A characterful family home in Connecticut with a surprising backstory
‘The reason we now live in an old house in America onto which we bolted a 19th-century, three-bay wagon barn from South Pomfret, Vermont, is because we once lived in England,’ writes House & Garden contributing editor Anne Hardy. It was a conversation with two antique dealer friends who were visiting London that first got Anne and her husband Jim interested in the idea of reassembling an antique New England timber-frame barn. When they did move back to the US, and found the right house to partner said barn, these two buildings became one harmonious home. More than two decades later, and this house is still at the heart of their family life, and provides the perfect setting for Christmases filled with familiar traditions.
A traditional Swedish country house authentically restored one tile at a time
There is a sort of rustic elegance to the Swedish Christmas that somehow seems to withstand fads and trends. At this 18th-century timber-clad house in Sörmland – Sweden’s equivalent of the Cotswolds, just a couple of hours’ drive south west of Stockholm – you get the sense that Christmas might have always been like this. The house sits on its own small peninsula, surrounded by a magical landscape of forests and lakes, which feels like the stuff of fairy tales. Carpets of pine branches line the steps that lead up to the front door (placed so that you can knock the snow off your shoes), while the interiors are decked out with foliage, festive wreaths and twinkling candles. And yet while Christmas may have always looked like this at the 300-year-old house, almost every element of its interior is entirely new.
A chalet infused with the owner and designer’s shared Lebanese heritage
A week before she first visited this chalet in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, its owner had coffee with Khaled, the late father of Lebanese interior designer Maria Ousseimi. ‘He got talking about what he looked for when he was buying a home,’ she recalls. ‘And he told me that the view was always more important than the interior space.’ When she first stepped into this property, she was blown away. ‘Everywhere you look is so beautiful. It was as if the house had been waiting for me,’ she adds. The interiors, however, needed some work, which presented the ideal opportunity for her to reconnect with Maria. Together, they have created a wonderfully distinctive space, inspired by their shared Lebanese heritage and the owner’s love of contemporary art.
A London flat filled with a fascinating (and deceptively new) collection
It was, Douglas Mackie admits, a rather wonderful position for any designer to be in when he was presented with a three-bedroom flat in central London and given complete freedom to decorate it as he wished. Some designers might begin with a painting or carpet for inspiration, but he likes to start with an interesting object. In this case, it was an extraordinary 17th-century Momoyama screen that he found at Sotheby’s in perfect condition. Soon after, he fell in love with an exceptional 20th-century Japanese lacquer cabinet in red, gold and black. Combined with what he describes as ‘ethereally beautiful’ alpaca and linen fabric by George Spencer Designs for curtains, the interior began to take shape.
