梦幻英式乡村别墅 | 多位设计师联手打造完美家园

If you were to suggest the perfect recipe for an English country house, it might read something like this: generous quantities of architectural merit and a top-quality location; a blend of new technology with local materials and craftsmanship; equal measures of professional interior design and personal style; a seasoning of originality; careful preparation and long, slow cooking. What you might not stipulate would be several cooks.Classical details create a period atmosphere in the sitting room, such as the chimneypiece designed by Tim Reeve, made out of locally quarried Doulting stone.Framed early-eighteenth-century prints hang in the hallway, which is painted in ‘Off-White’ and ‘Old White’, both by Farrow & Ball.Cane chairs from Albrissi, wicker baskets and rush matting from Tim Page Carpets create a natural garden-room feel in the dining room.Double doors lead from the dining area into the kitchen.

Still, this recipe worked a treat for Willie and Nickie Gething, who moved into their new house in 2008, having spent four years planning it, and a further two years building it. The West Country location com­bines rural peace, privacy and views across fields and woodland with the convenient proximity of a main road; the architecture is a gentle mix of classical symmetry and vernacular charm; and the interior decoration matches furnishings from a previous house with new additions, including some specially commissioned pieces.

What Willie Gething doesn't know about country houses is probably not worth knowing. As the founder of Property Vision, the first of a now famil­iar breed of upmarket property search companies, he has viewed and evaluated some of Britain's most desirable homes. He sold the company six years ago and now runs a fund, developing properties in London. 'I spend most of my time on a building site,' he says, so there is not much he doesn't know about construction either. Nickie, who worked as a producer for an American news channel before settling here, works with him and shares his discerning eye and passion for domestic architecture. Building a house from scratch was a long-term dream for them both, and when even­tually they found the ideal site, they enlisted an array of professionals to help them. And instead of spoiling the broth, teamwork triumphed.

The land they bought was a farm, complete with a sizeable acreage, a modest farmhouse and a separate farmyard. Nickie's 'before' photo­graphs show a typical agricultural mishmash of cowsheds, a piggery, a dilapidated Dutch barn, discarded machinery, old tractors and concrete.

'We loved the land so much, we bought a yurt so that we could stay here before we started building,' says Nickie. 'We weren't sure how we wanted to use the site, so we chose five architects whose work we admired and asked them all to come up with schemes.' The results of their deliberations can now be compared by visiting the downstairs cloakroom of the finished house, the walls of which are papered with architects' drawings. 'We ended up using three different architects,' says Nickie. 'Nicky Johnston really lis­tened and understood how we live as a family, and how we may want to live in 10 years' time. But he was on the point of retirement, so Jonathan Ross of Relph Ross Partnership translated his ideas into working plans. And Tim Reeve of TFH Reeve, who previously worked on the restoration of Uppark, came up with some of the more whimsical details, for instance the dovecote and the porches, as well as chimneypieces and the staircase.'

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Three architects sounds like two too many, but the collaboration didn't stop there. Also in at the start was Willie's sister, Caroline Paterson, an interior decorator with expertise to match her younger brother's. 'She's incredibly talented,' says Nickie. 'We couldn't have done it without her. She helped with everything, from the electrical layout and the thickness of glazing bars to fabrics, furniture and picture framing.' The garden was designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd, but they also took advice from Martin Lane Fox, who is a friend. He persuaded them to make sure that parked cars couldn't be seen from the house and helped plan the long drive.

Despite all this impressive expertise, there is no doubt that Willie and Nickie were driving the project. 'Our wish list included a big kitchen with sofas and an open fire, a courtyard, and water in the garden and grounds,' says Nickie. They also wanted a house that was both elegant and infor­mal, capacious and cosy, and that used local materials and traditional skills. All have been achieved, with the help of the contractors, R Moulding & Co. On either side of what the architects call the 'posh box', which takes its architectural cues from the early eighteenth century–including a stonking exterior cornice copied from Mompesson House in Salisbury–are two wings following the slightly skewed footprint of the old farmyard buildings. In one wing are a shared study–built on the site of the piggery–two spare bedrooms and en-suite bathrooms, and a play­room, which used to house ponies. In the opposite wing, the barn is now the kitchen, with a new oak roof and huge arched windows at either end, and is linked to the drawing room that spans the central 'box' by a garden room, which is used for more formal dining.

The quest for country-house perfection extended to using three different local quarries to achieve the slightly random stonework typical of period buildings, and lowering the slope of the field in front of the house by just over a metre, not to mention the extensive cherry-picking of the best bits from other houses, whether the line of a roof or the turn of a banister. And, although the style of the house is traditional, its eco­-credentials are bang up to date, and include ground-source heating and the use of insulating breeze blocks. 'Our last house was seventeenth century and freezing,' says Nickie. 'Living in a house without rattling windows and cold spots is heaven. In fact, I can't think of anything I would change about this house.' That's what you call a good recipe.

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Classical details create a period atmosphere in the sitting room, such as the chimneypiece designed by Tim Reeve, made out of locally quarried Doulting stone.

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Framed early-eighteenth-century prints hang in the hallway, which is painted in ‘Off-White’ and ‘Old White’, both by Farrow & Ball.

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Cane chairs from Albrissi, wicker baskets and rush matting from Tim Page Carpets create a natural garden-room feel in the dining room.

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Double doors lead from the dining area into the kitchen.

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Reflecting the owners' detailed requirements, the kitchen has a beamed roof and large windows.

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A sitting area opens off it.

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Glazed doors leads out the courtyard.

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A pair of Sixties china table lamps and a collection of framed William Blake prints add character to the main bedroom.

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Painted, antique panels, bought from Talisman, hang in the main bathroom.

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Curtains in ‘Siva NF16’ from Vaughan and vintage bedlinen introduced colour in a spare room.

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At back of the house is a courtyard with clipped box hedges and topiary, designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd. To the right is a wing incorporating the kitchen and dining room.

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Having bought the land for its views and location, the owners built this house on the site of a former farmyard.