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A life and home less ordinary – Heritage 53

With the arrival of the new year comes new hopes, new dreams and for many homeowners – especially here in Ibiza – new home decoration. While the pandemic is now firmly in our rear-view mirrors, one element that remains irrevocably changed is the desire to seek comfort, beauty and quality within our own living spaces. Enter Heritage 53, a high-end interiors website and consultancy service founded by Sophie Lee – a long-term Ibiza dweller whose personal journey led her to a passion for décor infused with colour and joy.

Heritage 53 is a twist on tradition; an ultra-luxe online shopping and interiors consultation service that takes the stress and uncertainty out of investing in statement pieces for your home. This is the new Ibiza style – for the bold, for the brave, for the renegades and the outliers. Those who wish to feel joy when stepping into every room in their home; those who wish to use furniture and décor as conversation starters; and those who’ve eschewed all-white, sterile decor or cookie cutter Buddhas and wicker furniture imported from Bali. While the initial idea stemmed from Sophie’s penchant for velvet-upholstery and vintage pieces with character and colour, the emotional connection felt by her customers when introduced to the Heritage 53 concept was palpable.

Sophie Lee is the island-based entrepreneur and interiors expert behind this innovative new online shopping and consultation service.

Sophie’s journey to the world of Ibiza style was ‘written in the sand’, as her Granny Boo liked to say. As a child in the 1970s, she grew up in an eclectic manor house in Hollowell in England, playing games and dreaming up scenarios that today’s youth would rarely know existed thanks to screen time and the internet. Surrounded by centuries-old tapestry-strung walls, art, antiquities, and mid-century furniture, her imagination ran wild and she was encouraged to live a life less ordinary, This was all thanks to her adventurous father, Humphrey Jones, who’d broken free from the humdrum of society in the early 1950s. It was 1953, to be precise – hence the name Heritage 53 – when he set sail for a magical Mediterranean island that beckoned the creatives, the free-thinkers, the bohemians and libertines. Those who transformed Ibiza into the island we know today.

Of course, this was well before Sophie was born but such traits are inherited and it was inevitable the young Sophie would also become entranced by the island her father so loved. She relocated to the white isle more than 25 years ago, where she created a home, raised a family, and set up a successful business, Ibiza Chair Company. As the island’s burgeoning wedding industry skyrocketed, Sophie rented luxury chairs (and eventually much more) to wedding venues and villas. Fast forward to 2020 however, and the wedding industry in Ibiza was put on hold due to the global restrictions on travel and group gatherings. It was at this point, her natural entrepreneurial instincts kicked in once again and Heritage 53 was born.

Islanders were forced to spend lengthy periods of times in their homes – whether small fincas and apartments or A-list style super-villas – while droves of people left the city and relocated to Ibiza for freedom and fresh air. One thing became abundantly clear to Sophie. Home was not only where the heart was, it was now also the centre of our universe. It needed to become somewhere that embodied our personalities while satisfying the practicalities of life – not just a place to lay our heads at night. And so, with Heritage 53, Sophie turned her unique eye for style and incredible attention to detail to helping friends and clients elevate their homes, helping them express themselves through single statement pieces or redecorating rooms or even entire villas.

Your experience starts online, where Sophie’s carefully curated selection of pieces from some of the world’s most luxurious, vanguard and creative brands (more on those later) can be viewed all in one easy place. From luxe lounge chairs, oversized benches, and elegant dining chairs to all styles of tables, chic bedroom furnishings, statement mirrors, incredible rugs, creative children’s furniture and décor, stylish work-from-home set-ups and more, there is everything you could possibly need for life on the white isle. And if you don’t see what you’re looking for on the site, that’s not a problem at all. Heritage 53 can source whatever you’re dreaming of, and even have bespoke pieces custom made.

For anyone who feels unsure about shopping online for luxury furniture, Sophie has thoroughly vetted all of the Heritage 53 brands and offers what she calls a ‘White Glove Service’. This means all pieces are delivered directly to the Heritage 53 warehouse, personally inspected by Sophie, and then delivered in person to your home by her team. The love and care that goes into the sourcing, buying and ordering products for Heritage 53 by Sophie is like it is for her own home – such is her passion for her work. In Ibiza, where physical furniture stores are few and far between with limited basic stock, this is a godsend!

For those who don’t necessarily have the confidence to mix and match from the website, but also don’t need to engage an interior designer, Sophie also offers private consultations (in Ibiza only), where she comes directly to your home with a selection of catalogues that showcase far more than the pieces selected for the Heritage 53 website. She digs deeper into your style, lifestyle, taste and desires, in addition to understanding the architecture and layout of your home and can curate a selection completely tailored to you. She also works with high-end estate agents and their clients to completely decorate new homes on the island.

What gives Heritage 53 a competitive and creative edge is the calibre of brands available. There’s Gufrum, a radical 1960s design house known for its Pop Art influenced pieces and the iconic BOCCA lips sofa; and Missoni Home – the legendary Italian design house’s homewares division, with its famed zigzag and multicolour patterns bringing vibrant colour combinations into the home, whether through sofas, armchairs, side tables and even beds. Reda Amalou is one of Sophie’s personal favourites, a French architect whose beautiful interpretations of classic mid-century pieces is like a masterclass in design. And then there’s Imperfetto Lab, a family-run brand that treats home decoration like a fantastical experiment, from lighting and seating to tables and shelves.

Other standouts include Edelgrund, who create extraordinary rugs made by Persian artisans using hand-spun wool, organic fibres and coloured with vegetable dyes, made with a Fair-Trade philosophy. Objectkto is a visionary French-Brazilian brand designed for connoisseurs of modernist architecture, with pieces that convey emotion, inspire imagination and push the boundaries of modern design – these are chairs that are like works of art, yet designed to be used and enjoyed for decades. And of course, there’s Thonet – the bohemian chairs that none other than Le Corbusier declared: ‘Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created.’

And that’s just the start. There are around 30 brands (and thousands of pieces) currently listed online, with new designers added regularly, plus a handful of exclusive high-end suppliers that Sophie works with behind-the-scenes. While all brands are completely unique, each can be combined to create spaces that are simply unforgettable and a pure joy to live in. Rich woods, bright colours, luxurious textures, exceptional upholstery, and timeless or whimsical designs simply ‘pop’ when juxtaposed against the all-white of Ibiza luxury villa or traditional finca walls and all pieces have been designed to stand the test of time. Speaking of which, there’s no better time than the new year to embark on a journey of elevating your home décor before the summer season is upon us, and there’s no finer supplier of luxury furnishings in Ibiza than Heritage 53.