attics stuffed full of furniture and curiosities. He bought what he liked and trusted his instincts.

He returned to Antwerp, suitcases bulging, and sold the whole lot within weeks—mostly to friends of his mother, who told him they were eager for more. It was the first of many buying trips and the start of a career that has seen Vervoordt build a business empire. Today, it encompasses an art and antiques business, two art galleries—one in Antwerp and one in Hong Kong—an interior design and architecture firm and multiple properties. He wears several hats—art dealer, collector, curator, designer, interior architect—but call him a decorator at your peril. “I really hate the term ‘decorator,’” he tells me during my visit to the fairy-tale Kasteel van ‘s-Gravenwezel near Antwerp, the Vervoordts’ home for almost 40 years. “It just feels so superficial somehow.” 

For a man who lives in a moated castle and is credited as being one of the world’s most influential tastemakers, Vervoordt is delightfully down-to-earth. Before we sit to talk in the castle’s first-floor salon, he kneels at the hearth to arrange the kindling. An enticing fire, I discover, is a key ingredient of a Vervoordt interior. The room looks out over the oak trees on his 62-acre estate; the russet-colored leaves are aglow with low autumn sunlight which casts long shadows onto the lime plaster walls and time-worn floorboards. A vast Antoni Tàpies painting from 1972 hangs on one wall, a Japanese scroll on another; a lichen-green Chiyu Uemae sculpture sits on a 400-year-old gothic chest, while an elegant rhododendron branch bows gently over the cream Belgian linen sofa. 

The setting exemplifies Wabi, which Vervoordt uses to describe the design approach he developed in collaboration with Japanese architect Tatsuro Miki.¹ Rooted in Japanese philosophy, Wabi, Vervoordt explains, is not a style, it’s a way of being. It’s what enables him to harmoniously juxtapose pieces from different locations, eras and styles to create a feeling of understated luxury. From priceless artworks to beachcombed objects, there is no hierarchy in Wabi. It recognizes the beauty in imperfection and celebrates the authentic. Artworks, furniture and objects are “in conversation” with each other, like guests at a dinner party. In his book Wabi Inspirations, which is in its seventh reprint, he describes it simply as “a search for the sublime.” 

It’s an approach that has won him an impressive client list with more than a sprinkling of stardust. Sting, Robert De Niro, Calvin Klein and Kim Kardashian have all commissioned Vervoordt to design their private residences. Many of them have visited the castle where they marvel at its countless rooms and the way that, despite its size and stately appearance from the outside, it feels homey. “I like contrasts. I believe a good house should not be all the same,” he says. “There should be a warm library, a very cozy usable kitchen and there should be a very serene, bare bedroom.” At ‘s-Gravenwezel, all of the rooms are distinct. The wabi-room on the castle’s second floor—with its low, built-in corner sofa and artworks by Kazuo Shiraga and Shiro Tsujimura—is for quiet contemplation, while the blue and white dining room showcases a collection of 17th-century Chinese Ming porcelain salvaged from a shipwreck in 1981.² “I definitely don’t do anything to be recognizable, I think it’s a danger,” he explains. “I try to make it more inventive and personal.”

Even at a young age, Vervoordt had an eye for discovering and assembling artworks and objects—he bought his first Lucio Fontana lithograph when he was just 21, around the same time he first learned about the Zero movement and the concept of the void—all things that have continued to greatly influence his work.³ He credits his innate sense of style and his confidence to his mother, who he describes as an optimist, a dreamer and his “biggest champion.” “She taught me to love the simple things,” he says fondly. “She always preferred that my father brought her wildflowers rather than the big red roses from a flower shop. She liked the beauty of simplicity in everything. We lived in a small house but she always made things very cozy with flowers, her table dressings and candlelight. Her friends loved to visit and my parents moved in very creative circles—artists, dealers, collectors, professors and musicians. I learned a lot from them. They were my teachers, my spiritual fathers and mothers.”

“I never wanted to be a shopkeeper. I wanted to build my business in a private space where I could invite clients into my world.”

Vervoordt’s background was undoubtedly privileged—something he says he wasn’t aware of until he ventured out into the world as a teenager. His father was a successful horse trader and his mother was a keen renovator, something she practiced as a hobby rather than pursued as a business. She purchased medieval houses in Antwerp that were due to be demolished to make way for public housing and brought them back to life, frequently bringing Vervoordt to sites with her and asking his opinion. “I didn’t realize this was something only people with resources could do, I thought everyone had the same means we had,” he wrote in his book Axel Vervoordt: Stories and Reflections. “Of course, it wasn’t true.”

One day in 1969, she called her 21-year-old son to say she’d found the perfect renovation project for him: a serene cobblestoned alleyway called Vlaeykensgang that was lined with 16th-century buildings, several of which had fallen into disrepair. It was in a run-down area of the city but Vervoordt was instantly in love. He followed his heart and bought 11 of the houses from two elderly sisters, gradually restoring each one and transforming them into his first family home and his company’s first headquarters. “I never wanted to be a shopkeeper,” he recalls. “I wanted to build my business in a private space where I could invite clients into my world.” 

Today, the epicenter of all Axel Vervoordt operations is Kanaal, a former gin distillery and malting complex on the eastern outskirts of Antwerp. Built in 1857 on the banks of the Albert Canal, where gargantuan container ships now creep along, the 13.5-acre site was incrementally purchased by the Vervoordts and developed over a period of 18 years between 1999 and 2017. The collection of repurposed industrial buildings accommodates the business’s 80-plus staff in its offices, sprawling showrooms, warehouses, restoration workshops and art galleries—the latter arranged across Escher-like concrete grain-storage silos and cavernous industrial halls. The ambitious development also includes residences, gardens, an auditorium and a fitness center—a kind of Vervoordt village, if you like.

What is clear is that Vervoordt thinks of himself as a creative first and a businessman second, if at all. His empire has grown organically and without the formality of a business plan. In the early days, his father was skeptical that Vervoordt could make a living from selling art and antiques. He helped him out with loans, but was always fastidious about repayment. Today, Vervoordt is pleased that his sons, Boris and Dick, take care of the business side of things and manage the real estate, leaving Vervoordt free to channel all of his energy into his creative work. 

“Everyone has their part to play,” he tells me. His wife of 50 years, May, who he calls his “partner in spirit,” is the backbone. She has a keen eye for textiles and color, and an ability to make visitors feel instantly at ease. On the day of our visit, she appears in the hallway with a basket of winter camellia cuttings fresh from the garden which she arranges into vases before making tea and preparing lunch.

For May and Vervoordt, hosting guests and clients has been a way of life. “I am used to it,” she says matter-of-factly. “Fifty, or even 40 years ago, when we had no cook, you might start with a client at 11, so you expect to serve them lunch. But then they might stay until 6 or 7 o’clock in the evening, so you have to invent dinner. Back then, I also did all of the color combinations and the fabric for all of the clients. Now it’s much easier. We have a very nice team at Kanaal and I’m only in the office two full days a week.”  

When Vervoordt and May bought ‘s-Gravenwezel back in 1984, they say they didn’t choose the castle, the castle chose them. Over the years, they have grown into it and it seems impossible that it could ever belong to anyone but them. It has served as their home and a showcase for their collection as well as an events space for private dinners, concerts and recitals. 

This year, Vervoordt has been enjoying spending time at his recently completed “wabi pavilion” in the castle grounds. As a protected building, it took 10 years to obtain planning permission to create the three-story, one-bedroom pavilion, which is built onto an existing orangery in a wild and unlandscaped area of the estate. From the outside, the structure looks part Dutch, part Japanese. Crowned by an oversized, gray-tiled roof, it’s built from stone and lined by pillars made from rough-hewn tree trunks on stone plinths. 

Inside, Vervoordt has used natural and reclaimed materials such as beams taken from an old farm in Holland, textured walls made from a breathable mix of hemp and clay, and 16th-century timber floors from Italy. The dark-stained Artempo cabinets (meaning “art made by time”) that feature throughout are all made from reclaimed pieces of wood by Vervoordt’s carpentry workshop in the castle grounds.⁴ The misshapen bronze door handles are cast from his own hands.

The materials may be humble but there is much modern comfort in the pavilion; underfloor heating installed beneath the rustic floor tiles warms our feet; if you can’t manage the stairs you can take the elevator, which is almost camouflaged into the interior; and the basement houses a spa complete with a steam room. “It’s the most sacred volume,” he says of the monastic meditation room, which is lit from above by a James Turrell-esque circular skylight. “The proportion is the only decoration.” When he is not at the castle or working at Kanaal, Vervoordt spends time here relaxing or doing creative work. “I come here often,” he says. “It’s so quiet. I enjoy the dialogue between the castle and the pavilion; full and emptiness, yin and yang. For me, even just walking through the grounds from the castle to the pavilion is like travel—like going to Japan. Immediately I feel the energy, it’s quite amazing, very purifying.”

At 76, Vervoordt still works almost constantly—leading 15 design projects at any one time—but comings and goings at the castle have slowed slightly. For vacations he likes to stay home and most business travel is done by his sons. Vervoordt says that it’s his love of design and the desire to keep learning that drives him forward. “I have a great range of clients,” he smiles. “From people with little budget, like artists and musicians, to some of the wealthiest people in the world. They are all great friends. I learn from them and they learn from me. It’s a win-win situation.”