Alice’s wonderland
Bohemian, romantic And whimsical By turns, star designer ALICE Temperley’s edwardian country house is An english idyll steeped in her distinctively ethereal, glamorous style
You don’t need directions to find Alice Temperley’s home. Just ask for the house with the disco balls and you’ll find it: a handsome, Edwardian mansion with sash windows, stone portico on fat columns and, yes, a pair of glittering dancefloor orbs. This Somerset-meets-studio-54 touch is quintessentially Alice. Glamorous and bohemian, it’s a prelude to what the fashion designer calls her ‘wedding cake’ of a home filled with icing-sugar colours, decorative paint finishes and hand-worked textiles dashed over antique furniture. ‘It’s romantic and wildly impractical, which is why I love it, of course,’ says Alice.
It’s also a peaceful place to work. Lately, she’s been spending time in her studio, which opens on to the garden, painting and drawing designs for a new, hush-hush range, which will be launched later this year. ‘All I can say at the moment is that it’s an area of design that I’ve always experimented with, so I am really excited,’ says Alice. Temperley London’s main HQ, with its Union Jack-painted façade, is still in London, where she also has a West End shop. But two years ago, when the brand was ‘being restructured’ as she puts it, Alice decided it was time to redress her work-life balance by spending more of her week in Somerset. ‘London is about the team – here I have the space to think.’
Somerset is where she grew up on a cider farm with her siblings Mary, Matilda and Henry. It was by all accounts a bucolic, bohemian childhood. ‘We were always outside. I milked a goat every morning. My sisters and I were farm girls.’ Alice, who is divorced from her husband and former business partner Lars von Bennigsen, wants her nine-year-old son Fox to have ‘the same quality of life I grew up with, spending time outside. Here, Fox can open the door and disappear into the forest with his bow and arrow or make dens,’ she says.
For a designer whose work has always reflected her personal style, the house had instant appeal from the moment she saw it. ‘I remember walking up the steps on a summer afternoon. The windows are huge, so the light is exceptional – it feels more like a palazzo than a Somerset house.’ The scalloped niches and coffered ceilings beguiled her. ‘It’s odd and unique,’
she says. During the Second World War, the house was home to newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, who held secret meetings and played host to Winston Churchill in the panelled library. There are traces of an older past too: a Tudor bear pit and thick turreted stone walls, a legacy of the castle that once stood on the site.
The historic setting called for confident decorating and each room is different, from powder pink in the bedroom to cosy aubergine in the sitting room. ‘Every colour evokes a contrasting mood,’ says Alice. Next came that bohemian Temperley touch: a mix of chandeliers, mirrors and disco balls galore. ‘I love the way they sparkle in the sunshine. It’s the opposite of strip lighting.’ In the bathroom, she covered the roll-top bath in a ‘disco tile’ of broken mirrors. ‘A friend and I did it over a bottle of wine – there were lots of cut fingers,’ she says. Another Temperley motif, the Union Jack, is everywhere, cascading across walls, emblazoning a toy box. There’s nothing jingoistic about it, though. ‘I’ve always had a romantic affection for our flag,’ says the Royal College of Art textiles graduate. ‘It’s part of our brand.’
In the dining room, artist Frederick Wimsett perched on a ladder to paint the chinoiserie mural, adding the bright folkloric design inspired by Alice’s embroidery adorning a corridor. In the kitchen, a vintage haberdashery cabinet does its duty as a storage space and the tablecloth is an off-cut from a dress fabric. It’s here that you’ll find the Temperley clan at weekends. ‘We’re very close,’ say Alice. ‘When we were growing up, I’d drape my sisters in the materials I was using to make clothes.’
Head through French doors into the gardens and you can’t miss the golden stag – saved from a shop window display – and the latest acquisition, a bubbling hot tub. During the summer months, the gardens are the setting for Alice’s glamorous annual party, with previous themes including Leather, Lace, Debauchery and Grace, where the hostess wore PVC – in July! ‘Don’t ask…’ Alice is toying with ideas for this year’s bash. ‘Whatever I choose, it will be an excuse for my friends to dress up in beautiful, decadent pieces and spend time in the English countryside,’ she says.
Check out Alice’s work at temperleylondon.com. Her Somerset range of clothing is available at johnlewis.com