A custom-designed kitchen by Banda forms the contemporary heart of the home. Ash oak brings tactile warmth as does the Taj Mahal quartzite island, concealing a butler’s pantry within the oak joinery.
Life at Woodland House unfolds quietly despite its expansiveness, using proportion, texture and interior layering to allow each room its own distinct story.
As the existing architecture of Woodland House already offered generous proportions, architecture studio Banda focused on facilitating moments of enclosure within it. In response to the client’s desire for a home where the family could retreat and reconnect, Banda first looked outward for design inspiration. And the 17 acres of English countryside beyond the home’s large windows became the starting point. “The landscape becomes part of the experience of the rooms,” CEO of Banda Edo Mapelli Mozzi says, creating a home that, despite its scale, diffuses into its surroundings through intentional and tactile choices.
“Large country houses can easily feel formal or distant if they aren’t carefully calibrated,” Mapelli Mozzi says, speaking to the main challenge of balancing a sense of openness with the ease that a family home requires. This careful calibration was resolved through understanding the “clear hierarchy of spaces” in the home. With multiple living rooms, studies, a large kitchen and a cinema room, the Banda team approached each space deliberately. Textures and materials highlight the intention of each room, revealing where the home’s historic roots are and where a more contemporary approach is introduced. For example, “18th-century Aubusson tapestries with contemporary furniture create a dialogue between heritage and modern life,” Mapelli Mozzi says, denoting a clear relationship between old and new.
Extending from the kitchen, two family living rooms are framed by a double-sided fluted travertine fireplace that separates the spaces while establishing a sculptural centerpiece.
Pictured: GUBI 9602 floor lamp.
In the dining room, a bespoke blackened walnut dining table by Banda sits beneath an Apparatus Trapeze 7 Mobile pendant. Studio HENRY WILSON sconces and caramel sheepskin chairs add texture and light to the room, alongside works from the client’s private art collection.
Banda’s use of textiles such as mohair, bouclé, wool and linen were carefully considered for their softness and dimension, helping to counterbalance the scale of the architecture. Each layer of texture was selected for its nuance and connection to the landscape rather than decoration, while stone and timber were chosen for their longevity.
Through its adherence to the style of an English country home, and a composition of thoughtful interior interventions, Woodland House champions the inner lives of the family who visits. Light-filled spaces and textural warmth instigate a sense of softening, rather than a staged escape from contemporary life. As Mapelli Mozzi notes, “We focused on balancing those larger gestures with pieces that felt human in scale and welcoming to live with.” In this way, Woodland House has succeeded in finding intimacy within vastness.
Pictured in the formal living room, a Vincent Van Duysen sofa sits around a Banda-designed Calacatta Viola coffee table beneath an Apparatus Synapse pendant, alongside vintage Pierre Chapo stools, mohair club armchairs and silk shantung ottomans.
Limestone floors with a limestone fireplace, and a fluted honed travertine table are bespoke to the arrival hall.
The cinema room is the very essence of retreat. The sofa, custom-designed by Banda Design Studio for a previous Notting Hill project, was reimagined here in rust mohair velvet.
The principal suite showcases an emperor bed that sits beneath an 18th-century French Aubusson tapestry and vintage Harvey Probber Mayan daybed reupholstered in olive velvet.
Pictured: &Tradition Wullf chair and Cassina 524 Tabouret Méribel stool.
