Category Archives: English Country House Style

Bunny’s View

As the end of summer closes in my mind wanders to the comfort inherent in the traditions of country house style. The Virginian Nancy Lancaster introduced Americans to the British tradition of shabby gentility, bringing pared down comfort to stately homes and grand gestures to shabby ones, creating comfortable, inviting and elegant rooms, be they […]

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Country Comfort

The spirit of autumn is on my mind but, thus far, not in the air. The countryside, with its abundance of tress, possesses the promise of changing color. It’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, the comfortably charming and stylish West Sussex country house of interior designers Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen is […]

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The Temple of the Four Seasons

It is believed that The Temple of the Four Seasons, also referred to as The Temple in Stoke-by-Nayland, was built by architect Robert Taylor sometime around 1750 after he returned to England from his studies in Rome. Resembling his Asgill house, The Temple represents the influence of Italy on the development of his architectural vernacular, […]

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Prince Charles’ Trematon Castle For Lease

In case you are wondering, I haven’t entered into the arena of real estate nor do I have any agenda from which I may benefit by promoting the sale of one of Prince Charles’ properties, in this case Trematon Castle. No, not in the least, any more so than would The World of Interiors, which featured […]

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Wilbury Park Dressed for Christmas

In 2003 Lady Iveagh, widow to Benjamin Guinness, opened the doors of Wilbury Park, her neo-Palladian country house in Wiltshire, England, to House & Garden for a Christmas holiday feature. One of the earliest examples of neo-Palladian architecture in England, Wilbury Park was built in 1710 with classic proportions and a symmetrical layout inspired by […]

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Carolyne Roehm: Christmas in Connecticut

For me there is nothing more romantic and magical than celebrating the holidays in a rustic, yet elegant, environment where “the weather outside is frightful, but the fire [inside] is so delightful”! Growing up in northern California dreaming of a white Christmas was just that, a dream. Though Lake Tahoe was certainly an option my […]

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Gervase Jackson-Stops: The Menagerie

The late architectural historian and writer Gervase Jackson-Stops is probably most remembered, in our contemporary virtual world of visual literacy, for the single extraordinary room he restored and decorated for himself at The Menagerie, his grand folly at Horton in Northhamptonshire, England. The one-story structure with flanking pavilions is attributed to Thomas Wright, designed as […]

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Traditional American Comfort

When I think of American traditions and our ideas of comfort I cannot separate those ideals from those of our country’s forefathers, the British. Invariably, English style decor figures into the dreamscape of our collective imagination when we design and build our traditional edifices, whether they be Georgian-style manors, British Colonial-style plantations, Regency-style townhouses or […]

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Oscar de la Renta: New York, c1990’s – 2014

Today’s post is a continuation of several posts I promised to write on the homes of Oscar de la Renta following his passing in October, beginning with Au Revoir, Oscar. After marrying Annette Reed in 1989 Oscar moved from  his previous opulent apartment designed by Denning and Fourcade (Oscar de la Renta: New York, c.1980’s) […]

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Oscar de la Renta: Connecticut c1990

Posted November 7, 2014. Filed in English Country House Style, Oscar de la Renta

Oscar de la Renta reopened the doors of his country house, Brook Hill Farm, in Kent, Connecticut, again to House & Garden in the later 90’s (I covered the first publication of this property in Oscar de la Renta: Connecticut, 1986). After the death of his first wife, Françoise de Langlade, in 1983,  he married […]

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Oscar de la Renta: Connecticut, 1986

In 1986 Oscar de la Renta invited House & Garden into the Kent, Connecticut, country house he had shared with his then-wife, the late Françoise de Langlade, who passed away in 1983. Françoise had been the Editor-at-Large for House & Garden, so it came as no surprise that the rooms she crafted were as elegant and magical […]

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Sir John Richardson’s Palladian-Style Villa in Connecticut

Two Dutch landscapes attributed to Van Styr light up the dark green flocked walls of the oval living room. A Directoire billiards-table lamp hangs over the table and a pair of large 18th-century English brass urns stand in front of the Regency gilt sofa. Not long after Sir John Richardson, the inveterate collector and foremost […]

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