The Green Ball: Inside Gilles Peterson’s Three-Level Listening House (Part.1)
How a garden shed became a radio lab, audiophile room and basement club built to keep music alive.
At the back of his North London garden stands a new structure - three levels of wood, glass and shelves of vinyl. This is Gilles Peterson’s Emerald Ballroom also known as The Green Ball: part private retreat, part radio lab, part live room. More than just a studio, it’s a space built to listen.
We visited on a late morning in September, the light falling through a high window onto stacks of LPs. Gilles spoke about how the place came together, why it matters, and what it means to design a room for listening rather than simply working.
From Nile Rodgers to Brownswood
The roots of this new building reach back to an awkward moment with Nile Rodgers. Nearly twenty years ago, Gilles was conducting an interview in a hired studio in Old Street. Rodgers had just published his biography and was recovering from cancer. The atmosphere was tense. Gilles, having only skimmed the opening chapter, admitted he hadn’t finished the book. “Twenty minutes of the interview were gone, just uncomfortable,” he recalls. “Then we finally got going and suddenly there was a knock on the window - time’s up.” The experience left a mark. “I thought: never again. I need my own place to do this properly.”
Brownswood, his Finsbury Park office, already existed as a home for the label and collection. But that moment made Gilles determined to turn it into a studio too - a place where he could host interviews and broadcasts on his own terms. Over the next three decades, Brownswood became a hub for musicians, DJs, producers and friends. Everyone passed through: Bobby Womack, Chaka Khan, Roy Ayers, Lonnie Liston Smith, George Clinton (who famously didn’t want to leave), even Charlotte Gainsbourg, who turned up on a grey winter’s afternoon straight from a West End press junket and found herself in a cramped flat surrounded by records. “People expected a castle in Highgate. Instead they got a basement in Finsbury Park. It disarmed them and made the atmosphere real.”
Building a home for sound
The Green Ball took shape between 2020 and 2021. Gilles’ wife pushed the idea forward, and crucially, the design allowed a separate entrance - no intrusion into domestic life. “That was the game changer,” he says. “I can broadcast, have meetings, host sessions here, without crossing wires with home.”
Inside, the building itself was designed and developed by Emil Neumann of Paul Archer Design, who conceived the three levels as a three-dimensional space with distinct zones. Later, the Wilson Brothers (Ben and Oscar — DJs themselves and designers of Supreme’s stores) were brought in to shape the interior. Pull-out drawers and open bays make it feel part studio, part record shop. Boxes can be hidden away or pulled out to flick through like bins on Berwick Street. “They really understood how I needed it to work,” Gilles says. “A bit chaotic, but easy to store and shift. They gave it that balance between function and feeling.”
The shell had once been a garden shed. Now it rises three storeys, discreet from the street but expansive inside. “Since we built this, I’ve noticed neighbours doing the same — extensions going up, digging down. We were lucky to get so much space out of it.”
Three levels of listening
The studio is divided into three distinct atmospheres:
Upstairs — a light-filled office with a work desk, 7-inches, and a Fender Rhodes Mark 8. “It’s where I zip through 45s quickly. Musicians have done little sessions here too. Light changes the energy - very different to the basement.” The plan is to add a piano for more texture. “The Rhodes is beautiful, but everyone ends up using the same sounds. I want the imperfections of a real piano.”
Ground floor — the audiophile zone. Turntables, Isonoe mixer, a subwoofer, seating. “This is where I listen when I want something beautiful. It’s selector territory, a hi-fi space.” The sound here is tuned for depth and clarity — the kind of room where a Joe Henderson record can stop the air in its tracks.
Basement — The club. Racks of reggae, house, Brit funk, techno. A movable booth, Taruya needles, Pioneer rotary and Quested, UK-built monitors from Cornwall. “It’s digital downstairs, analogue upstairs,” Gilles laughs. “Bands use this space too — it’s another dimension of listening for them beyond the studio or headphones. Yussef Dayes, Kokoroko, Fruko — they’ve all played or tested music down here.”
The design encourages movement between moods. Gilles describes a dream broadcast: a live band upstairs, conversation on the ground floor, DJ set in the basement. “A four-hour journey, cut into pieces later. Like a tiny desk concert, but with levels.”
From Brownswood to the Green Ball
The new studio is both a continuation and an evolution of Brownswood. “Brownswood was madness for 30 years. Everyone came through. That place was the hub.” The Green Ball feels calmer, more intentional. “This is more my elder-wise years,” Gilles says with a smile. “Closer to home, more personal. But still about people and exchange. I can walk here in 30 seconds.”
The space is wired for flexibility: Thursday mornings he hosts a four-hour Worldwide FM show from here, free to experiment, test segues, and play tracks without context. “Here, it feels like I’m talking to a few friends. It’s freer. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes those moments spark the best links.”
Compared to the BBC studio, the difference is stark. Broadcasting House can intimidate guests — glass walls, newsrooms buzzing in view. “It freaks people out,” Gilles says. “Here, they relax. Maybe we open some wine. That’s when you get good conversations, good music.”
At its heart, the Green Ball is about restoring the act of listening. “Fifteen years ago, I’d almost forgotten to listen. It had become work. Then Audio Gold set me up again — reminded me of the joy of putting on a Mal Waldron record, a Pink Floyd album, just to hear it properly. This place is about that too. A reminder to sit down and actually listen.”
It’s also a laboratory. “This is part of my process. I can try things out here before they go anywhere else. Some people say the show here is better than the BBC one, because it’s looser. But both are needed — one is for the heads, one is for the wider crowd. It’s like DJing: the difference between 200 friends on a perfect sound system and 8,000 people at Gunnersbury Park.”
Part 2 will explore Gilles’ collection itself — the living archive that runs through jazz, soul, Brazil, reggae and beyond — and his ongoing relationship with London’s record shops.
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