Dean Hearne
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.
A rug from Tate & Darby grounds the entrance hall, where a ceramic piece by Florence St George stands on the left. The dining room ahead opens out into the garden, while the kitchen is immediately to the left.
Dean Hearne
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.
The kitchen was designed by Victoria and built by a local joiner. A pendant light from Hector Finch hangs over the island, which is painted in Rose Uniacke’s ‘Bottle Green’. The blind is in Christopher Moore’s ‘Topkapi’ fabric.
Dean Hearne
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’.