Inside a lavish 17th-century English country retreat

One of my clients in America called me

the Master of the Grand Fantasy,

and I think that's very apt.

[smooth jazz music]

What was our approach when we were looking at sort of

doing this place up?

It was really to create a home of fantasy,

and lots of different fantasies,

but the overriding one was, of course,

the Arcadian fantasy of a English country life.

We entertain a lot, so we have lunches and dinners,

we have friends coming to stay for the weekend.

It's sort of fun for us both to plan how to create

the best experience for our friends as possible.

Martin is a great interior designer.

He takes most of the decisions,

so I just let him do what he does best.

And then I was in charge of the art.

And I think it was a similar thing,

where I would propose paintings, and he would trust me,

and he'd be like, Yes, go for it.

So that was kind of like the nice split

where it was we sort of had our definitive roles

where I was art, he was interiors,

and it sort of works like that quite well.

The curtains represent the sort of divide between

what we call the public

and the private spheres of the house.

The public bit is the drawing room and the kitchen,

and the entrance, and then the private bits

are the two guest bedrooms and the bathrooms.

This is our sort of sculpture gallery, shall we call it,

our John Soane sort of moment,

where we've collected all these plaster reliefs.

So there's a lot of Peter Hone bits,

a lot of bits from Brownrigg.

This is a trompe l-oeil painting by Michael Murfin

from the Henry Miller gallery.

These wall brackets are from Benedict Foley,

and Guy Tobin as well.

All our favorites, basically, here.

Someone said to us that what this now looks like

is John Fowler on acid.

Which was sort of really what we wanted to create.

Architecturally, this room has the grandeur to take gilding.

So it was always in my sort of head

that if I'm gonna paint the room yellow,

then I wanted to gild details, because it's not like

it's a white painted corners with gilding,

which sort of stands out, it sort of blends in with it.

So at the firelight at night, or the candles,

it will sort of sparkle.

Talking about the fireplace that had like, I don't know,

10 coats of white paint on it.

And I thought it was the most disappointing fireplace

I had come across ever,

until we stripped it of all the paint

and suddenly all of this beautiful carving

just jumped out at you,

and then of course immediately I thought,

I have to gild them.

Of course, you know you can never have too much gold.

The art collection was really inspired

by the country house,

and our London flat has a lot of contemporary art,

so we thought this was a nice excuse to purchase

like old masters, and more classical feeling pieces.

I found this sort of 18th century painting of a dog

and a sort of still life in Rome,

that fit the spot perfectly, so we thought, that's good.

And then that sort of expanded into more dogs down the side,

which again is a slight homage to Mario Buatta

with the sort of the bow.

And then the dogs, favorite being the portrait of Zenon

done by James Hayes, who's wonderful.

It's salon hanging,

but it's all in like mini little collections throughout.

It feels organized in my head, at least.

Lampshades for me are like hats, and they're high couture.

The inside as well as the outside are very important.

So, of course, you know you're sitting on the sofa,

and most of the time you will look into the lampshade,

and usually it's very disappointing.

So that's why I put a lot of effort in all our lamp shapes

that we do for all our projects.

For our home, actually we sort of went

even one step further.

[smooth jazz music]

The color yellow has sort of continued

from the drawing room,

because the closer the yellow is to light,

the more effective that color is,

so of course, for me, yellow is sunshine in a box.

When it comes to a table, more is more,

it's all about the layers.

On the table, we have plates by Spode.

We have napkins and place mats by Maison Margaux.

[Jonathan] And then there's these Campbell-Rey glasses,

which are really good,

the wine glasses and the water glasses.

[Martin] The cutlery is actually vintage, as well,

that we bought, a whole set of 12

we managed to get hold of very luckily.

The flowers are from our neighbor and friend,

Milli Proust, who lives locally.

He's in charge of drinks, I'm in charge of food.

I think that's- Yes.

That's the division of labor.

[light jazz music]

Well, I have never had a bedroom like this before,

and it's an extravagant joy to sleep here,

to spend time in this room.

I wanted to create a sort of heavenly upholstered paradise.

So I used Lustmore, which is Jean Monro,

which is one of my favorite fabrics,

and I always wanted to use it somewhere.

And I sort of got my chance to do it here on my own

because there was no restrictions.

Since we are using one pattern of fabric throughout,

I think it's very important to use a contrasting tape

for the walls, so you can understand each wall,

where it begins, where it ends.

We're using these onion tassels by Samuel & Sons

on the curtains, and hence as well for the headboard,

we used this pink fabric by Pierre Frey, ruched,

just to, as well, separate it from the wall behind.

I love these lampshades.

They are very interesting,

because we found these antique embroidered flowers

that was last time used on one of the Guinness girls'

wedding dress from the 1920s.

So we used them on both lampshades.

The chandelier in the bedroom is actually Murano.

It was custom made for this bedroom.

One of my favorite is the painting opposite the bed,

which is by Oliver Messel

of Mrs. Patricia Plunkett of Barbados.

[smooth jazz music]

This is sort of that sort of story

that I had about that fantasy

of an American heiress coming to England.

And what does she need, a fabulous bathroom.

So I wanted to create something that sort of had a slight

1920s, '30s feel to it,

but at the same time that worked extremely well.

The stone we used in the master bathroom was Arabescato,

which is the white with a black-gray veining,

and the Giallo Siena, which is the yellow.

And the way I wanted to do it,

was to sort of polish the floor so you get reflection

and the walls are matte.

Since we're in the master bathroom

and you need to be able to understand what you look like,

lighting is very important.

So we have these beautiful wall lights by Circa lighting,

which is a American company.

And then we have these two star chandeliers.

I'm fortunate to design a range of tapware

and white goods for Drummonds.

And I used all my own designs for here

because I wanted masses of hot water,

I wanted to have that shower experience

that you never can really get in London,

where you're just like getting drenched.

[smooth happy jazz]

We are now in the tent, which is our guest bedroom.

A vertical stripe fabric makes the room feel taller.

It really accentuate the idea of a tall room,

and that was sort of part of the reason

I sort of wanted to use it, this sort of like just opens it.

But then breaking it up with this other fabric,

which is more a square sort of diagonal pattern.

All of the fabrics on the wall and the ceiling,

I designed myself, and is sold through Christopher Farr.

I've slept in this room myself,

and it is a very different experience when you wake up

because you really feel enveloped in the fabric,

and that's the beauty of it.

All of our friends who come and stay in this room,

they think it's very luxurious

and just love spending time here.

The kitchen was a challenge.

It's a challenge because you have 3.7 meter ceiling height

and you can't really design it in the sort of

traditional way with a sort of horizontal cabinetry

because what do you do above it.

So, of course, the solution was to do the four towers.

So each corner has a tower with a finial on it.

You need always some decorative embellishment,

super important, and in those four towers,

you have one that is fridge/freezer,

one that is washer/dryer,

and then one that is the crockery and glasses

and then one that's utility.

To have a tapestry in a kitchen probably is quite unusual,

but actually it's the motif of a tapestry

printed on a canvas

because if it was a real tapestry hanging in this room,

which is a kitchen where you have like your cooking,

you have smells, you have steam,

that probably wouldn't be a good thing.

But I wanted something soft on the wall,

and again, it's quite dramatic.

It's from a company based in Oxford called Hines of Oxford.

We bought some plates that once hung

in Nancy Lancaster's dining room

and we decided we'll build a theme around that.

And then we hung all of these schwazer plates

and platters on the walls,

and then we added some pewter plates for butchness.

[light jazz music]

I am completely thrilled with the result,

not only of what this looks like,

but of our life down here and the people that we have met.

And it's just so different from London,

and it's sort of personally what I needed when we moved

is what I needed to be able to just continue working

and being creative.

The difference between designing for myself

and designing for a client

is that the home that we do together is about us,

and is a conversation between us,

so we sort of make this happen.

Normally I had to have in the past,

when I've done my own flats,

sort of been thinking about a little bit like,

okay, I'm gonna want to sell this one day,

but with this one, Binderton House,

we were just like, go full out, create that fantasy.

It's all about us, how we want to live.

[light jazz music]