GALLERY Tour Tessa Kennedy's Edwardian country house

Kennedy House: Bringing family into the home

February 18, 2000
Web posted at: 2:31 p.m. EST (1931 GMT)

LONDON (CNN) -- Twenty-seven years ago, British interior designer Tessa Kennedy bought a rambling Edwardian country home to be closer to the prep school where her children were enrolled.

They're grown and gone now, but Kennedy has stayed in the big house. And the gabled structure, filled with photos and mementos, is proof that her family has always come first.

In the entrance, she made a screen that holds black-and-white photos of her five children. Nearby is a doll house she bought for her only daughter. Paintings by one of her sons adorn the walls. The sitting room is spacious enough for family reunions. The dining-room table, she notes, can expand to accommodate the largest meals.

She has paintings of other families, too. Her favorite is a portrait of the wedding of King Edward VII to Queen Alexandra -- a portrait, she says, whose significance was lost on her when she bought it.

"It wasn't until 1976, when the Queen opened part of Windsor castle ... that I actually saw that it was the Prince of Wales' wedding," she says.

After family, says Kennedy, she loves fabrics. "I'm passionate about them," she says. "I've collected antique fabrics, and I love rich fabrics -- velvets and embroideries."

A remnant of an aged Turkish tent, framing a mirror in the sitting room, bears colorful testimony to that passion. Faded and festooned with swirls, the cloth once covered desert travelers; now, it commands a room.

"It was lots of bits of velvet and not in very good condition," Kennedy says. "I had somebody embroider them and seam them together."

Adding to the Middle East motif is a collection of camel miniatures scattered throughout the house. "I had just been to the Middle East when I bought the house, so I was mad about the desert and camels."

And when it's time to go to sleep, Kennedy climbs into a Gothic bed -- the perfect setting for saying prayers. "(It) is like lying in a church at night," she says.

CNN Style Correspondent Elsa Klensch contributed to this report.

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