The decorator and the writer

Twenty-eight years ago I bought my first issue of The World of Interiors and was immediately captivated, especially by an article about Grange House, the redecoration of which was done by David Hicks for a London businessman and his family. Grange House seemed to me to be the most comfortable and stylish of English country houses - not too grand, nothing pompous and actually great fun.

Imagine, then, my surprise when - and I don't remember precisely how much later - I discovered that the name of the house and its owners were completely fictitious. I've never found the explanation for the subterfuge and it could be there is an official one somewhere, but I missed it.

The story is this, and I quote the writer of the article:

"David Hicks' most recent, and coincidentally one of his favourite, commissions was to redesign Grange House - a pretty, rather small farm-house in Oxfordshire - for a London businessman, Peter Westbury, his American wife, Louise, and their two children. He confesses that the reason he enjoyed the job so much was due mainly to the Westbury's sense of style and taste - a style so much attuned to his own that he became involved in redesigning their garden as well.....

"The Hicks' maxim - that he sees himself merely as an interpreter of his client's taste - never once presented a difference of opinion in the case of Grange House. He was dealing, too, with a family who had formerly lived in a much grander house and who had quite a collection of possessions; so they were able to chose the best of these, which give the house its distinct personal style."

By now you're probably saying "but, I thought that house was ..." and you'd be right. Grange House was, in fact, The Grove, and Peter and Louise Westbury were David and Pamela Hicks - their former "much grander house" being Britwell House.

The story as presented is quite cohesive, with lots of telling, or misleading, details - for example:

"Although Grange House is fairly old - early 18th century - with a double-height drawing-room added on in 1825, it clearly couldn't be too grand, except for the drawing-room, where David Hicks felt justified in adding a stately touch or two. But, because Peter and Louise were used to living in more generous surroundings, he felt that he had to give them a sense of scale to get away, as much as possible, from the existing cottagey atmosphere.....

"Granting that, in this instance, David Hicks had a great deal of possessions to chose from, he finds that on the whole (especially in the United States) his clients have none, or don't wish to use what they do have, preferring to start afresh. They want to be told what to collect and his advice often extends to buying antiques too. 'I think it is terribly nice, and flattering, and I suppose it's better than making mistakes ... but it does seem odd to me......'

"The pale-blue dining room, is a tribute to Hicks' skill, as the most dominating feature, and extremely attractive and decorative mural en grisaille with silver and pale-blue, executed for the Westburys' previous house, had to be included. The original beamed ceiling was obviously unsuitable for anything so sophisticated, and the room wasn't tall enough, so the floor had to be dug out to fit it in. The dining-table is, surprisingly, a plywood top on a circular drum base, covered in a Hicks-designed print. 'I can't see the point of spending a lot of money on a table and then covering it up with a table-cloth - and I happen to like table-cloths....'

"David Hicks and Peter Westbury designed Peter's dressing-room as an audacious combination of bedroom, bathroom, and library to take Peter's collection of books which go over, around and under the window. A 19th century chintz with a black ground and autumn colors was used for the bedspread and roman-blind, whilst the bath alcove is lined with Gothic engravings. ...

"As David Hicks was nearing the end of resdesigning Grange House, the garden began, increasingly, to take up more of everyone's thoughts. He hadn't been asked to help with garden-design in the past, although, having just written a book on the subject, it is obviously a consuming interest of his, and, in this case, he was able to design it from scratch. 'Of course you can see it is still a young, new garden which needs to a good ten years to mature.' "

As I say, a cohesive tale with lots of telling details, and they really must have enjoyed, the writer and the decorator, constructing this quite entertaining work of fiction! And, while on the subject of fiction, I can't help but notice that there isn't an abundance of tablescaping in these early photographs of Hicks' house, and I wonder if perhaps, on occasion, they too were fiction, those tablescapes - stories invented for the moment and the camera lens.

There is another way, of course, of looking at the dearth of objets on Hicks' tables. Until quite recently, rooms were not photographed in a state of freewheeling clutter, beset with the risible detritus of lives lived untidily in rooms created for the camera lens - the ficionalization of interiors, about which, months ago, I wrote a small essay. It was an essay in which I also expressed the belief that there is a tendency to write adoringly about aristocracy, royalty and celebrity as icons of style, their deplorable behavior and affiliations being ignored. But, that is a story, or non sequitur if you will, for another day.

"It is easy, in elegant diction
To call it an innocent fiction;
But it comes in the same category
As telling a regular story."

W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance

Photographs by James Mortimer to accompany text by Annabel von Hoffmannsthal for The World of Interiors, December/January 1983.

Quotations are from Annabel von Hoffmannsthal's text.