SEEDS OF CHANGE
This Suffolk home is a skilful marriage of old and new architecture, with a modern rustic interior that brings the outdoors in
Modern rustic touches set the tone in a garden designer’s beautiful home in Suffolk
It looks like a cottage a child would draw,’ says Janey Auchincloss of Grove Cottage, the home she shares with her husband John in Lavenham. A longtime resident of the Suffolk town, she often walked past the house when she was living at Stone Farm, a large property nearby. With its pint-sized, rustic charm, Grove Cottage couldn’t be more different and when Janey and John decided to downsize, it came up for sale at just the right moment. ‘Our two daughters had left home and we were rattling around in that huge place,’ remembers Janey, a garden designer whose work has been seen at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and on ITV, where she co-presented Britain’s Best Back Gardens. ‘It wasn’t just that we were empty-nesters; we really wanted somewhere cosier. Stone Farm was so big, you’d find yourself turning a corner and thinking, goodness, I haven’t been down there for months.’
Another draw was the cottage’s location in the centre of Lavenham, which Janey loves for its pubs and restaurants, ‘cathedral-like’ church and half-timbered buildings – the legacy of its medieval past as a wealthy wool town. ‘There’s an eclectic community here, too,’ she adds. ‘Lots of our friends are architects, designers and writers.’
The extensive work they’d done on Stone Farm stood the couple in good stead when it came to renovating Grove Cottage, which contained just a handful of cramped rooms. ‘It had been owned by an elderly man, and it was like stepping back into the 1950s,’ says Janey. ‘It was very dated, but immaculate, and it had a warm, friendly feel. Having worked on a big project before, we knew we could do something with it.’
Lavenham is full of protected landmarks, but the cottage’s relatively young age meant it was subject to fewer planning rules. ‘It was built in 1905 – one of only two Edwardian cottages in the village,’ explains Janey. She and John knew they needed to extend – to gain space, but also to boost light levels – but they didn’t just want to ‘build a box on the back’.
With this in mind, they approached London architects Project Orange. Its founders James Soane and Christopher Ash are friends, as Janey has collaborated with them on several projects (including The Swan hotel in nearby Southwold). The design sketch they did in the local pub, after a quick look around the cottage, is basically what the couple went with – a linear sequence of rooms that flows seamlessly from the old part of the house, flanked by a garden connecting the indoors with the outside.
Of the original interior, little remains apart from the outer walls, the restored brick fireplaces (which had been plastered over in the 1960s), and the timber staircase. The new extension houses an open-plan
COLOURS are mostly borrowed from NATURE
kitchen and dining area, an office and, hidden inside a pod structure, a guest bathroom and utility room. Unlike many extensions, which languish underused, this one’s become the heart of the home. ‘The joy of this house is that we use all the space,’ says Janey. ‘We love to cook, so we spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and I work most days in the office, which is light and bright. Being able to look out onto the garden is lovely for me as a designer.’
Colours are mostly borrowed from nature, including a Kingfisher blue sofa from Swoon and Little Greene’s moody Invisible Green paint, which appears on panelling. This colour was favoured by the landscape designer Humphry Repton for garden paintwork. Here, used indoors, it works in harmony with Janey’s beloved botanical elements. She and John have a large collection of treasured possessions, which they’ve built up over the years. ‘Everything here has a memory, whether it’s something from our past life, or a gift from friends,’ explains Janey, who has given pride of place in the lounge to one of her daughter Lucy’s paintings. ‘You see people buying things just to create an Instagram image, but I don’t like to rush – eventually, you find the right pieces.’
Janey and John have only been here a few years, and they’re happy for the house to evolve at its own pace. The garden, in particular, is a work in progress. Janey’s experimenting with jungly, evergreen plants, such as loquat trees and a ‘wild and wacky’ huge-leaved or Chinese rice plant. She’s teamed them with reclaimed sandstone and black-brick paths for a look that’s rather more modern than the average country garden. ‘I decided I was just going to have fun,’ she enthuses. ‘When you’re designing for clients, it’s much more prescriptive. For the first time ever, I haven’t really done a planting plan.’
One thing’s for sure, though – the cottage’s new look has made an impression in the village. It may appear to be a break from tradition, but in fact, the reverse is true. ‘During the build, the heritage officer pointed out that with our permitted development rights, we could have put all kinds of horrible little sheds on the site,’ says Janey. ‘He said he’d much rather give us permission to do something different like this, because Lavenham’s always been known for its unusual buildings. To add a new one for this generation was such a lovely thing to be able to do.’
See janeyauchinclossdesigns.com; projectorange.com