In 2019, the British interior designer James Thurstan Waterworth, now 41, was hired to refurbish the Bradley Hare, a mid-19th-century inn located in the village of Maiden Bradley, in South West England. His wife and fellow interior designer, Scarlett Supple, 36, would often accompany him on visits to the area, which is part of a 3,000-acre estate that\u2019s been owned by the Duke of Somerset since 1554, and the couple were increasingly taken with its natural beauty and vibrant community of farmers, young families and creative types. \u201cWe fell for it pretty hard,\u201d Waterworth says.<\/p>\n
They soon began renting a 4,000-square-foot farmhouse outside the village, where they\u2019d spend weekends away from London and their design practices: Waterworth runs Thurstan<\/a>, which recently designed the Zetter Bloomsbury<\/a> hotel, and Supple has Studio Supple<\/a>. But four years in, with their renovation plans having been rejected by the local council, the complexities of managing this large second home were weighing on them. Last year, together with their two children \u2014 Bibi, 5, and Bertie, 3 \u2014 they relocated to a more modest 1,722-square-foot, four-bedroom house in Maiden Bradley\u2019s center.<\/p>\n The two-story limestone-and-brick structure is made up of two 19th-century cottages that were combined at some point and then added on to. When Waterworth and Supple moved in, the interiors had recently been stripped back to their bones, providing \u201ca blank canvas,\u201d says Supple. They opted to take a light touch, infusing the space with their individual tastes while striving for a cozy cottage feel. To open up the ground floor, they merged a small porch just inside the front door with the sitting room. Mostly, though, they focused on decorating, painting the walls in warm whites, dusky mauve and a custom teal from Francesca\u2019s Paints that\u2019s now known within the company as Thurstan Blue.<\/p>\n The rooms are filled with an eclectic array of furniture and other d\u00e9cor that reflects the couple\u2019s shared passion for collecting. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason for it all to work, but it does,\u201d says Waterworth. In the sitting room, a pair of early 19th-century gilt finials \u2014 a 21st-birthday gift from his stepmother \u2014 rests on the Georgian-style mantel, around which sit a trio of mismatched 19th-century armchairs. There\u2019s also a long 18th-century Spanish walnut banquet table and a rustic cupboard that was crafted in the Pyrenees mountains in the 1600s. Down a hallway, the snug, or den, holds a Georgian English antique cabinet, a mid-20th century West African ceremonial chair and a teak-and-cane chair by the Swiss architect and designer Pierre Jeanneret. On the wall are a pair of 1950s vases shaped like ostrich eggs in brass holders by the Viennese artist Carl Aub\u00f6ck, and in one corner is an upright Steinbach piano that Waterworth plays on occasion \u2014 usually, he says, after a few drinks.<\/p>\n Supple\u2019s interest in antique fabrics, which she traces back to her mother, a decorative-antiques dealer, is also on display in the room, where the windows are framed with a jewel toned perde, a type of Persian textile, and a midcentury striped Turkish kilim is draped over the back of the 1850s oak-legged sofa. A cushion-topped ottoman combines a late 19th-century hemp sheet with a denim-colored hemp-and-cotton blend from Studio Supple\u2019s home collection, which launched last year and draws inspiration from Supple\u2019s vintage finds. Initially the line was limited to textiles, but last month she expanded into other types of goods, including cushions, ceramics done in collaboration with the London-based artist Ho Lai, double-sided bed throws and reupholstered antique furniture. Upstairs, the primary bedroom includes several pieces from the collection, including a pair of hand-pleated lampshades and, on the bed, a vintage walnut-dyed hemp sheet in bottle green and an acorn-printed bolster cushion .<\/p>\n In addition to functioning as what is, as of last year, their full-time family home, the house also serves as an informal testing ground for both Supple\u2019s collection and Waterworth\u2019s design projects. (When the family stayed at the newly unveiled Zetter Hotel in Bloomsbury in April, Bibi was surprised to spot an early 20th-century embroidered Turkmen caftan that had previously hung on her bedroom wall.) Someday, the couple hope to have their home and both of their businesses on the same property, which would likely necessitate another move. Whatever happens, though, they\u2019ll always be grateful to the Maiden Bradley house for fostering experimentation. \u201cIf something\u2019s not working,\u201d says Supple, \u201cit can keep evolving. It doesn\u2019t have to be \u2018the dream.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Stylist: Twig Hutchinson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2019, the British interior designer James Thurstan Waterworth, now 41, was hired to refurbish the Bradley Hare,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6852,307,304,305,306,181544,308,93,61,207445,60,207443,207444,207446],"class_list":["post-481856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-antiques","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-collectors-and-collections","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-interior-design-and-furnishings","tag-ireland","tag-james-thurstan-waterworth","tag-scarlett-supple","tag-wiltshire-county-england"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}