THEY rode 26 horses in the central London drawing-room of architect Seth Stein and his wife Dorothy, a film producer. That was when their home, a derelict builder’s yard when they bought it two years ago, was used for stables. Now the only evidence of the horses are the original 1880s numbered tiles in their dining-room, denoting where they hung the animals’ tack, and the paddock-sized rooms.

You enter through massive gliding James Bond-type electronic gates opening on to a cobbled yard. Then you go into their awesome house through a door surrounded by frosted glass. Nearly everything there, from every wall to each step of floor, is new – and mostly designed by Seth. Once inside you are immediately greeted by a concrete cylinder containing a cloakroom. Inside, a font-like marble basin floats out of the wall and tepid water, triggered by the light, pours from a steel tube. It’s so minimalist there isn’t any soap.

A 100ft corridor containing just one picture, and called The Gallery, leads to the drawing-room. Like most of the house, The Gallery has a heated concrete floor and ivory walls. Embedded in the floor are amethysts from a hippie shop in Soho. ‘It’s feng shui to purify the negative energy created by the drains,’ explains Seth, in architect’s uniform of black jacket and white polo neck. ‘But it also tells you where the drains are if you have to dig them up.’ On one side of The Gallery a skin of glass runs from floor to ceiling, flanking the courtyard which was formerly full of building materials. On its other side is the erstwhile workshop, now the kitchen. ‘Instead of net curtains, we’ve planted a wispy strip of bamboo to screen the view,’ says Seth.

The courtyard, paved with Spanish limestone, is Japanese-looking and has two huge Tuscan olive pots, eucalyptus tree, stone block bench and steps to a roof deck. This is where Caleb Joe, their one year-old son, plays. ‘I prefer the urban idea of playing on the roof of an apartment building among chimneys and slates to boring old hills and trees,’ says Seth. Into the drawing-room. Here we stand in natural light under a precisely engineered glazed canopy on a refined-steel truss which replaced the collapsed Victorian glass roof. The cantilevered stairs with American oak steps curve through the room, sculptural and fluid, wrapping round the edge of the wall.

On one wall is a Mark Francis oil of mushroom spores. On another is a fire designed by Seth with a Portland stone square opening and a grate of raised steel studs supporting ‘coals’, in the shapes of spheres, cubes and cones. At night there are dramatic floodlights from the ceiling and a French 1950s black metal Anglepoise light.

The room, like everything in their house, is simple. ‘It’s my antidote to sitting in traffic in the Marylebone Road.’ The furniture, too, is sparse: there’s only a tapering red square steel table designed by Seth, a yellow curvy Bonetti and Garouste sofa, and a green Jasper Morrison chair. They’re waiting for some hip Marc Newson chairs. ‘The idea is that the furniture is sculptural as well as functional. Marc’s chairs are probably not even very comfortable.’

Next door is the dining-room with its Jean Prouve reconditioned 1950s school chairs on early hi-tech frames, a table of old oak floorboards on a stainless steel base and a chandelier made of Christmas lights and crystal – both designed by Seth.

There is also a Christian Boltanski photograph of Memories. But where are their family memories? ‘There are clutter zones in the kitchen and study.’ Certainly the study is plush, nocturnal and cosy – despite having grey waxed plaster walls and warehouse decking shelves – and houses their photographs and books.

The kitchen is 45ft long. Seth might call this ‘the dumping ground’, but the space is pure and functional. There are two long counters, one with a screen to hide the toaster and Squeezy bottle. ‘We sat 60 people here for a friend’s celebration lunch which coincidentally christened the house,’ says Seth.

UPSTAIRS are the original Victorian stable bedrooms with sash windows, now updated with oatmeal sisal carpet and calico canvas blinds. One bedroom has original timber pine trusses. Instead of a bedside table, it has a low stone shelf. A ceremonial garment from Zaire decorates the bed and nearby is Eileen Grey’s Bibendum chair. The cupboards are behind flush panels of varying shapes and sizes ‘to reflect their contents’, punctuated by a deeply recessed modern fireplace.

The bathroom is entered through a dramatic 16ft-high gap without a door. ‘This is a semi-recreational space. Bathing is not necessarily something you have to do behind closed doors.’ There is a stone trough basin and bath which is very simple (you cannot see the plug or taps unless you’re lying in it), all surrounded by Tuscan limestone.

The lavatory is hidden behind a panel and the separate shower is a curved form finished simply in cement render.

He wanted his home to be elegant. On all counts he has succeeded.

How to get the look BARBARA CHANDLER LESS is more in a minimalist household. However, the less you have, the better it must be. Proportion, space, light and materials are of the essence. If possible, use an architect.

The Clients Advisory Service at the Royal Institute of British Architects (0171 580 5533) will listen to your needs (including budget restrictions), and recommend architects. A leaflet gives details. Seth Stein Architects is on 0171 376 0005.

Underfloor heating is back in fashion with problems of 20 years ago sorted out. Plastic (polybutylene) pipes carry hot water through a concrete screed, which can be left as is, or given a variety of finishes, even wood or carpet. Expert system designer/supplier is Kampmann (0181 783 0033), who assesses and supply kits of pipes, pump, mixing valve and controls. Floor temperature must not exceed 27C. They’ll recommend installers. The system is only suitable for newly-built properties, or major conversions if you are raising the floor’s surface.

Floor paint is a cheap and effective minimalist finish. The International range has 10 colours including Granite Grey, Jet Black and White. It costs around £7.30 a litre from DIY Superstores (including B&Q, Homebase); a litre covers around 10 sq m.

Wax walls have a sensuous smooth finish in various colours, including pinks and grey, which you can leave as is. Before waxing let the plaster dry out for around six weeks – it contains a lot of water. The colour will lighten. Then seal with a coat shellac sanding sealer. Apply wax with very fine wire wool – grade 0000. Buff up later to a sheen with a soft lint-free cloth.

The Black Bison range by Liberon (leaflet from 017973 67555) is made from carnauba, which dries hard, unlike soft beeswax. The 13 shades include a neutral bleach finish, into which you could mix earth pigments. London stockist is Foxell and James, 57 Farringdon Road, EC1 (0171 405 2487). Wax to cover around 10 sq m costs around £10, plus £7 for sealer. Pleated Roman blinds are made by Three Mice Blinds in unbleached cotton duck. You can order similar through Bellhouse and Co, 33 Kensington Park Road, W11 (0171 221 0187).

Taps are the classic Arne Jacobsen Vola range, designed in Denmark 30 years ago. Buy them in chrome or colours from Aston-Matthews, Essex Road, N1 (0171 226 7220). To see minimalist baths and basins visit C P Hart, Newnham Terrace, SE1 (0171 902 1000). They’ll send a free catalogue (normally £3) of baths by Jasper Morrison and basins by Philippe Starck.

Aram Designs of Covent Graden (0171 240 3933), famous for furniture classics, hold exclusive world rights on 25 designs by Eileen Gray (1879-1976). The Bibendum, upholstered in leather is £1873.

Fireplaces can be installed by Real Flame, 80 New King’s Road, SW6 (0171 731 5025), using a new system of stainless-steel powered flues, with electric fans on the roof. The spiky grate, nicknamed The Hedgehog, was made specially.

Flues, which can be exposed or hidden, can run vertically or horizontally to any outside wall with no need for a chimney.

FLIGHT Lieutenant John Nichol reckons he had a very good war. Yes, his battered face was paraded on Iraqi television at the beginning of the Gulf War after he and John Peters were shot down over the desert and tortured for three days. And he was used as a human shield, imprisoned in an interrogation centre for seven weeks, subjected to mock executions, bombings, burnings, whippings and beatings. And he suffers still from flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder. Then in March he is to be made redundant in the wake of defence cuts. But he says he wouldn’t change a thing.

He is, you see, still enjoying the spoils of war. It is because of the Gulf that this week sees him finishing his first novel, Point of Impact, which, he says, is ‘based on real-life events in the RAF, but not about flying’.

Written in his spare time and in the four months that military personnel receive at the end of their careers to learn to be civvies, the novel is one of three he’s been signed up for by Hodder and Stoughton. ‘The other two were sold without a synopsis,” he reveals, “I started to write as a result of the Gulf, after Tornado Down [an account of the Gulf ordeal, co-written with John Peters] became a bestseller.

‘I’m used to deadlines, being under pressure, being told what to do, left for a long time to do it and having the ultimate responsibility of, you know, possibly killing somebody,’ he continues. ‘But this is scary. I’ve never before signed a contract for money and works of fiction.’ The books are not the only spin-off of his war. On Sunday John appears in Eamonn Matthews’s excellent new blockbuster television series on the Gulf War. ‘It’s brilliant. It shows that there’s only one certainty in war – that people will die. There are no winners and losers.’

Since the Gulf, John has also met Baroness Thatcher, General Norman Schwarzkopf and the Princess of Wales. (‘Princess Diana presented me with a bloody awful Crimplene tie.’) He’s been in demand as a lecturer, after-dinner and motivational speaker for companies. (‘In the Air Force you compete with other air forces, nations, people in your own squadron and yourself.’) He’s been flown worldwide to stay in luxurious hotels by post-Gulf contacts. And he’s contributed to television and radio on a variety of subjects. Oh, and the film rights to Tornado Down were recently sold.

SITTING in the Royal York Hotel, John speaks in a Geordie accent at the speed of machine-gun fire. Wearing a green jacket and grey polo shirt, he’s handsome, beefy and 6ft tall. ‘I’ve worn a uniform for 15 years. Now I have to buy clothes,’ he laughs. ‘It’s simple things like that, and getting a doctor and learning how to do job interviews, that you have to come to terms with when you’re crossing into Civvy Street. In the military we’re used to ordering people ‘Do this for me’ and it will be done.’

John is convivial, extrovert and adventurous. He bears the scar from an Iraqi boot kick on his face and has a prominent bump on his forehead. The lastis the result of his first encounter with death. ‘I was fishing, aged 10, and fell down the cliff and landed on my head. I didn’t fall far, just 20 or 30ft.’

He was brought up in North Shields in a house on a council estate in which his parents still live. They didn’t have a telephone until he was 14 years old. But, the youngest of four children, he had a cosseted childhood. ‘I was the baby and consequently got more than the others. I went on two skiing holidays when I was 13 years old. My parents had never even been abroad until they came to meet me coming home from the Gulf. My mother never worked and was always at home.’

It was a Catholic family – his parents have gone to church daily since his father retired – and John was an altar boy for seven years. ‘I’m lapsed now but I still believe in God. In your darkest times in captivity you pray and make all sorts of promises that you’ll go back to church. Of course you don’t.’

He went to St Cuthbert’s grammar school and left, aged 16, with nine O-levels. It had never occurred to him to join the RAF: he’d never even played at pilots. He wanted to be an electronics technician. ‘By chance I read an RAF brochure to stop myself being bored on a bus journey. Three hours later I’d signed on the dotted line.’

He recalls his time in the Gulf. ‘Once when we were attacked by stealth bombers the ceiling came down and I said ‘Right, I’m going to die now’. It’s quite calming knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.’ Another time a guard put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

In his flashbacks he relives his loneliness and vulnerability. ‘Pain hurts but you get over it. But you can’t imagine the fear and isolation. You didn’t sleep much because of the bombing and people screaming all around you. Every night nearly all 30-odd of us had the same dream – that we were back at base drinking and our capture had been a dream.’

Five years on, John still views life from an altered perspective. ‘The Gulf taught me that something good will always come out of smething bad and that there’s always somebody worse off than you. The things I thought were important aren’t. I’ve become less argumentative but more impatient as a result of watching my life ebb before me 24 hours a day and having no control over it. I no longer worry about money and see no point in putting it in a bank. When you come back after an experience like that you live your life today as though you were going to die tomorrow. ‘

Since the Gulf, John has been deployed to Bosnia (‘When your aircraft alarm tells you a surface-to-air missile is locked on to you, it’s totally terrifying’), the Falklands, Cyprus and Canada. But now he’s taken voluntary redundancy. ‘With the cutbacks there were no more opportunities for me.’ He has a pay-off, before tax, of four times his annual £30,000 salary. ‘But I’m a real candidate for ending up on the streets. People a thousand times more capable than I have ended up in the doldrums. It’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever done.’