With two boys and two apartments combined as one, this Hong Kong couple have created a space for chic, modern living. Albert Lo gets a tour of the expansive apartment

What do you get when you have one stylish designer and two Peak-side apartments? The result is a home with a double dose of chic, metropolitan living. Such is the case of Fiona Kotur Marin, an accessories designer, and her husband, Todd; both New York natives who relocated across the globe and have recently come to make Hong Kong their home.
An exciting prospect for the young couple and their two sons, four-year-old James and five-year-old Rex, they relished the opportunity to live abroad. “I just had our younger son, James, he was about a month old, and thought it would be an adventure for the family,” Fiona recalls. “We thought it would be great for the children to expose them to a new language and culture.” And indeed, diving headlong into a foreign society, the two boys attend local Chinese schools, while Fiona studiously takes Mandarin lessons twice a week.
Finding the right house, even during the best of times when one is familiar with their surroundings, is never an easy task. But for the new arrivals who had only been to Hong Kong on brief visits, their search took them to all reaches of the island. From the southern shores of Stanley to the centrally located Mid-Levels, they scoured the city looking at over 35 apartments, and all in the span of 36 hours. “We flew over for a day and a half, so we had to make a quick decision,” Fiona explains. “This was the last apartment that we saw and we thought to ourselves, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a mirror image?’ And it happened that next door was available so it worked out really well.”
The couple took the two units on the spot and returned to New York. During the interim, the adjoining wall was demolished, and when the couple eventually relocated, one large apartment of six bedrooms, two living rooms, two dining rooms, two kitchens and one enormous, panoramic harbour view awaited.
Much of the couple’s furniture, however, remained in Manhattan. “We literally came here with nothing; we were sleeping on mattresses the first few months,” laughs Fiona. “People would come over and say, ‘Oh, your container hasn’t arrived.’ And we would tell them, ‘There is no container.’”
With the keen enthusiasm with which she approaches everything, the tabula rasa state of the apartment was the perfect excuse for Fiona to flex and satisfy her creative might. “Even though I had to start from scratch, it was a really fun project. It was such a creative outlet and I got to know the city really well because I had to be really resourceful,” says Fiona.
A graduate of Wellesley College, a liberal arts college with such notable alumni as Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Madame Chiang Kai Shek, Fiona was surrounded by style and creativity from an early start. Her mother, Sheila Camera, lived in London and Paris and designed for the house of Dior before moving to New York to become an illustrator and interior designer. “She’s very chic and has lots of style,” Fiona praises. Meanwhile, Fiona’s sister, Alexandra Kotur, is a senior features editor at Vogue magazine in New York and the author of Carolina Herrera: Portrait of a Fashion Icon. Fiona herself worked as an accessories designer at Ralph Lauren and the Gap and was instrumental in helping friend and New York socialite Tory Burch set up her collection, Tory for TRB, in which she is still a partner.
More recently, Fiona has launched her own collection of handbags under the label of Kotur which has already been picked up by Bergdorf Goodman and Scoop in New York. Despite not selling in Hong Kong boutiques yet, her stylish handbags and clutches fashioned out of limited edition fabrics are already a hit with local ladies such as realtor Lucy Bond Marriott and XTC co-owner Lily Ahn Riddick. “But I’ll be meeting with buyers soon,” Fiona adds with excitement.
Whether it’s the handbags that she creates – they feature vintage fabrics and antique fittings – or when it comes to decorating her home, Fiona cleverly mixes the old with the new. “I enjoy the combination of the different points of views. I think it’s romantic,” Fiona offers. To match the undulating curve of the floor-to-ceiling windows, Fiona sourced cylindrical, tiered ceiling lights from the 1930s and a curved coffee table and bar from the same Art Deco period. From large statement pieces such as the aged leather chest and an immense console table, both from Beijing, to the exquisite set of 19th century china, an heirloom inherited from her grandmother, the “old” definitely takes an elegant stance in the home.
As for the furnishings, since the homeowners began from scratch, Fiona took the opportunity to custom-design almost every sofa, table and mirror in the house. Beautifully textured shagreen mirrors, python-skin console tables, goatskin parchment armoires and quartz-like lamps were all made in the Philippines. Bold armchairs and sofas, ceiling-height mirrors, an aged brass coffee table and crystal-clear Perspex desks were manufactured locally and are accented by pretty shells, picture frames and silver accents.
“He was really happy just living with one little closet. It’s a monastic approach and he finds it liberating,” Fiona explains of her husband’s personal style. “He’s not a ‘stuff person’; he only has a few things that have intrinsic value to him and that’s all he needs. And he also likes to make use of everything he has; the worst thing to him is waste.”
Whether it’s simple print or the use of space, this philosophy is something that’s been adopted in all areas of the home. With so much room for a family of four, one would think much of the space goes unutilised, but as Fiona points out, every part of the home sees its fair share of traffic. “I wanted to create different areas and environments within the home but still have them be part of a whole,” Fiona explains of the tented dining alcove and the three separate living areas.
The cosy dining room is an intimate space where Todd and Fiona regularly have their meals. Next is the beige coloured seating area where Fiona does her online chatting with her family in New York. “This is the morning hub of activity where everyone is getting ready and the kids are running around,” she says. Over on the other side of the apartment is the red space of handsome leather armchairs, chocolate brown sofa and exotic animal skins, where the family enjoy their Sunday mornings reading the newspaper and watching television. And further down the hall is Fiona’s workspace. One bedroom has become her home office – “this is where I spend the most time” – while the other two guestrooms serve double-duty as storage for her fabrics, trims and handbags. “I’m threatening to take over the other side of the house too,” laughs Fiona, “so I’m looking into getting a real office.”
But it’s the middle section that the family enjoys the most. A massive sofa of soothing pale green bridges the two apartments, which is flanked by richly textured mirrors, elegant table lamps and chic side tables, offering a statement of perfect symmetry. “This area is where Todd and I have a glass of wine and catch up on the day before dinner,” Fiona points out. “It’s really beautiful at night because of the skyline and the lights twinkling below. But best of all are the memories here of the good times when the boys are jumping all around and having fun.”