A country house on the edge of the Cotswolds with layered and comfortable interiors by Victoria von Westenholz
The famous ‘layers’ that make up the look of a classic English country house are often anything but English. Chintzes from India, porcelain from China and Japan, ikats and suzanis from Central Asia – these and many more designs have become canonical elements of our decorative language, taken up afresh and reworked by each new generation. One of the latest generation of decorators to speak this language is Victoria von Westenholz, who grew up surrounded by antiques and the traditions of English design thanks to her father, the dealer and decorator Piers von Westenholz, and is now translating that into comfortable, colourful houses that feel perfectly fresh for modern families.
When some good friends of Victoria’s bought this house in the Oxfordshire countryside, it was clear it was going to be the perfect canvas for her blend of richly patterned fabrics and antique furniture. The couple was in the process of moving back from The Bahamas to embrace rural living with their young children, and needed an interior with a blend of sophisticated rooms for entertaining and more laid-back family spaces. The house itself is a recent build, created in the Georgian style by its previous owners and situated at the very end of a village on the edge of the fields.
Working on a newbuild had its advantages – they didn’t need to get permission to make the few structural changes they wanted, and unlike historic houses that might have been extended and altered over many years, this house had a wonderfully rational layout. ‘I love the way each room opens off the centre point,’ says Victoria. ‘You come into the central hall and then the drawing room, the dining room and the kitchen are all right there, and the bedrooms open off the gallery above, there are no long dark corridors.’ All of this gives the house a comfortable scale – while it is large and can absorb plenty of people, ‘it feels like home when you walk in, and you are never far from the heart of the home’.
Victoria’s long friendship with the client made their working relationship an easy one. ‘She understands my style and I understood hers,’ she says. As they are a young family, it made sense to have a large open-plan space at the centre of everything, so Victoria opened up the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and created an inviting sitting area in front of the french windows. There is also a playroom right off the kitchen so the children are never far away. The more grown-up spaces are on the other side of the hall, where a drawing room is filled with the clients’ art collection and a blend of inherited and new furniture, leading onto a library with deep green bookshelves that functions as a study for the husband.
The bright and bold patterns and colours that Victoria loves were a key part of the puzzle. A palette of rich reds, blues and greens runs throughout the house, largely in the fabrics and occasional wallpapers, though she has kept most of the walls in soothing neutrals. Antique fragments of suzanis and ikats are draped over the furniture, while the curtains and bed hangings are done up in bold patterns from Penny Morrison and Vaughan that echo these designs. Victoria knew the clients’ previous house in London, which had a more neutral Scandinavian look, and was keen to encourage her to use more colour in this one. ‘We started with the red door in the kitchen,’ says Victoria, ‘and then I got her to go a bit deeper and a bit deeper. Suddenly the curtains got a bit more exciting too – especially in the drawing room, where she was initially quite nervous about the Vaughan fabric. I’m so pleased that she did go for it in the end and have that punch of pattern.’ The William Morris wallpaper in the main bathroom was a similar source of concern at first, but turned out to the one of the house’s biggest successes.
Much of the rest of the decorative process involved hunting for the right antiques to ground each scheme and fill the generously proportioned rooms. On trips back and forth from The Bahamas before the move in 2023, the client would join Victoria on trips to antiques shops and markets in the Cotswolds and London. Favourite finds include a rustic Swiss sideboard that sits behind the door in the drawing room, and the long farmhouse table in the dining room, which came from DJ Green on Lillie Road. The clients’ own furniture, some brought from their London house, sits alongside some cleverly chosen new pieces from favourite shops like Graham & Green and OKA in a pleasing blend of antique and modern, and of course it helps that the couple had an extensive collection of art and ceramics. Like all the best country houses, there is a little bit of everything, a layered interior that will continue to evolve.
Dean Hearne1/15The curtains in the drawing room are in Vaughan’s ‘Bursa’ printed linen. The rug is from OKA and the small stool to the left is from Village London.
Dean Hearne2/15Chairs from Graham & Green surround an antique table in this corner of the drawing room.
Dean Hearne3/15The plain curtains in the library are trimmed in Guy Goodfellow’s ‘Artemis’ linen.
Dean Hearne4/15In the downstairs loo, walls in Morris & Co’s ‘Pomegranate’ pattern are complemented by the trim in Edward Bulmer’s ‘Light Olive Green’. The lampshades are from Pooky and the mirror came from Station Mill Antiques.
Dean Hearne5/15The utility room has joinery painted in ‘Calke Green’ and walls in ‘Setting Plaster’, both by Farrow & Ball.
Dean Hearne6/15In the main bedroom, Penny Morrison’s ‘Killi’ on the headboard is a gentle backdrop, with Vaughan’s ‘Milas’ embroidered linen on the valance. The bedside table is from Chelsea Textiles.
Dean Hearne7/15The adjoining bathroom is papered in Morris & Co’s ‘Pimpernel’.
Dean Hearne8/15The owners’ son’s room has Sanderson’s ‘Treasure Map’ on the walls, with jolly tiles from Bert & May behind the bath.
Dean Hearne9/15In the spare room, a bed tester in Penny Morrison’s ‘Waverton’ design contrasts with a valance in Octavia Dickinson’s ‘Tarquin’ fabric. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘Borrowed Light’.
Dean Hearne10/15Victoria in the drawing room.
Dean Hearne11/15The front of the house.
Dean Hearne12/15A view from the meadow down to the house and into the village.
Dean Hearne13/15The back garden of the house has a lawn edged by herbaceous borders.
Dean Hearne14/15
Dean Hearne15/15
