By Molly Malsom

Published: Wednesday, 02 March 2022 at 12:00 am

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When an architect visited Val Foster’s house recently, he made a thorough inspection of the picturesque building framed by expansive Nottinghamshire fields of green and umber. He noted the panelled doors and the gilded lion’s heads set in roundels. He admired the symmetry of the façade with its neat portico and sash windows. Concluding his tour, he decided that it was probably time this ‘fine example’ of Regency architecture was listed.

Appearances are invariably deceptive. What the visitor did not know was that this property is in fact a pastiche of styles and eras. ‘The house was built in three phases. It began as a farmhouse in the 18th century and was doubled in size in the 19th century,’ says Val, whose antiques business, Foster & Gane, is a favourite with private buyers and interior designers, such as Rose Uniacke and Beata Heuman, for its striking, design-led pieces.

‘In the 1960s, the owners bought large parts of a Regency house that was being demolished nearby and used them to create the façade, adding the new hall and staircase inside,’ she continues. ‘After that, there was one interim owner here, a friend of ours, before we bought the house from him in 1997. We’d been to parties and fallen in love with the house and its setting.’ The quiet surroundings and untrammelled rural views also appealed. ‘We can walk from the garden into an old wood with majestic beech trees as sentinels, which is wonderful.’

The rambling two-storey interior held its own particular magic for Val, a former broadcaster and journalist. Inside, those enterprising previous occupants had used other reclaimed elements – pillars and plasterwork – to add an air of discovery throughout the house. Nothing here is quite what it seems. In the dining room, for instance, what looks like an antique corner cupboard opens to reveal the study, where another door opens on to a walled garden with its fragrant fig tree – like a series of Chinese boxes.

Over the years, Val and her husband, Philip, a retired doctor, have added their own surprises. In 2008, they knocked through the adjacent 18th-century stable block to extend the house: ‘We were able to date the stables according to the particular ‘bond’ used for the distinctively patterned brickwork.’ The extension houses the orangery, where glazed doors open on to another courtyard garden. Inspired by other secret portals in the house, they used an antique mirror as a gib door, which leads to the library.  The couple’s three children grew up here: in the former nursery upstairs an antique wardrobe door opens, Narnia-like, to reveal the family bathroom.

Like the building, the decoration evolved in stages. ‘I’ve always been a fan of John Fowler [the influential decorator and co-founder of Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler] and the way he mixed things to make a place feel lived in, adding layers, so it doesn’t look like a museum. I’m not keen on interiors that look as though they’ve been assembled by numbers – they end up being soulless. I don’t subscribe to a particular look. I buy things I like. That’s what gives a home character.’

For the kitchen, where the original meat hooks still dangle from the ceiling, Val chose simple countrified cabinetry to echo the 18th-century architecture. All the furnishings were picked for design and provenance. One room has a wallpaper by 20th-century artist Peggy Angus, a contemporary of Edward Bawden, who also designed the benches in the garden. A zingy orange cushion is by Scottish artist Donald Hamilton Fraser.  Cole & Son’s romantic Madras Violet lines the master bedroom. ‘I spotted the design in a magazine and longed to buy it. I managed to snap up the last few remaining rolls.’  Downstairs, the loo still has the original 1970s William Morris wallpaper. ‘It looked so right there we’ve never felt the need to change it.’

Val’s career move in to antiques came almost by chance in 2010.  ‘I’ve always enjoyed doing up houses and finding unusual bits and pieces. I had set up a website and was selling in a low-key way when I showed my son Ed some of my stock. He was working in the antiques department at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler at the time. He suggested I made an appointment with a director to offer him some unusual pieces that I’d found. To my delight, he bought them. It was a real boost. I walked out into Mayfair and thought, maybe I am an antiques dealer.’

After working for eminent antiques dealers in London, Ed joined the business in 2015. He now runs the showroom, set in a converted coaching inn in Milton Common, Oxfordshire. ‘When I first started I used to buy things that I felt had a commercial edge. Now I only buy what I like,’ says Val of the constantly changing stock. ‘We scour thousands of items every day at auction, looking for interesting things.’ One week it might be Finnish glass, Secessionist lighting or French glass; the next an exquisite Japanese cabinet or Polish abstract. What unifies it all is the unusual design and craftsmanship. Mother and son have also launched their first in-house pieces, which include woven wastepaper baskets and a dining chair made from local timber: ‘It sits well in both a traditional or modern setting,’ she says.

Like her peers, she finds the thrill of the chase just as alluring as the discovery. ‘I love tramping around markets just in case something irresistible turns up.’ In the guest bedroom, the ebonised bedhead was a chance find at a vast fair. ‘It was an 18th-century pew divide from a church but was just the ticket repurposed in a bedroom.’

She also has a knack for uncovering gems by overlooked artists. A striking painting in the orangery is by Joash Woodrow. ‘He trained with Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach at the Royal College of Art but then became a recluse, painting but refusing to sell his work. Some years ago, when his family were clearing out his home, an art dealer rescued his very expressive paintings and drawings just before they were about to be thrown in a skip. Just a fraction of them have come on the market over the last couple of decades and his work is much acclaimed.’

In this household, even everyday objects can become works of art. ‘What we also enjoy is finding things that can look interesting when they’re used in different contexts,’ she says. In the orangery, a handsome wooden carving is in fact a door reclaimed from a 19th-century Spanish house.  Like everything else here, it has taken on a new, and novel, life of its own.

 

The exterior

The elegant Regency-style house started life as an 18th-century farmhouse

The entrance hall

A painted oil jar by Jean Signovert sits on an impressive Secessionist ebonised oak centre table, c1900, in the curve of the staircase in the entrance hall. The stair runner was woven to order by Fleetwood Fox from Tim Page. The 18th-century Japanese lacquered cabinet, chestnut table and painting by Will Roberts, are from Foster & Gane.

The living room

An antique suzani from Uzbekistan is used as a tablecloth. The striking white leaf ceramic lamp is mid 20th-century and was produced in Italy for Casa Pupo.

Val’s Wheaten terrier, Poppy, relaxes between two indigo cushions made from hand-woven fabric from Laos. The Chinese lacquered table is from Foster & Gane.

The painted chairs are 1940s Maison Jansen and the curtains are made up in Bazaar silk/linen by Richard Smith for Madeaux.

The pentagonal oak table is early 20th-century English, from Foster & Gane. Atop it sits a 1960s Swedish ceramic and rattan vase filled with hydrangeas. The 18th-century bergère is in its original paint.

The kitchen

In the light-filled country kitchen, the 19th-century elm chairs are from Foster & Gane, while the tablecloth has been made from an Indian textile.

A late 19th or early 20th-century chinoiserie cabinet displays French and English ceramics.

The orangery

In the orangery, the handsome 1960s wicker chair is by Gio Ponti, the Bessarabian rug is from dealer Jenny Hicks Beach and the chairs with hand-carved back splats are by Michael Niedermoser, Vienna 1900, from Foster & Gane.

The sofa is from Lawson Wood and the still life of bottles is by Ed Foster.

The painted dresser displays a collection of 19th-century ceramic oyster plates and 1960s Portuguese cabbage tureens.

The terrace

The bench on the terrace is one of a pair designed by the artist Edward Bawden in the 1960s. The coffee cups are by Susie Cooper.

The bedrooms

The wallpaper in the master bedroom is Madras Violet by Cole & Son, now discontinued. Val uses a hand-loomed rug by Swedish designer Märta Maas-Fjetterström as a throw on the daybed.

A 19th-century secrétaire stands in one corner of the bedroom. The shawl on the chair is English 19th-century and hand-embroidered.

The chest of drawers is Scottish, above which hangs a painting by Polish artist Zdzislaw Ruszkowski (1907–1991). The little house just seen is a copy of a previous home made by her daughter, Hannah, while at school.

The guest bedroom is filled with colour and interest through clever layering of pattern and texture: embroidered cushions made from an antique suzani, a red and white Welsh blanket and an ottoman upholstered in an antique kilim. Colour unites the scheme. The painting above the bed is by Ewart Johns.

The bedside table in a guest bedroom is French. The orange cushion fabric is by Scottish painter Donald Hamilton Fraser, echoing the colours of the painting above the bed, which is by David Greenall.

The walls of the spare bedroom are papered in Palampore.

The Moroccan bedside table in the spare room is one of a pair. Beyond, in the en suite bathroom, a raspberry 1940s Lloyd Loom chair echoes the red and pink colour scheme.

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