“WELCOME to my bedsit on the Camberwell-Peckham border,” says Kris Kalinski mischievously as he opens the Gothic-style door to his exquisitely converted chapel on the first floor of Pilgrims Cloisters, a 19th-century Grade II listed building.

Persian rugs, a mosque lantern, Louis XIV-style chairs from an hotel in Turkey and countless other shiny artefacts fill the space under the vaulted roof. Stained-glass windows line both sides of the room and the smell of incense completes the assault on your senses.

This is not the sort of place you would expect to find tucked behind Peckham Town Hall in a part of South London dominated by monolithic 1970s council blocks. Apart from a few new developments, there are no signs of the mass gentrification which is sweeping through other parts of Camberwell and Peckham. This is still caff rather than cappuccino land.

“My friends say that it’s all a bit ‘Antonioni’ — when they are being kind,” says Kris, pointing out the concrete towers on his doorstep. “I came here eight years ago not knowing what to expect. I had a limited budget and had looked everywhere in London for something that was not a collection of little rooms. The moment I saw this I knew it was right. It’s the loveliest space I have ever lived in.”

Although technically an open-plan studio, the Chapel at Pilgrims Cloisters is too much of a property oddball to fit into the conventional descriptions used by estate agents. Those who live in ordinary studios often have to put up with the buzz of the fridge when they go to sleep on a bed which spent the day being a sofa.

Not so for Kris. Here, every detail — from the green Farrow & Ball paint on the beams to the etched glass doors shutting out the matching green Shaker kitchen — has been meticulously planned. Kris’s double bed is perched on the platform that used to store the organ at the south end of the chapel. Its imposing headboard is adorned with a copy of Botticelli’s Venus and Mars and matches bespoke Gothic-inspired wardrobes on either side. At the opposite end of the chapel is the pulpit which Kris had raised to accommodate walk-in cupboards and bookcases. A wood-burning stove now takes centre-stage — sitting precisely where the vicar would have given his sermon.

But what sets the Chapel apart is the peace within the building as a whole. Built in 1837 as an asylum for “aged pilgrims”, the Cloisters is in many ways still a refuge — although nowadays for artists, museum curators, TV producers, lecturers and designers. You won’t find this lot spending hours comparing notes on property prices, share portfolios and Ofsted reports. Instead, for their last outing, the Cloisters Culture Club chose to visit the Art Deco splendour of the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea.

Outside the Cloisters is pure gritty South London. But the 41 flats overlook the stillness of a subtropical garden of palms, bamboos and a kumquat tree. This is the final resting place of William and Fanny Peacock, the philanthropists who donated the land for the asylum. They surrendered their lease to the residents with the stipulation that a single red rose is placed on their grave once a year instead of ground rent. Each year a rose duly appears — just one of the romantic quirks of life in Pilgrims Cloisters.

The Chapel is for sale for £399,000 through Roy Brooks. Contact: 020-8299 3021

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