Given George’s passion for books, and the fact that he runs Special Rider Books & Records at Shepherd’s Bush Market and is a collector himself, they play a central role in the scheme. ‘Books are woven into the interiors as much as furniture or art,’ Cruz says, pointing to recent additions from the Gogmagog Press by Maurice Cox. ‘They are full of striking images of folklore and mythology that celebrate traditional bookmaking. They feel especially fitting here – not least because of the name.’
At Bywell Hall, Vanessa Beaumont describes a similar resistance to the idea of inherited houses as fixed entities. Built in 1752 to designs by James Paine, the house belonged to her husband’s grandfather, but had stood empty for years, with dust and piles of mattresses filling its grand rococo rooms. Turning it into a comfortable and practical family home after so long mothballed was never going to be a quick task, she recalls. Along the way, however, the house began to shift from an architectural presence into something closer to a friend.
The harmonious façade of Bywell Hall.
Tom Griffiths
‘Bywell Hall is very much an ongoing – and possibly never-ending! – project,’ Vanessa says. ‘Whilst the key to making it our home was installing a wonderful family kitchen, which we did in 2019 alongside our major interior work, there are still rooms that we need to tackle, and changes that naturally come with our children getting older.’ One such space is the playroom at the heart of the house, essential when her children were small and now poised for its next chapter. ‘Less Lego and nerf guns, more a place for family movies, drinks, and entertaining,’ she explains.
Like Cruz, Vanessa is clear about avoiding the feeling of living inside a display. ‘We have been extremely lucky to inherit beautiful paintings and furniture, but have taken the decision to rehang and to recover, being quite free with where things have been placed in the house, so that we don’t feel that we live in a museum we are duty bound to maintain, but rather in a living, changing thing.’
‘The library is total heaven for me,’ says Vanessa Beaumont. The chairs are by Gillows and were re-covered by the family when they moved in. The bookcases came from another family house that was later sold.
Tom Griffiths