John Stefanidis

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is one of the world's leading interior designers, John Stefanidis. Described as brilliant and inimitable, his work has blazed a trail since the late 1960s. The homes he designs for a closely-guarded list of loyal customers include palaces in Saudi Arabia and log cabins in Aspen, Colorado. His clients will sometimes ask him to design four or five houses for them. He's also designed commercial properties - the public areas in the Bank of England as well as suites at Claridges and Rocco Forte's Le Richemond Hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. He had a cosmopolitan upbringing. The only child of Greek parents he was born in Alexandria but, from the age of eight, he mostly lived with his aunt and uncle in Cairo where he became a frequent visitor to the Cairo Museum. It was growing up among the teeming, richly scented streets and bone dry heat of Egypt that he became enraptured with architecture, artefacts and the transformative power of light. On coming to England for the first time as a teenager he watched 12 plays in 10 days - and says in spite of the cold rooms and dripping walls of his halls at Oxford, he found the rain and green grass exotic.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Vissi d'Arte from Tosca by Giacomo Puccini Book: Odyssey by Homer Luxury: Sketch book with lots of pencils.