A Private View: an apartment that more than measures up in Bruton’s historic Redlynch Park

“We’re hard-wired to take out stud walls,” says Chris Graves. He and Jolene Ellis are sitting in the kitchen of their lavish lateral apartment in Redlynch, a country house in Bruton they’ve called home for the last two-and-a-half years – and he’s as good as his word: there’s not a stud wall in sight.

The Redlynch estate is rather ancient, dating to as early as the 12th century – and has a rich history to match. The current structure – handsome and symmetrical, with a block at either end, a central carriage court and hipped slate roofs with marching dormer windows – is Georgian, built for the Earl of Ilchester in the late 18th. Later, in around 1901, Edwin Lutyens converted some of the former commercial buildings into residences, although these were seriously damaged in a fire started by Suffragettes in 1914 and later demolished. Throughout the 20th century, the estate would change hands many times, serving as a school before being divided into apartments in the 1980s.

Fast-forward to 2020, however, and Chris and Jolene were living in London when Covid squandered their plans to move to the USA. (Readers may remember we visited their Victorian townhouse in Chiswick.) While they did eventually find themselves heading west, it wasn’t quite as far as they’d initially planned. That December, they bought two of those apartments, which had been converted into one. And then a third came up for sale…

“We were presented with a magical opportunity that we hadn’t foreseen: the possibility of creating a nearly 5,000sq ft duplex apartment, while simultaneously reinstating the original grandeur of some of the rooms,” explains Chris. Bar some stud walls (and a few other 1980s modifications), the apartment was a blank canvas, crying out for Chris and Jolene’s flair and attention to detail.

Their work here has had a profound effect on their lives; not only have they built a home at Redlynch, but a business, founding their design practice, Clarence & Graves, off the back of the success of their own renovations. “We started by helping friends with their homes – and then people began offering to pay us to design for them,” Chris says. With clients in Brooklyn, upstate New York and LA, Clarence & Graves and preparing to base themselves on the East Coast while they launch their growing decorating business in the USA. It means not only that they’re selling the apartment, they’re embarking on a whole new adventure – but they’re used to that. “It’s been a wild journey,” Chris adds. One gets the sense it’s barely begun.

Chris: “One of the best things about this remodelling project was how, by taking out some walls, we were able to open up all the windows – 16 in total. Now, you can stand in one corner of the apartment and see right to the other end.”

Jolene: “And the views out the windows are just as impressive: completely unencumbered 180-degree sight lines of the countryside. We can see all the way to the other side of the valley – there’s not another building in sight. Not even a telephone pole! There’s nothing except fields and the odd sheep.”

Jolene: “We wanted to make the renovation fit with the building. Because we’re on the first floor, it didn’t feel right have a really kitchen-y kitchen, for example. We knew we didn’t want an island, so instead, Chris designed the built-in units that feel more like a traditional dresser.”

Chris: “Whenever we do a design project, we try to decide on a ‘headline’ style. For this house, it was a sort of Georgian/Indian hybrid. We’ve travelled in India a lot and are very inspired by the colours there. The heritage of this building was really crying out for some richness and indulgence of that sort, so we’ve gone for some seriously punchy hues – like the turmeric of the kitchen – that are also in keeping with tradition. The dark-green of the kitchen cabinets, for example, is a heritage Farrow & Ball colour that was historically used for cabinetry. That kind of thing underpinned all our design choices.”

Jolene: “We wanted to add some modern twists too – hence the House of Hackney wallpaper, which is floral but with quite a contemporary feel, and the red-and-white striped wallpaper in the kitchen. For the tiled floor in there, we didn’t go for a black-and-white checkerboard, but instead used blue-green ones paired with a warmer white. We wanted to inject some fun into the design, while still honouring the history of the building.

“Choosing the right materials was really important to us. Making sure that we were sourcing the best possible materials was a painstaking process. Every element – even if it was just a single row of tiles – needed to be special.”

Chris: “We bought most of the furniture especially for the house and, as with everything else here, it represents a collision of old and new. We have a huge Roche Bobois sofa in the TV room at the end of the house, which is really modern-looking, but we also have a pair wicker chairs we bought at an antique market for £100 and a beautiful old bathtub we found in Bordeaux. We were always trying to balance authenticity and modernity – that idea of having reclaimed floorboards and underfloor heating.”

Jolene: “As much as was possible, we used local craftspeople – local builders, carpenters and electricians. The fireplace in the TV room was made by a local stonemason. It’s very beautiful.”

Chris: “That was important to us, because we care about the story of Redlynch and it felt like we were writing its next chapter. It was great to have people working on this place who all live within a few miles and were invested in the project, rather than people we’d brought in with no connection to the place.

“I’m sort of in denial that we’re selling, to be honest. It’s so special – really quite magical.”

Clarence & Graves

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