A Cotswold farmhouse mixes a calm colour palette with flourishes of pattern
It can be difficult to marry the image of Laurie Lee’s Cotswolds, immortalised in his book Cider with Rosie, as a rural idyll set apart from modern progress, with today’s upmarket scene. But when you stand in the beautiful garden of Tom and Victoria Gray’s weekend retreat, a long, low Cotswold-stone farmhouse with a wide outlook across the sloping fields to the Painswick Valley – only a stone’s throw from where Lee grew up – it is as if time has stood still. ‘We see almost no one,’ Victoria confirms. ‘There are no other houses in sight. The farmer passes by occasionally, but that is all.’
When it came to the search for their second home, seclusion was a prerequisite, along with a reasonable travelling time to London (the family lives in Fulham, where their two children, Jemima, 12, and Lucas, 10, are at school) and a sense of ease. ‘We wanted somewhere we could turn up, spend a weekend with friends and leave again, feeling calm.’ Of that last requirement, the house offered only vague promise when they bought it in 2019. A converted 17th-century barn that had been enlarged at least twice – most recently in the early 20th century – the house had a ground floor comprising small rooms with smaller windows, no view to speak of and low beams that Tom had to duck to avoid.
Happily, Victoria, who is of South African and Norwegian descent, had the vision and know-how to execute a transformation. A consummate collector, she is also one half of interior design studio Olivine Design (winner of House & Garden’s 2021 The List Award for Design Excellence), which she co-founded with Taline Findlater back in 2012, having spent three years as a senior designer at Nina Campbell. Taline is of Armenian heritage, and is a textiles and print specialist. With their diverse projects – among current endeavours are a Grade II-listed house in Oxfordshire and a modern house on the Cheltenham escarpment – Victoria describes the Olivine ethos as having ‘a focus on architectural detail, proportion and natural light, combined with a classical design approach and a contemporary finish, fed by our different cultural backgrounds’.
Working with Brinkman Building, who are local to the area ‘and so knew the challenges’ of this type of house, Victoria had the ground floor dropped by 30cm and internal walls removed to create one large, open space. Reclaimed Crittall doors were fitted into the existing valley-facing extension, allowing light to flood in from three sides. ‘There’s always a bit of compromise. We lost the flagstones underfoot and a fireplace, but we gained underfloor heating and a view,’ explains Victoria. The calm that was so desired is communicated through an expanse of Farrow & Ball ‘School House White’ on the walls, toning with pale oak floors and curtains in warm cream wool hung on the simplest poles.
Stroud Furniture Makers installed a single run of kitchen cabinets, their functionality partly masked by brass accessories and a Corian worktop. A pair of armchairs in front of the fire ensures company for whoever is cooking. A butcher’s block, which Victoria bought at Lots Road Auctions in the excitement at having a farmhouse kitchen – ‘before I realised that what I actually wanted was a huge farmhouse sitting room with a kitchen in it’ – has become a bar. Ideal for family life and entertaining, this open-plan space is able to host two or three conversations simultaneously, while keeping the party together.
The original staircase leads upstairs to more house than you might imagine; the 20th-century extension goes sideways as well as up. On a half level, there is a playroom for the children that keeps toys and clutter away from the downstairs. ‘Open plan would not work otherwise,’ remarks Victoria. Two further floors hold four bedrooms and three bathrooms, painted in deeper hues than downstairs. Victoria and Tom’s own bedroom is under the rafters, a window in every wall providing a veritable luxury of light.
Throughout the house, there are well-placed touches of decorative pattern. ‘It’s 10 years since I did up our house in London; in the intervening years, I’d built up quite a checklist of favourite textiles,’ says Victoria. The sofa in the sitting room is covered in a Nina Campbell print, the children’s bedroom blind is a fabric by Rose de Borman for Virginia White, twin bedheads in the spare room feature Susan Deliss’s ‘Imani’ and a bathroom curtain is in Robert Kime’s ‘Field Poppy’ muslin. Lampshades have been trimmed by Victoria using leftover fragments of passementerie. Adding to the mix are cushions and rugs picked up on her travels. And yet the overall effect is clean and uncluttered; Victoria’s eye for eclecticism exists in perfect harmony with a seeming inherent sense of simplicity.
The world has changed since 2019, with lockdowns having led the way to a more flexible way of working. ‘We can be here more now,’ says Victoria. ‘Not just at weekends, but during school holidays and any other time we get. We love it.’ And no wonder – it is now a charming and comfortable house from which to watch the seasons change, and to retreat into during the bone-chilling winters that Laurie Lee chronicled. Of the two Cotswolds, modern and traditional, Victoria and Tom – through clever design – have achieved the best of both.
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Olivine Design: olivinedesign.com
Simon Brown1/4Walls in ‘Bancha’ provide a backdrop for beds in ‘Hay’, both from Farrow & Ball.
Simon Brown2/4A CP Hart bath in Paint & Paper Library’s ‘Beetlenut’ stands on ‘Ecru Zellige’ tiles from Otto Tiles.
Simon Brown3/4Walls in ‘Setting Plaster’ and a rug from Rebecca’s Aix Home create a restful palette.
Simon Brown4/4Curtains in ‘Ete Moscovite’ from Décors Barbares draw the eye to the window, with views of the garden, while a CP Hart bath painted in ‘Hague Blue’ from Farrow & Ball nestles under the beams – which look different in this newer part of the house. A rug picked up in Istanbul and a chair from Robert Langford, with a cushion also from Istanbul, complete the scheme.
