But this is new. When the Conrans bought the house a dozen or so years ago, Barton Court was near ruins, the roof collapsed and dry. As if these desperate thumbs-down features weren’t enough, the house was also filled with additional encumbrances, remnants of its earlier days as a boys’ elementary school. Only someone with far-seeing eyeballs, an ample and expansive imagination and budget could think of transforming this ramshackle structure, with its unmistakable burdens, into the delightful house shown in these pages. Two hundred years after its construction, as if these interminable assaults on its fabric had never happened, the house once again stands quietly assured above the surrounding countryside.
Although Barton Court is decidedly quieter than the boys’ school days, it still includes a lively movement life. This is home to five Conrans Children A meeting place for visiting friends and colleagues and international business contacts between the ages of twelve and twenty-seven (the two eldest from Sir Terence’s marriage to the novelist Shirley Conran) as well as bridging the so-called generation gap with ease. After all, the Conran connections are now worldwide. A mere recital of its commercial commitments can boggle the nine-to-six mind, with its more than four hundred branches on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Mothercare Group’s 87 home shops, and to curewhich he acquired about two years ago. He is also chairman of Conran Associates and Habitat-Mothercare Group Design OfficeThe largest design organization together EuropeResponsible for graphics and packaging, stores and offices. His latest venture is Conran-Octopus, a joint publishing venture and Richard Shoppes.
Conrans’ broad and eclectic interest in design and decoration From the moment the visitor enters the home, all periods are clarified in both its planning and possessions. Stone flagging in earlier days the hallway From the door between the closed walls of the adjoining rooms ran to the stairs. These rooms are now combined hall and Living room Large Area: Over a hundred feet in length. The waxed floorboards on either side of the original hallway offer a lively and unexpected visual contrast, and also define the activities of the living room areas as they are traversed. If there is a tendency to work, the family members are apt to migrate to the rocks at one end of the area. If they are inclined to chat, watch television or listen to music, they go to the other end. A large regional town-hall table, removed from its former official stance, and found in a local antique shop, is now the centerpiece of the hall, enlivened by a blue-and-white jug always filled with flowers. An eighteenth-century mahogany bureau, a terrestrial globe, and a doll’s house halfway between a French chateau and a Hudson River mansion are other items in this entryway for added enjoyment.
The cozy end of the spacious living-room offers another display of the Conran touch. A spacious living sofa is partnered by an iron-framed Victorian day-bed with equally deep cushioned comfort. This end of the room also features a constant motif in wedding Conran homes of earlier days: shelves spanning the full width of the room, filled with spoils. TravelWhether narrowly or nationally. Folk examples ArtToys, pictures, prints, records and more.
Upstairs, another aspect of the Conran design philosophy is exemplified: a preference for strictly furnished bedrooms, colorful but basic. Yet the main the bathroom The design once again shows hints of passionate interest and fun with the bright keelim, round pal ewood table, bentwood rocking chair, sofa and bureau as backdrop to the old fashioned bath.
