Is this the ultimate show home?

Tag : Round Cushions

It puts a new spin on the term “show home”. Therose-framed door of the 18th-century Box Orchard Cottage, inOxfordshire, is opened by Lee, its apron-clad housekeeper, whooffers coffee and biscuits after he shows you into a sanctuary-likeliving space. The room is cosily warm on a wet June day, its creamwalls, comfy armchairs, casually arranged objets d’art and scent of essential oils instantly soothing.
The living room, kitchen and two bedrooms are all similarly styled,with Gustavian furniture and antique vases throughout, and viewsover fields and downs beyond. It is a cleverly contrived, seductiveportrait of country life. Look closely, however, and you realiseeverything is for sale. Every last bedstead, candlestick andknickknack has a handwritten price tag on it (the cottage is on themarket for £595,000; the whole lot is for sale for about£650,000).
“It’s all about buying a lifestyle,” saysFelicity Loudon, who is selling the property, on the edge of her700-acre estate near Faringdon. “It means you could throw adinner party on the night you move in.” Once you’veremoved all the price tags, that is.
For Loudon, 59, a self-taught interiors stylist, selling such alifestyle - think City chap, with a glamorous wife and young kids,in need of a country bolt hole in a similar style to their MaidaVale townhouse –has become a cottage industry. She uses thebarns and period outbuildings on her farm as shop fronts for hercomplete interiors service, The Private House, where clients visitby appointment only to view and buy her hand-picked range of homefurnishings.
Last year, she sold Keeper’s Cottage, also on the grounds,for just under £1m, after negotiating a price for some of theproducts on display in situ . This gave her an idea: as Box Orchard was becoming her newshowroom on the estate, why not put it up for sale with the entirecontents on display and available for purchase?
Could this be the solution for cash-rich, time-poor househunters?Or, more pointedly, people who have no sense of their own style -or any taste at all? “Well, it’s a no-brainer,”says Loudon, a Cadbury heiress who got her first makeovercommissions when friends admired her then-daringly designed whiteand Perspex-smattered Chelsea flat back in the 1970s.
Although it has its own entrance, Box Orchard is very much part ofthe Pusey estate, which Loudon owns with her second husband, John,72. “This would be great for a London couple looking for alock-up-and-leave weekender - although they would have to get togrips with having a cesspit in the back yard. The words‘sewage system’ seem to strike fear into the heart ofany Londoner.”
The immaculate interior might be similarly off-putting to anyonewith small children, pets or messy husbands. Everything at BoxOrchard is pale, classic and expensively underSwindon stated. Thecottage has lashings of cream tableware, dressers andtongue-and-groove panelling - and lots of white. Even the perfectlylandscaped garden, small at less than a quarter of an acre,features all-white floral planting.
“It’s about complete luxury,” says Loudon, whohas managed - no doubt to the envy of her London girlfriends andCotswold neighbours to turn her love of shopping into a career. Shesays she gets much of her inspiration from magazines, and hasrunners on call to go to contemporary arts and antiques fairs:“I just love sourcing and styling.”
Loudon started out as a buyer for the fashion designer Piero deMonzi when she was 17. She went on to own textiles shops in westLondon and has completed whole-house makeovers “forhedge-funders who can then say their wives did it all: I am verydiscreet”. She won’t reveal any clients’ names,only that they include political and show-business personalities.She says she is happy to talk small or large budgets, and chargesbetween £200 and £300 per hour, depending on the clientand their requirements.
Loudon describes the decor at Box Orchard as traditional with atwist: in the living room, for example, a giant ceramic pear(£600) rests surreally on the cream carpet; glass vases (from£20) and antique alabaster urns (£950 a pair) sit onGustavian sideboards and half-moon tables (£2,250 for both).Great balls of white silk roses perch on antique hurricane lamps(£350 for four). In the country-style kitchen, areconditioned Aga sets off hand-painted mugs; in the attic bedroom,a walnut-framed bed (£3,300) lies under a round silver mirror(£250). The bathroom shelves are lined with creams andtoiletries (from £7), as well as silver starfish and shells(from £3).
So far, so girlie? “Not at all,” Loudon insists.“Men come down here and love it. London bachelors - many ofthem heterosexual - pick out candlesticks and linen for when theythrow parties.” The most indulgent (optional) touch, however,has to be the glossy black miniature caravan (£15,000) on thegravelled yard. With a pot-bellied stove, small-scale faux-leatherfurniture, toys and a flatscreen television, it’s theultimate playroom. And you get the feeling that, until now, thecottage has been a plaything - the ultimate doll’s house.
Loudon, who lives a few minutes’ drive up the road, admitsthat she is sad to be selling up, but says she needs to free upsome cash for a hush-hush venture - although she may pop down for acup of tea. “I love it here,” she says. “And itwould be so lovely if someone really nice moved in. I often come down just to escape.”
Looking at her own home, a 14-bedroom Georgian mansion at the heartof the estate, it’s hard to credit that this lady of themanor ever needs to run away - or, for that matter, free up cash.An immensely grand affair, Pusey House is a showcase forLoudon’s sumptuous English country style, as opposed to therestrained, cottagey creams of Box Orchard.
The house - all tapestry-hung salons, crimson walls, chandeliersand roaring fires in the middle of June - is staffed by a femaleuniformed butler and a full-time chef. Its rare-book-lined study(the domain of John, a Dutch-born nondom), acres of bold, patternedwallpaper, cream drapes and racks of hunting boots make Pusey seemthe perfect country house, a real-life Gosford Park.
“I’d redo it all if I could,” Loudon says.“I’d like to get rid of all this clutter.” Pilesof cushions, books and antiques are found at every turn, much of itdog-related. Loudon is animal-mad - and quite barking when it comesto dogs. Her four canine charges, Samba, Beetle, Betty and Wee Wee,are allowed to roam freely inside, happily relieving themselves onthe ancient, faded Aubus-son carpets that are spread around.
In the fields, she has her own herd of prize-winning cattle, and atmealtimes, she shares her plate with Lil, a white cockatoo.“You’ve got to keep your eye on her, though,”Loudon says. “She can pick the sapphires out of guests’Cartier watches.”
Which says it all. Although Loudon says she prefers stylingcommissions for those on a budget, as they are more fun, she isreally catering for those with more money than original ideas. Herlatest enterprise, The Private Wedding List, for example, has“items that you don’t necessarily need, but have alwayswanted”. These include giant ceramic vegetables (£450),a Thermos flask in pink ostrich leather and stainless steel(£995), and a rare 19th-century marble bust of an NativeAmerican (£8,400).
Of course, whoever buys Box Orchard may have a style ethos of theirown, or at the very least some personal possessions. In which casethey can go around the property, choosing what they want to keep,then Loudon will cart away all the furnishings and fripperies toone of her barns or to her Chelsea showroom, to start again.