Light falls across tall window frames and catches the white mouldings before it reaches the darker floor below. Inside, the building reads as a layered heritage house: arched openings, paneled walls, and a central stair that pulls the eye upward through a round void. The historic townhouse restoration keeps those older elements in view instead of hiding them, while the current office use leaves open the option of an office to residence change later on.

Returning the listed townhouse to its original proportions

The starting point was a listed townhouse that had been altered several times over the years. The aim of the restoration project was to bring it back to its original proportions and state, while respecting the scale of the house and the garden behind it. The building dates from 1777 and was commissioned by the Arents-Van der Plancke family. On this site, a bishop’s palace once stood, which adds another layer to the way the property sits within its setting.

The plans also allowed for a future shift from office to residence, depending on the owner’s wishes. That possibility matters because the project was never treated as a single-use interior. Instead, rooms, openings, and circulation were approached as elements that could support different ways of living. In a heritage house, that kind of flexibility has to sit quietly inside the structure, without disturbing the measured rhythm of the rooms or the position of the windows.

Classical rooms shaped by mouldings, doors, and light

Inside, the classical interior is defined by the way the walls are framed. High door openings, fine cornices, and shallow panels draw clear lines across the rooms. A chandelier hangs in the centre of more than one space, but the ornament does not overpower the architecture. It sits under the ceiling like a fixed point, while the larger gestures remain the height of the rooms, the depth of the door reveals, and the way daylight spreads across pale surfaces.

One room is arranged around a broad table, with curtains running down either side of the windows and a crystal chandelier hovering above. Another space uses wall panelling and a framed landscape painting to anchor the room visually. These details are not decorative extras added at random; they are part of the interior’s reading of the building. The historic townhouse restoration preserves that sense of sequence, where each room has its own register of surface and proportion.

The stair as a vertical pause

The central spiral staircase is one of the strongest spatial moves in the house. Dark treads curve around a round opening, and the balustrade follows the movement without breaking it into smaller parts. Seen from above, the stair becomes a vertical pause in the plan: a place where the house opens up and light shifts from one level to another. It also reinforces the architectural discipline of the restoration project, because the stair is not treated as a separate feature but as part of the house’s original geometry.

Nearby, corridors extend the same language of arches, frames, and pale wall finishes. The floor surface changes to a light stone-look tile in places, which helps the transitions read more clearly. Overhead, a hanging lamp marks the passage without competing with the mouldings. These smaller moves matter in a listed townhouse, where the route from one room to the next has to remain legible and where every opening affects how the interior is experienced.

Windows that hold the garden in view

Large window bays bring the garden into the interior without turning the rooms outward completely. The view sits behind the furniture and the drapery, so the green outside becomes part of the room’s depth rather than a backdrop. In one image, the window line runs behind a dining table and upholstered chairs; in another, the opening lands beside a quieter office setting with built-in shelving. That contrast between social rooms and working rooms reflects the building’s current office function and the possibility of a future residential use.

The garden view is especially important because it softens the weight of the historic structure. Brick, plaster, wood, and glass each hold their own surface, but the trees and planting beyond the windows loosen the composition. The result is not a fixed, closed interior. It is a heritage house where the rooms remain formal, yet the relation to the garden keeps the plan open and readable from deep inside the building.

Details that carry the restoration

Much of the project’s character sits in the details rather than in any single dramatic gesture. A white panel with raised moulding, a carved frame around a niche, a painted landscape set inside ornate trim: these elements show how the restoration project works through repair and alignment. The images also reveal a mix of materials that belong to the house’s layered history, including brick, plaster, wood, stone, and steel. Each one appears in a clear role, whether as structure, surface, or support.

In the office rooms, built-in shelving lines the wall and keeps the room’s proportions tidy. In the living spaces, decorative wall finishes and window casings create deeper shadows around the openings. Even the roof line outside carries that measured presence, with red-brown tiles above a restored, pale facade composition. The historic townhouse restoration is strongest when these parts are seen together: exterior, stair, room, and garden all working through the same controlled language of change.

From office use to possible living space

The possibility of converting the building from office to residence gives the project an added layer, but it is handled as an option rather than a completed change. That distinction is important. The house remains a listed townhouse with an office function, yet the plans already consider how it could adapt without losing the scale of its rooms or the hierarchy of its openings. The historic townhouse restoration therefore reads as both a preservation exercise and a practical architectural framework for later use.

What stays with the viewer is the calm structure of the house: the stair turning through the centre, the tall windows holding light, the classical interior surfaces marking each room, and the garden view reaching in from outside. Those elements make the building easy to read. They also explain why the project stands out as a restoration project rather than a cosmetic renewal. It works with the existing house, its listed character, and the original proportions that still organise the rooms today.

Photography: Glenn Reynaert, Hendrik Bliegs