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With the help of interior architect and designer Carolina Maluhy, entrepreneur Julia Hartogs transformed a tired mid-century townhouse in São Paulo, Brazil, into a serene retreat layered with heirlooms, Brazilian modernism and a deeply personal history.
BY BUSOLA EVANS | ROOMS & GARDENS | 28 JUNE 2026
Some houses are designed around the architecture, some around the art. Others have been inspired by a simple piece of textile. For Julia Hartogs, the inspirational anchor for her home in São Paulo was far more emotional: treasured objects she inherited from her late mother. “I lost my mum when she was 49 and I was 29,” she says. “She had some beautiful art and design pieces that had been in storage for many years that I wanted to bring to life. ”
While Julia’s parents were Brazilian, she was born in New York and now splits her time between London and Brazil. “I have a 20-year-old son who, even though he has never lived in Brazil, feels very Brazilian,” she says. “I knew I wanted a place that we could call home in my home country.” The answer lay in transforming a property she already owned: a two-storey townhouse in one of the city’s greenest enclaves, which she had been renting out for many years. The building, which dates from the 1930s to the 1950s, had plenty of charm but its layout – a labyrinth of small, disconnected rooms – made it feel cramped.
There was little doubt Julia needed professional help so she quickly turned to architect and interior designer Carolina Maluhy, founder of the London and Brazil-based studio Carolina + Partners, who she has known since their university years.
“Working with a close friend is always a risk,” admits Julia. “But I also knew how professional she was from the beginning, and I loved her aesthetic.” It helped of course that Carolina knew Julia so well, which informed her approach. “I knew how much her mother meant to her, and how much the pieces from her family meant to her. Also I knew it was important for her son to go to the house and have a place that talks about her family since he didn't know his grandmother. Our friendship really helped me to understand the meaning of the house to her.”
The house’s potential was immediately obvious. “It had a 1950s simplicity that speaks to my work as well,” says Carolina. So the challenge was not to erase the house’s character but to modernise it with sensitivity by opening spaces and enlarging windows for more natural light, and creating a stronger relationship with the surrounding greenery.
The transformation begins at the entrance where, originally, visitors arrived through a side door. Instead, Carolina created a dense tropical courtyard allowing people to walk through greenery before entering directly into the main living space. “The large openings made a lot of light come in, but also when you’re inside, you always see the garden."
That connection to nature became central to the project and something Carolina intentionally framed throughout the house. In the kitchen, for instance, wide windows blur inside and outside almost completely. She also reconfigured the ground floor, removing the hallway, relocating the guest bathroom beneath the staircase and combining previously disconnected rooms into one more open plan space.
But it is the heirloom pieces layered throughout the house that gives it emotional weight. Much of the furniture is Brazilian mid-century by designers including Percival Lafer and Sergio Rodrigues and there is also a mirrored frame designed by Julia’s grandmother. In the living room, two artworks by painter and sculptor Arcangelo Ianelli hang alongside a rare pre-Mogul sculpture of Shiva and Parvati, which Julia’s grandfather gave her when she turned 18.
“It’s gone from New York to Boston to Texas to multiple houses in São Paulo,” she says. “I am very attached to it.” Most poignantly, there’s a portrait of Julia’s mother that spent years hidden away before Carolina gently coaxed Julia to hang it in her bedroom.
In order to balance the richness of the darker woods and inherited pieces, pale handmade Brazilian terrazzo floors were introduced in soft white tones throughout. “Carolina said we need light floors,” Julia recalls. “And she was absolutely right. It modernised everything and made the pieces look better.”
Another successful element is the continuous pau ferro wood panelling, which wraps the staircase and conceals the guest bathroom. It is an example of how Carolina approached all the interventions with deliberate restraint. “The pieces had such a strong voice. I thought what I could do was very simple, not to take away from what Julia already had.”
Perhaps the most touching aspect of the project is the way the house bridges generations. Before the renovation began, Julia asked her son, a musician, to select his favourite family object from the collectibles and he chose a baby grand piano. The piano now sits prominently in the living room. “I could just see Julia having friends over, her son playing the piano and all the pieces of her mother around, ” says Carolina.
This deeply personal home has become emotionally grounding and equally meaningful for Julia’s son, who now often visits from London with friends. “It’s very peaceful, ” says Julia. “Carolina is very observant and able to extract the essence of people and translate that into her work, which is why she has created a home that is so special to us. ”
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