At home with the Pawsons: the architect and his family's Cotswold farm
It was the year for doing things differently. As the pandemic hit in March 2020, minimalist architect John Pawson and his wife Catherine left the comfort zone of their London townhouse to spend some time in their newly converted country farm in the Cotswolds. The couple were joined by their two sons working from home, which only underscored why they had bought Home Farm in the first place. More space. Fresh air. Initially envisaged as a family gathering place for long weekends, fifteen months later they are all still there.
The derelict huddle of barns, sheds, an old farmhouse and a hay loft standing in 24 acres presented a challenge to John, a perfectionist who seeks symmetry without noise, colour or the jarring interruptions of unbroken straight lines. He brought the three disparate buildings, each a different height and built at different times across the last five centuries, in to a harmonious whole of mellowed brick, stone, scoured wood, watermarked stainless steel and lime wash.
The project took five years. Before beginning, John hired a historian to archive the estate, photographers to document every aspect of it, and an audio recordist to capture its sounds.
Its higgledy-piggledy footprint includes four bedrooms and bathrooms, cloakrooms, dining rooms, libraries, a garden room, a sitting room, laundry, pantry and larder and a living room. The converted hayloft reached by the original ladder is the TV room – planning would not allow the ladder to be replaced with a staircase - and a separate converted wain house nearby serves as the guest house. In total the farm has 66 windows and 29 rooms with, 'not one straight line in sight' says Catherine.
'I could have levelled the walls,' John says. 'But I like the quirkiness so there’s no plasterboard, just lime wash. And funnily enough, the barn and its door are on the north south axis.' As the conversion is long and thin, every room has west facing windows so that the house tracks the sun.
There are three kitchens, one at each end of the 50 metre line-up, and the third in the converted hay wain guest house. None of them is immediately obvious. Everything - the batterie de cuisine, ice cream makers, juicers, the Magimix - are either hidden behind bi-fold doors that spring open at the touch of a fingertip, or housed in the pantry and larder. Everything is in triplicate. A first for Catherine. 'Extravagant, I know,' she says, 'but the kitchens are used all year round.'
The family spent the winter months inside the central farmhouse with its low ceilings and fireplace, then moved to the light and airy barn in the summer. A massive sash window, made in Germany with a raw stainless steel frame from Sweden, frames the view and connects the interiors to the outdoors. Spring recipes feature foraged fresh spring greens, wild garlic pesto, nettle risottos; summer marinades for seared meats and salad dressings for al fresco eating. Autumn is spent harvesting wild mushrooms and pumpkins, roasting nuts, pickling red cabbage, caramelising fennel, and making soups. Then Christmas, which Catherine admits is, 'the one time of the year when John indulges my desire for over decoration.'
Married to a world famous minimalist whose projects include a Benedictine monastery in Czechoslavakia, Calvin Klein’s flagship stores, and London’s Design Museum, Catherine’s decorative skills - honed at the Inchbald School of Design and at Colefax and Fowler - have generally been somewhat curbed. It is the first time in 32 years of marriage that John has ever countenanced curtains, even if they are plain white wool ones, and zooming in on their library reveals that in this house their books are no longer covered in fishmongers’ white marbled paper for uniformity. The Donald Judd sofa she bought, a signed and numbered work of art, is, 'madly comfortable, everyone piles into it,' John says approvingly. 'I think the whole thing with marriage is that it is much more important to be with someone you get on with, than someone who has architecturally the same taste.'
Does this signify a change of direction in John Pawson’s minimalist aesthetics? John Pawson, barefoot in his signature fawn Chinos and crisp white shirt, says, 'no, I don’t see it as that. I always wanted to experience Home Farm in its entirety so I leave the doors open to the outside. I like padding around and sitting on my own and seeing the light. People still ask, "Have you just moved in? And where is the art?" But seeing the walls as unbroken white space gives me pleasure. It changes the perception of space.'
The Pawson’s new book called *’Home Farm Cooking’*celebrates everything that these metropolitan Londoners have learned about country living. Original recipes sensibly – and lyrically, too - celebrate the seasons.
'It’s all Catherine’s work although I am quite good at eating it,' John says. Twenty years earlier he put his hedonistic delight in food and drink into a cookbook called “Living and Eating Well” with chef Annie Bell. This time around it is Catherine’s approach.
All the values of country living can be seen in Home Farm: the use of honest materials, the ordered way of life linked to the changing seasons, the good feeling that comes off places where people are generously fed and cherished.
Gilbert McCarragher1/9Home Farm is wonderful from every perspective.
Gilbert McCarragher2/9Home Farm sits on the edge of a hamlet in the Cotswolds. Set back only marginally from the country lane that runs through the village, its front door opens directly into the farmhouse dining room.
Gilbert McCarragher3/9Each of the three kitchens at Home Farm has its own physical character and atmosphere — from the calm intimacy of the farmhouse kitchen and the sensory warmth of the wood-panelled kitchen in the wainhouse, to the lofty openness of the barn.
Gilbert McCarragher4/9A glimpsed view from the farmhouse sitting room into the link opens into an uninterrupted vista through the stables and barn.
Gilbert McCarragher5/9A sitting room.
Gilbert McCarragher6/9The barn kitchen.
Gilbert McCarragher7/9
Gilbert McCarragher8/9Spring’s lengthening days and rising temperatures tempt us to linger outside, enjoying the soft evening light.
