Inspiration

The week started in blazing sunshine, in beautiful Yorkshire. We were on our annual studio outing.  For the first time, we'd decided to venture a little further - and to stay overnight, in the absolute glamour of the York Travelodge (it was actually very good, as well as being the only place that had enough rooms for everyone).

We started at beautiful Brookfield Hall - the house of Charlie Wood and Hatta Byng. Many readers will know Hatta as the wonderful and recently-departed editor of House & Garden magazine. So you would expect the house to have some magic - this is Hatta and Charlie's serene bedroom, just as a for instance, with its beautiful Austrian blinds and wallpaper by de Gournay.  Rupert and Alice in our studio worked extensively with Hatta and Charlie on the restoration of Brockfield, so as well as these wonderful rooms we could also look at the various interventions that Rupert made to the house, unlocking all of its potential.

Brockfield is open to groups and to general visitors each summer. I couldn't recommend the trip more highly - although do make sure you order sparkling sunshine and blue skies.

We had lunch in the garden, under the old Indian tent.

Team photo!

The Palladian west wing, pure and geometric.

And then the drama of the south front.

It feels like quite a lot of us these days!  But it's a lovely way to spend time and to thank everyone for all their amazing hard work - as well as to step away from the day to day a bit. It makes you think!

Looking down to the Mausoleum...

And then to the Temple of the Four Winds... serene and perfect.

Really, a dream building, perfectly sited and scaled.

The house was next. Wonderful signs on the way in - this is a house that has been open to the public almost since it was built.

Remy Renzullo's beautiful re-working of some of the bedrooms - jaw dropping, dripping upholstery.

Another Remy bed hanging, and the exquisite 19th century Japonaise wallpaper.

Into the drama of Vanbrugh's Hall.

I loved this moment.

(regular readers of the blog will recall one of my favourite pieces of all time - The Floor Polisher of the Pantheon.  Written back in 2013, all I can say is that my taste doesn't really change.

Here is the photograph of the terrible fire that tore through the castle in 194o.  The effects are still felt today.

But in an astonishing moment of Renaissance, the Howards are putting back some of the rooms.  Here is the most recent, designed this year by my friend Francis Terry, plaster designer extraordinary, with colours and decoration by Remy and Alec Cobbe. An amazing room.  Wonderful to see work of this calibre being created today.

The picture gallery in its new earth pink. 

The Morris & Co chapel. Mind blowing, maybe a bit too much.

We returned to York - that night we had supper in the town, and I caught the last of the sun on the West Front of the Minster, an extraordinarily beautiful moment.

White doves nesting within the carving.

Beautiful, unspoiled York.

The ruined Abbey is so incredibly beautiful - a sight to behold with wonder.

Silent, save for the pigeons who live here.

And then to the Studley Royal gardens next door to the Abbey, an astonishing 18th century landscape, dramatic and watery.

The Banqueting House, by Colen Campbell, the famous 18th century architect. Exquisite.

The Temple of Piety, beautifully and newly restored.

And then we arrived with Rupert Cunningham, our senior design director, and Sophie his wife - at their beautiful house which is slowly and carefully being restored under their watchful eye.

Restored roof, eaves, chimneys, windows and walls.

The sheltered courtyard, watiting to strip the modern plastic paints off the old brickwork.

Outside in the sunshine, like a Slim Aarons.

Inside, we had a tour of Rupert's beautifully completed guest rooms.

Lunch in the garden, in blazing sunshine.  And then back on the train to London, tired and happy, after two fantastic days.

A couple of days later we held Ruth Guilding's fabulous book launch for her beautiful new book - The Bible of British Taste! Buy your copy here!  It truly is the interiors book of the year.  Bravo Ruth.

The lovely thing about New York is I no longer feel the need to do touristy things, it's just lovely to mooch.  We went to the Union Square Green Market as always - such an inspirational place.

Lunch in the East Village and supper that night with our friends Will and Wilfred. A fantastic happy evening.

Sunday dawned bright and hot.  Another walk...

We had coffee with our friend Ann in Greenwich Village, at her beautiful house, and a late lunch at Odeon with Frances and Wally.  Charlie was off back to Scotland that evening.  I took a walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge.

The reason I was really in New York at all was to launch our room at the Kips Bay Show House.  Here it is!  Beautiful photographs taken for us by Reid Rolls.

And here it was six weeks earlier!

Every year the New York Decoration world takes over a townhouse (for sale) and decorates it into an astonishing showcase of beautiful, crazy, breathtaking designs. Funds are raised for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club.  We were thrilled to be asked to take part.... but it was quite a crazy exercise.  It started out as a white walled rental unit. We begged, borrowed and stole.  Amanda, from the decoration studio, and India, did an incredible job of pulling it all together in no time at all.  Amanda has been out in New York for two weeks, installing, assembling and handling a long week of photography and press.

It was fun.  Fun to create an amazing, finished room that genuinely felt completely as if it had been there forever.  In three weeks time everything comes down. Only the lovely wallpaper, from Sanderson, will remain.

The madness was, well, mad - a wonderful opening night, and a very, very busy day in the house yesterday.

Today, I could catch my breath - long overdue work things, and I had a lovely walk at lunchtime down to the South Street Seaport.

The Piranesian arches of the Manhattan Bridge.

Beautiful South Street Seaport, one of my favourite corners of old New York.

A funny moment of shadow.

So good.

This evening, beautiful light.  I went briefly up to the terrace on top of the hotel, down on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side.  What a view.  A magical way to say goodbye for a little while to the city I love so much!

Thank you New York! It's been a blast.  I'm so happy with our room, and everyone's kind reaction to it; and so happy to have been here for a few days.  Now I'm off down to Birmingham Alabama, to speak about the book and the work of the studio.  Then home.

Old York; New York - both bathed in the same wonderful glow of the early Autumn sun.