Cookery writer Skye McAlpine on home, hosting and finding happiness

In the podcast, Skye McAlpine – author of A Table Full of Love, A Table for Friends and The Christmas Companion – shares how her childhood, brought up in both Venice and Hampshire, was always very sociable. An only child, both her parents, Baron Alistair McAlpine (of the McAlpine construction company, a former Conservative party treasurer and famous collector) and her mother, Romilly McAlpine, named the first lady of couture by Vogue (her official wardrobe was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2002), were great lovers of hosting.

Skye recalls how they had a more or less open house policy in Venice, with friends and friends of friends always visiting, enjoying long Sunday lunches and the like. “We always had great Christmases when I was little,” says Skye, “and now it’s really important to me to make it over the top.” Indeed, when Homing visits for the exclusive house tour, available for members on Patreon, a beautiful Christmas tree is up - as it turns out, it’s been there since July, complete with presents underneath, as part of Skye’s new project, The Christmas Companion, a book of recipes, crafts and inspiration to help others bring the festive magic.

Birthdays are another “happier aspect of childhood” that Skye loves conjuring up now. “I take them, presents and cards, the rigmarole, very seriously.” In the house tour, available separately from the podcast on Patreon, Skye shows Matt around her kitchen-dining room, where clever elements such as a moveable kitchen island on wheels allows for huge tables of 36 guests, with cocktails upstairs in the beautiful sitting room served from the antique 1950s Piero Fornasetti refrigerator.

“The kitchen is the heart of everything, I feel my happiest there,” says Skye, who paints a picture of her boys doing their homework at the table, her husband cooking supper, while she works or potters. “It’s the platonic ideal of a kitchen. Having people over makes me very happy, that feeling of bringing warmth into people’s lives is a privilege. It gives me a high.”

Yet, as Skye explains, “after a while I need some quiet time.” A terrible insomniac (5am is her regular waking time, describing this as the “dream time” for working), “If I’ve got a lot of exciting projects on, I struggle to quieten my brain.” Then she turns to online shopping, emails, reading, or listening to audio books in the middle of the night. In the day, it’s about keeping to a routine where possible. “Walking and phone calls clear my head, a hot bath before bed, bake a cake because why not, I find it very relaxing.”

While the kitchen is Skye’s happy place, and the house has a “very positive energy”, ultimately she explains that “home is people”. Venice feels like home because her mother is still there, still living in Skye’s childhood home, and she describes meeting her husband, financier Anthony Santospirito, at university aged 18, as feeling like home. “I knew he was the one very quickly.” Now the couple split their lives with their two sons across Venice and London. The McAlpine home, West Green House, leased from the National Trust, was the target of an IRA bomb in 1990, due to Alastair’s role in the Conservative party. But Skye’s philosophy is about remaining confident you can get through the tough times. “Even if the building blows up, but you can be with the people, it feels like home very quickly.”

Forthcoming episodes of Homing feature Sam Taylor-Johnson, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith and Dan Pearson. Subscribe to Homing or become a member of Patreon and as always, happy listening.