IF YOU haven’t yet heard of Katharine Pooley, you soon will. Pooley, erstwhile banker, adventurer and author of an unusual cookbook-cum-travelogue, A Taste of My World, is launching her eponymous Knightsbridge shop.

Dedicated to luxurious living and interiors, it will sell furnishings from Vietnamese tableware to Japanese antique kimono cushions and offers an upmarket interior design service.

“You’ll be able to buy everything you see here,” says thirtysomething Pooley, sitting in her stylish home with its fusion of East and West, contemporary and traditional. “I’m opening the shop because people keep asking where I get these beautiful things.”

So where does she get them? A mixture of everywhere, from the Parisian Marche aux Puces (for Louis XIV) to Bangkok market (gilt Buddhas and suchlike) and Burmese shops (good for Cambodian nick-nacks).

Not to mention the other places she comes across when dog-sledding in Alaska, horseback trekking in Ecuador or visiting Cambodian orphans: this is a woman who flies helicopters, shoots, cooks professionally and intends to climb Mount Everest.

In a cream Ralph Lauren wool skirt, matching sleeveless cashmere jumper, large solitaire diamond and strappy snakeskin shoes, Pooley’s sartorial style matches the décor in her Belgravia home. It is tranquil, fresh, clean and sophisticated, with buttermilk paint, taupe suede curtains, atmospheric John Cullen Design lighting, old limestone and wood floors and almond carpet throughout. Plus lots of Eastern artefacts.

When Pooley and her investment banker husband, Rob, saw the Belgravia house, they instantly fell for it. It was made up of three early-Victorian mews houses that had been knocked into one and entered through a secluded courtyard. “We loved it because it was on two floors,” explains Pooley. “We only saw one other house before buying it.” That was three years ago, when the couple – who also own a Colorado ski lodge, Phuket villa and a Scottish castle – were living in their house in Singapore.

When they bought the property, two men had lived there. “It had just two bedrooms and one bathroom.

Their bedrooms ran the length of the (4,200sq ft) house.”

Pooley’s business partner, Kerry Stone, helped to transform the house into a five-bedroom home with ample entertaining space. “We rewired, knocked through three rooms to make a family room, put three French windows in the drawing room, extended to build a study, made two more bathrooms and a laundry room and drying room.”

THE renovation work took 18 months and the couple moved in, with their four dogs, only two months ago.

No children? “We’re practising making them,” laughs Pooley, who married in 2002.

The drawing room reveals an eclectic mix of first-edition books, 17th-century hats, comfy sofas, zebraskin coffee table, Eastern antiquities, modern Asian sculptures, a massive, contemporary Chinese painting of Communist Party members by Yin Xin and a grand piano. “Mozart played on it. I took piano lessons so that I could surprise my husband on his 40th birthday,” giggles Pooley. “But everyone begged me to stop playing.”

There are silver-framed photos on top of the piano: “That’s the lady who introduced me to my husband on a blind date,” she says, pointing.

“That’s my grandfather. He invented the epidural.”

The drawing room is big enough to incorporate most of the members of the Royal Geographic Society. “I’m hoping to host a party for them,” she says, excitedly. “There’ll be a chocolate fountain, lectures and lots of explorers.” And a £25,000 homecinema installed by then.

Next door, the £75,000 Smallbone family room has a central island and work surfaces covered in unfinished, textured granite, a bespoke Ralph Lauren chest as a coffee table, Sub-Zero and Gaggenau appliances and limitededition photographs of Edmund Hillary’s Everest expedition. It leads onto a formal dining room containing a mixture of Asian antiquities and English 18th century furniture: a Chippendale dining table sits alongside a Burmese chest and six Burmese Mantra statues and English antique dining chairs are stacked with Eastern cushions.

The eclectic mix is repeated upstairs. In their bedroom are antique Asian bedside tables and bench, Vietnamese art, their wedding music framed on the wall, a Louis Vuitton trunk and an antique Scottish voting box.

The D C Dot Company bathroom has black slate walls, walnut cabinets and a limestone floor fringed with beach stones. “Rob wanted dark surfaces for masculinity. I wanted light for femininity.” It boasts a wet-room with overhead shower and vertical water jets, and a Victorian roll-top bath. “Another compromise,” laughs Pooley, who hails from Scotland. “I wanted a bath. But Rob is American.”

The meeting of cultures, styles and interests is everywhere. There’s the planned-for children’s bedroom, with a Chinese opium bed and rare Emperor’s crib; a guestroom with antique European sleigh bed and an attic housing mountaineering and golfing equipment.

And in the courtyard? Well, there’s an old French fountain to aid thirsty dogs and for feng shui, an English stone bench and a red Hong Kong rickshaw. “I spent 15 years in the East,” explains Pooley. “I keep thinking I’m just on holiday here.”

Katharine Pooley, 160 Walton Street, SW3 (020 7584 3223; enquiries katharinepooley.com; www.katharinepooley.com)

Where Katharine Pooley shops

FOR MY LONDON HOME Lighting: Sally Storey at John Cullen Lighting (020 7371 5400) English 18th century antiques: Ronald Phillips (020 7493 2341; email ronaldphillipsltd.co.uk) Carpet: Ulster Carpets (0808 100 0979; www.ulstercarpets.com) Floors: Drummond’s Architectural Antiques (020 7376 4499; www.drummonds-arch.co.uk) Beds: Sophisto-Cat Furniture (020 7731 2221) Kitchen: Smallbone of Devizes (020 7581 9989; www.smallbone.co.uk)

EUROPE

In Paris, I love the antiques square Le Louvre des Antiquaires in Place du Palais Royal (0033 142 975 5212), especially Galerie Heritages, which sells the best range of antique clubstyle chairs. In London, I love Soo San, 598a King’s Road (020 7731 2063), which has a superb collection of antique Chinese furniture and art.

WORLDWIDE

Lotus: Singapore and Thailand (www.lotusartsdevivre.com).

Exquisite accessories and gifts.

Soul of Asia: Phuket (0066 7621 1122; email: info@soulofasia.com web; www.soulofasiathailandartgallery.com). Wonderful Asian art and antiques.

Pagoda House: Singapore (0065 732 2177; www.pagodahouse.com). Marvellous collection of art de vivre and antiques focusing on the south of Asia, Indonesia, Burma and Cambodia.