The owners of this commanding Arts & Crafts mansion needed a designer who could make their home feel like a warm embrace – and they knew exactly who to turn to
An interior designer once balked when I asked how they would describe their signature style. “I don’t have one,” they said. “I translate what the client wants, and what is right for their home.” This is obviously true. Every interior designer is part artist, part diplomat, balancing their own instincts with the demands of their client and the constraints of the building they inhabit. The ingredients are always different, and so too is the outcome. Yet no designer is merely a conduit. All the best ones are identifiable in some way.
Take Jessica Buckley as an example. The interior designer infuses every home she renovates – whether it’s a villa in London, a townhouse in Edinburgh, where she’s based, or a country pile in Gloucestershire – with a sort of Nancy Meyers by way of Nina Campbell cosiness. Just like Campbell, the doyenne of pattern who inspired her to pursue a career in interior design, she effortlessly mixes fabrics and prints to create rooms that feel love-worn and lived-in, romantic but not froufrou. “Jessica was the perfect fit because she understood the Scottish country-house aesthetic we were looking for,” says the owner of this B-listed Arts & Crafts mansion in Stirlingshire. “And she also understood that we are completely uncreative and unimaginative.”
This is an unfair self-assessment. Someone lacking in imagination wouldn’t have bought this home. Built in 1907 by architect William Leiper, the mastermind behind Glasgow’s Templeton Carpet Factory, it’s a real one-off with a mock-Tudor façade, conical turret and richly crafted woodwork. “We loved the original features. It was very striking,” says the owner, who lives here with her husband and three children. “But we wanted it to feel like a family home rather than this imposing, stately structure.”
Arranged over three floors, the house is, in Jessica’s words, “a whopper – absolutely insanely big”. But the job was manageable. For starters, it wasn’t a top-to-toe renovation; the task was to renovate the family’s main living hub and bedrooms. What’s more, the previous owner, a property developer, had taken care of most of the structural issues. Best of all? “The clients were trusting and open to suggestions,” says Jessica. “They were forthcoming about the practicalities, but when it came to the aesthetics, they said they’d love to see what we came up with. Which is the dream.”
Every Jessica Buckley project begins with a rummage through fabric samples to see what strikes a chord. The designer knew early on, for instance, that the principal bedroom and its adjacent dressing room and en-suite would need a wallpaper to connect them as a trio. “I felt very strongly that it had to be something airy and romantic,” she says. Colefax & Fowler’s Chantilly, a botanical design of cream-and-pink flowers with bountiful green foliage, fitted the bill. The rest flowed from there.
“I love soft pinks, greens, blues, a little bit of yellow – we joke in the office about how often we gravitate towards this palette,” she laughs. “But it felt very harmonious with the house; the green in its original stained-glass windows, the warm tones of the timber. We dialled it up and down as we worked through the home, making sure it wasn’t very obviously pink and green but that there were shades throughout.”
A key aim was to diffuse the house’s formality, particularly in the wood-panelled entrance hall, which is entered via a sculpted stone vestibule. It has grand proportions and felt a bit echoey and draughty. The dark wood had to stay, so Jessica tempered its austerity with cosy textiles: an ecru Robert Stephenson rug (“It brought a freshness without being stark white,” she explains); a blush-toned Robert Kime wallpaper; pleated Penny Morrison lampshades and a flouncy skirted table. Two huge window alcoves were given sage linen velvet benches that can be sectioned off by pale floor-length curtains. The hallway still feels elegant and has an unmistakable presence, but it’s also more relaxed than before.
This is an excerpt from issue 162 of Homes & Interiors Scotland. Want to read more about this Arts & Crafts house? Buy your issue here.
Find more grand interior design inspiration at Balcarres Estate.
Behind Closed Doors: Balcarres Estate, home to the Earls of Crawford since 1580
