AN ARCHITECT has revealed how he designs the world’s most luxurious underground supercar garages for VIPs around the world.
London-based architect Jonathan Clark specialises in creating bespoke locations for luxury wheels.
Garage Deluxe doesn’t just design a space to keep cars, it creates a personalised environment, often underground, with each project more ambitious than the last.
Jonathan wants a garage to focus on admiring the car rather than concealing it.
He told The Sun: “I do think that projects will get more ambitious.
“As rare supercars become more and more valuable it will become more and more important how they are kept and displayed.
“With some cars such as an early 1960s Ferrari 250 GTO reaching crazy prices of nearly £60M, the buildings that house them will need to step up too.
“There really is no limit to how you can showcase a rare car collection.”
The luxury architect has turned the idea of a garage on its head, swapping out old ideas of keeping your precious motor hidden away for making it the focus point in a fully functioning setting.
He carefully constructs bars, dining rooms and even swimming pools that fit perfectly with the rest of the property.
The designs were born from a desire to avoid the staleness associated with traditional car exhibitions.
They include a spiralled staircase that leads down to a swanky living room, with the cars standing proudly behind a glass panel and a dining mezzanine under a skylight.
Another looks like a lair out of a Bond movie with the grass-covered roof popping up to reveal an inconspicuous entry point.
One project for a gallery in Spain was curated to look like a cigar bar and a gaming room.
“It’s like an underground gentleman’s club,” Jonathan said.
“We’re using materials including rough-cast concrete but clad in soft leather so he can’t damage his cars when he moves them.
“I’ve been to many collections where the cars are displayed in a simple space with a table and chairs – they look like showrooms.”
Garage Deluxe now creates bespoke spaces that can accommodate from five to 100 cars.
Another creation, which took place in Saudi Arabia, was built to house 50 vehicles.
On this project, Jonathan said: “The client enters a large area with a bar and dining room overlooking two cars mounted on turntables that rise and fall – the rest of the collection is behind a sliding screen.
“The idea is he curates the display, changing it at intervals, so one week it’s red sports cars, another it’s supercars and so on.”
In United Arab Emirates, Jonathan incorporated mechanical, bodyshop and paint bays as well as a specialised client area.
This project was for a company that assemble Mercedes 300 SLs and was able to combine architectural design and utility.
Each individual build is tailored to the client, reflecting both their interests and the car collection.
Garage Deluxe caters for a particular echelon, with many of his clients being VIPs or the hyper-wealthy.
He told Autocar: “If you have a Monet, you’re not going to hang it in a cold, damp room out of the way.
“You want to hang it where it can be admired and where it’s safe.
“Our clients are people well below the radar.
“We don’t find them, they find us, and having done so, they insist on complete discretion.”
When the business was first taking off he said meetings with notable car collectors took place in the lift.
Despite working on the Lord’s Cricket Ground media centre and the Natinal Portrait Gallery extension, Garage Deluxe was only realised after Jonathan worked on animal welfare centres.
This work allowed him to discover a untapped market of niche architecture.
As a petrolhead himself, with an appreciation for cars since he attended Earl’s Court motor show as a boy, he was able to adopt his passion into his already established career.
He now works on designs that span the UK, Europe, South-East Asia, UAE and Saudi Arabia and is working on six projects with two more in the works.
Jonathan said he’s very excited for the latest projects but, due to his high-profile clientelle, is sworn to secrecy until they are finished.
In the meantime he posts pictures of the elusive designs on the Garage Deluxe Instagram.
