SOURCE: Sotheby’s
A recent resurgence in everything from backgammon to chess is making its mark in home interiors, writes Kate Youde
Whether it is chess or cards, Monopoly or mahjong, chances are you have a favorite game. And maybe even a dedicated place within your home to play it. Interior designers have noticed an uptick in requests from clients for games rooms in recent years. “We’re definitely seeing more and more people wanting to create spaces where they can do something that allows them to switch off, but not just staring at a screen; spaces to interact with friends and family,” says Portia Fox, cofounder and creative director of her eponymous London-based design studio.
Last summer, she completed a basement games room for a family of five in the Notting Hill neighborhood, featuring a games table with drawers for cards and poker chips, and a bespoke unit housing hundreds of board games and leather-stitched storage boxes for Lego. There is also a combined pool and snooker table, a table tennis table, a television area and a bar.
Flexibility was key to Fox’s design. “It was important to use light in a clever way that made it a space that you could use at any time of the day or night,” she says. She chose wallpaper with a Mediterranean scene, which complements an olive tree added to the property’s light well, “to create that feeling of not being in a basement.” Every light can be adjusted to create different moods, and any combination set and pre-programmed at the touch of a button. It is a room designed for all the family, in contrast to more formal billiard rooms that were a popular feature of traditional grand houses.
The interest in modern games rooms coincides with a revival in board games, which many people rediscovered during pandemic lockdowns. Board game cafés and clubs are enjoying success as people seek alternative ways to socialize in an increasingly digital world. IMARC Group estimates the value of the global board games market will grow from $18.53bn in 2024 to $41.63bn by 2033.
Luxury brands are catering to demand with their own sleek versions of traditional pastimes. Hermès has created mahjong, domino and bridge card sets, while Prada has reimagined classic games such as tic-tac-toe, checkers and backgammon. Sotheby’s sold a box set of ‘chess and go’ by the Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin for nearly double the high estimate in October 2024. In the same month in London, traditional games specialist Purling staged an exhibition of chess sets designed by artists including Sophie Matisse, great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse.
Interior designer Katharine Pooley, founder of her eponymous British design studio, says bespoke pieces are key to her games room projects. Both she and Fox commission custom designs from the luxury board game designer Alexandra Llewellyn.
Pooley’s recent design for a lower ground floor games area at Château de la Croix des Gardes in Cannes, a Belle Époque property that featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 film “To Catch a Thief,” divides the space into three sections: the first has a snooker table and hand-painted wallpaper depicting a scene from the movie; the middle part accommodates a TV and a lounge space for relaxation and conversation; and the third section features a poker table and bar. There is an adjoining bowling alley. Pooley describes the games room entrance—a large, heavy door once used for a bank vault—as “a bit of a party piece.” She says individuality is important to creating a successful games room, carefully considering the client and “what they like to play.”
Everyone’s taste is different. A colorful games room by Charlotte Lucas Design for a home in Raleigh, North Carolina, features a table for jigsaw puzzles and a custom shuffleboard from New York brand Blatt Billiards. LA-based 11 Ravens handcrafts made-to-order games tables for luxury interiors, and has collaborated with Italian tailor Rubinacci on pieces including a pool table that converts into a dining table.
Pooley has noticed more requests for games rooms since COVID-19, which she attributes to people spending more time at home and wanting to entertain. “They can be themselves,” she says. “If you go to a club or a restaurant, there are so many more restrictions.”
But while games rooms are enjoying new popularity, they reflect an age-old desire for play and togetherness. Many of the pastimes people are accommodating in their homes now are ones that have entertained for generations. “There’s a real timelessness to having a space that you can enjoy playing games in,” says Fox.
SOURCE: Sotheby’s