FUTURE HERITAGE
This exhibition explores the processes employed by cutting-edge talents. On show will be vessels by Lauren Nauman,
laurennauman.com (right), which look like paper threads but are clay.
As projects go, this Georgian house in central Cheltenham required a certain amount of vision. When former actress Fiona Fullerton first saw it in 2013, it had been used as a commercial property, subdivided into o∞ces, since the 1950s. There was no kitchen or bathroom and the building’s elegant interiors had been hidden from view with polystyrene ceiling tiles and strip lighting. Fiona’s husband, Neil, runs a building development company and Fiona “knows a little bit about interior design”, having studied the subject and renovated several properties. Together, they were well placed to give the house all the care it needed.
REFINEMENT RESTORED
Fiona and Neil’s first task was to convert the building back into a home, restoring its classical grandeur at the same time as modernising it for 21st-century family living. To do this, they undertook fairly major structural work, including moving one of the staircases back to its original position and opening up a graceful enfilade leading from the sitting room, through the dining room to a new library at the back. As the house is Grade Ii-listed, they had to wait a while for the conservation o∞cer to approve their plans but, remarkably, they were able to move in just over a year after buying it.
ANYTHING BUT NEUTRAL
Fiona had strong ideas for the interiors, taking inspiration from the hotel designer Kit Kemp, who is known for her skilful mixing of colour and pattern. “I wanted to inject a lot of colour into the house; I’m not a great one for beige and taupe,” Fiona says. “I wanted the rooms to have a richness, a feeling of luxury and comfort, but without looking too formal.”
As with many of Kit Kemp’s hotels, each of the rooms now has its own identity. The library, at the back of the ground-floor enfilade, is what Fiona calls her “Scottish room”, because it is where she has indulged her love of tartan, teaming it with paisley, thistle-print blinds and resin antler chandeliers. The sitting room at the front took its cue from a vibrant purple and pink painting by an artist friend, while the dining room in the middle has the look of a jewellery box, with di≠erent-coloured velvet chairs set against its inky-grey walls.
COLLECTED OVER TIME
Fiona’s design flair is such that each room, while not overly “done”, appears expertly pulled together and comfortably established, an e≠ect due in part to the fact that much of the furniture came with her and Neil from their previous home. Reupholstered in rich velvets and colourful prints, the sofas and chairs are complemented by the art collection Fiona has been amassing since the 1980s; some works are by friends and well-known artists, others were picked up at antiques shops and auctions.
Fiona’s prize possession, however, is her collection of antique books. “I’ve always loved the feel of books that have been bound in hand-tooled leather. The books are very heavy and it was important to me that the shelving in the library be designed to accommodate them perfectly,” she says. Other decorative pieces have been chosen for their character, such as the vintage pitchfork and her son’s polo sticks which flank the fire in the sitting room, and the bust of Caesar that sits in the library, sporting a tam-o’shanter that she picked up on ebay. “I like having unusual objets around,” says Fiona. “It’s that juxtaposition that gives the house its soul.”