Architect Richard Parr on transforming a 17th-century farmhouse in the Cotswolds into his studio and family home
Today, Richard spends his time between the country and the capital. After our visit to the Cotswolds, we caught up with the architect at his Notting Hill office. “This is an urban hub with lots of touches of the country, while my home is a country hub with lots of sophisticated touches that are more associated with urban life,” he explains, while his two 18-month-old Jack Russells play with plant-based dog chews. Here, he tells us about marrying rural charm with contemporary design and why a house dubbed ‘completed’ is, in fact, never really finished.
Richard: “We moved to the Cotswolds when work was still very London-centric for architects. I was nervous about leaving the city, but I had clients who wanted well-designed houses in the country. The homes we conceive are not draughty and cold, nor do they all have Shaker panelling. Over the years, my practice and I have thought about how people live in the countryside; we redesign old houses inspired by urban homes. That’s really what my own house is all about.
“It’s a 17th-century farmhouse with really thick walls. I don’t have exhaustive funds, which, in a way, is a good thing because I had to work with what was already there. The only exception is the kitchen – or what I call the live-cook-eat space – where I knocked down into the existing courtyard to make it open-plan. Now, it’s a sacred space: you can cook and prepare food while being with everyone else in the room. Also, the kitchen garden is so close. There’s a deliberate relationship between cooking and growing.
“People tend to live in country houses for a long time, so you have to future-proof them. The main house is a family house. I wanted it to feel relaxing but still inspiring, beautiful and adaptable. It can be full of my friends or it can be filled with family – and it works because everyone has their own space.
“I’m very keen on gathering points. That’s why we have a big kitchen table; you can do all sorts of activities around it and there’s still space to sit down for lunch at the other end. We can easily fit 15 people. It’s an old school table, which is great because it’s not too precious – the underneath has graffiti all over it! But it’s a good, robust piece for life – just like the rest of the house.
“I have an interest in things that are beautifully made. The chairs in the dining room are an Arts and Crafts reinvention of traditional 17th-century ladder-backs. Alongside those are the Børge Mogensen chairs, which I absolutely love. They’re made of oak with leather straps, which remind me of the furniture I saw in Spain, where I lived for many years. Then I have a 1940s Eames table which is the perfect example of something of that moment – when designers were experimenting with ply. I don’t want themed spaces; our home is furnished by the stuff that we’ve become attached to.
“The house originally had many outbuildings that I was able to convert into new spaces. I really enjoy that disparate way of living. Ostensibly we live in our house in the way that people would have lived in there before, but we have added a new layer of use. We’re still using the outbuildings as productively as the owners before us – I’m just up in the studio designing, rather than doing an agricultural task. I’m still making the same journey to get to work across the courtyard.
“In the studio, there are very distinct areas. There’s the darker corner, which shares the same wood-panelled ceiling and inky rubber floor as my London office. It’s not lacking in light – a lot makes its way into the space, but it’s cosy and soundproof, there isn’t any reverberation. It’s very calm.
“The other half of the studio is all timber and glass. It’s a very energised space with a strong connection to the outside – the little windows are like picture frames that shape the view beyond. It really is a sundial: in the morning, you get a shaft of light that then travels all the way around the room throughout the day. I move with it and work in different positions on the big glass table. Sometimes I open all the windows, but there are no blinds – I don’t want to keep the sun or rain out.
“The wooden boards along the long wall in the studio were from the house and were made by Berthold Lubetkin. He lived in a farmhouse a few miles away shortly after emigrating to Britain in the 1930s and then ended up living here! Apparently, he even whittled the wood himself. It’s so bizarre that a pioneer of modernism made a very rustic interior in a farmhouse. I’d never found a place to put the panels until I built the studio, where they became a sort of screen along the wall.
“I believe in evolution and growth. The house is not a stage set and it hasn’t been interior designed. Life is all about evolving, learning and changing. The things in our home, from the art to the furniture, are part of a journey. Even when we design new houses for clients, we don’t consider them finished the day that we declare the project complete. In fact, that’s the start of its journey as an inhabited house. It’s just the beginning.”
RELATED ON THE MODERN HOUSE
Mark Lebon, the man inside the house that makes people smile
With the rolling South Downs on its doorstep, the award-winning Black Timber House by HAPA Architects sits lightly on the land
Hannah Carter Owers on selling the family home in two days in pursuit of the perfect 1970s retrofit project
The Classics: Valley Spring by Peter Womersley
Architect Anaïs Bléhaut of Daab Design on restoring the balance of a Battersea terraced house
The lavish restoration of a Lisbon townhouse
How boutique hotels and the Balearic Islands came to inspire this craft-led Hackney home
Why a nomadic design dealer is finally putting down roots at this family home in east London
Angus and Sarah Shepherd on putting down roots and reviving a 1960s home in Dulwich
A television producer on transforming an old student house into a fine family home in Queen’s Park