The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
One eye on the past
A damp, derelict stable block transformed into an inspiring family home
We all know about books and covers, but it comes as a surprise to learn that slight, ethereal Henri et te von Stockhausen used to exercise horses for the Household Cavalry. But then, despite being born and educated in the Uk, she comes from a redoubtable P russian military family, and has clearly inherited an inner core of steel.
She still rides, having left london some years ago for the quieter charms of Dorset, but it’s a wonder she finds time. Her company, VSP Interiors – that’s von Stockhausen and a partner – currently has six projects on the go, including a castle in Scotland. She has three children, aged between seven and 15, and this week happens to be catering for 60 people for a charity event in the village hall. Her equally energetic husband, Mark Gibbens, works a six-day week running knighton Countryside Management – specialists in landscaping and woodland conservation–and is
Chair of Governors of the Dorset Studio School, which trains young people for ‘land-based careers’.
Knowing all t his, it is less of a surprise to learn that when it came to renovating and decorating her own home, a converted carriage house and stables in rolling countryside near Dorchester, von Stock hausen was hands-on and fea rless. The build ing was in a st ate that would have repelled more squeamish buyers. ‘I spotted it in the window of an estate agent,’ she says. ‘It was a repossession and had been empty for t hree yea rs. It smelled of damp, t he bathrooms were black with mould, and there was rat poison in every room. The children wouldn’t even come in.’
Von Stockhausen has imagination as well as courage. ‘We were liv ing in a friend’s holiday let as we had already sold our previous house – a 17th-century cottage with small rooms and low ceilings,’ she says. ‘I was desperate to find somewhere with space. Here were 500 square metres, high ceilings and big windows, at a price we could afford. I liked t he fact t hat it had once been home to horses, and I knew we could make it lovely. We st a r ted work t he minute we got the keys. It was a ver y exciting time and I loved my daily site visits with John Kirby, a fantastic local builder. In 12 weeks we made it habitable, and we moved in with not much more than our mattresses.’
Just a s she pred icted, von Stockhausen created something lovely – a fa mily home wit h space, st yle a nd a
‘It smelled of damp, the bathrooms were black with mould, and there was rat poison in every room’
certain glamour–all on a limited budget. To the left of the entrance hall is a big kitchen with windows on two sides, and French doors on to the garden, once the stable yard. On the other side of the entrance is a staircase hall that doubles as a formal dining room. Beyond this, on the garden side, is the drawing room, which has three floorto-ceiling arched windows, wide enough for carriages to pass through. Next to the drawing room, and overlooking the entrance drive, is an informal living room. Up the stairs from the dining room, there are children’ s bedrooms, a guest bedroom and bathrooms above this end of the house, while above the kitchen are von Stockhausen’s home office, dressing rooms, another bathroom and the main bedroom, with exposed rafters and a ceiling rising into the roof.
Architecturally, the building was undistinguished, and had been clumsily divided with partition walls. Von Stockhausen opened it up – t he kitchen, for example, was four rooms, the drawing room two – and also added period mantelpieces in the reception rooms and simple cornices. As for the furnishings and decoration, there is no clue that money might have been a constraint – in fact, the effect is rather the opposite .‘ Wear every lucky to have inherited some lovely antiques,’ says von Stockhausen. ‘I am half-german, half- austrian, and my grandparents lived in a wing of Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna, so had some big, beautiful pieces.’ The gilded wooden chandelier above the dining table is Austrian, as is the huge marquetry cupboard in the drawing room. ‘We saved money on decorating by doing everything we could ourselves,’ she says. ‘My amazing assistant and I hung nearly all the wallpaper, having watched a video on how to do it, and I painted the wide stripes on the landing walls.’
While the drawing room, with its bold landscape wallpaper, and the dining room, papered in a silver y Ralph Lauren confection of birds and trees, have a country-house grande ur, the kitchen is more contemporary, its walls the smart grey of a plain flannel suit. Sleek white units run at right angles, and there is an extra-large central island. Work surfaces look like stone. This, surely, cannot have been a cheap option ?‘ In fact, it’ s a Magnet trade kitchen,’ says von Stockhausen, ‘and the work surfaces are unpolished concrete, which we piped through a window into wooden frames lined with bin bags’.
While Gibbens works on the garden, his wife, like all true decorators, continues tot weak the interior–moving a picture here, changing a wall colour there, finding space for a new acquisition. ‘I am planning to paint the kitchen floor in a pale chequerboard,’ she says. Another project to add to her list.
Sleek white units run at right angles, and there is a large island. This cannot have been cheap? ‘It’s a Magnet kitchen’