House Guest by Country & Town House | Interior Designer Interviews

Welcome to episode 157 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. If you’re dreaming of an Italian getaway, today’s podcast is for you. Count Benedikt Bolza and his wife Nencia Corsini have created Castello di Reschio, a castle sitting at the top of undulating Umbrian landscape, a blissful escape. Just reopening after its winter slumber, the interior and most of the castle’s furniture is designed by Benedikt himself, a trained architect and utter perfectionist. He couldn’t find a coffee machine without plastic pods so he made one, he doesn’t like how technology affects our sleep so the mattresses have special magnetic toppers to repel white light, he doesn’t like corridors (they feel too ‘hotel-y’) so suites fan out from a central courtyard – every detail is researched and tested to make guests feel at home. Whether you’re walking the grounds, watching the horses exercise in the equestrian centre, eating freshly foraged delicacies, admiring Nencia’s artwork and flowers or having the knots in your shoulders eased in the former wine cellar’s spa, Reschio delights and charms at every turn. Tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 156 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week's guest is former editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration and dubbed ‘interiors guru’ by The Sunday Times, Michelle Ogundehin, writer, author, brand consultant and tv presenter. Her book, Happy Inside, of which designer Jonathan Adler says:  ‘Prozac, shmozac, Michelle’s book is the only anti-depressant you need – it’s my bible’ has recently launched. She is on our screens next week when the new series of Interior Design Masters starts Weds 9th at 9pm, where guests include Matthew Williamson, Mary Portas and Guy Oliver. Michelle and I chat about filming the new series, how the future of interior design is shaping up and how she believes, along with good food and exercise, environment is the third pillar of wellbeing. Tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 155 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. It’s an exciting year ahead for this week's House Guest, the acclaimed interior and furniture designer Francis Sultana. His first hotel project opens in Capri in July (Hotel La Palma, part of the Oetker Collection) and his had taken on the custodianship of The Hunting Lodge, John Fowler’s gothic mansion in Hampshire – which Nicky Haslam recently vacated. He has no formal training, ‘Growing up in Gozo, I read House & Garden and World of Interiors magazines, and watched a lot of episodes of 80's TV drama Dynasty; I was a sponge for information. I knew I loved houses from a very early age’. He's on the international council for the design museum, is CEO of the David Gill Gallery, the Ambassador of Culture for Malta, and is working on Malta's first contemporary art museum which will open in 2023. Tune in for more...

Welcome to episode 154 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week’s House Guest is Nicky Dobree, a leading interior designer who specialises in luxury ski chalets. She began by transforming her own chalet from its pine cookie cutter style, to one with a big Italian kitchen, big picture frame windows and contemporary furniture, and she is now on her 50th chalet. We chat about how she got into the industry, the difference between a typical house project and a ski chalet, and attention to sustainability when embarking on projects. Tune in for more...

Welcome to episode 153 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week’s House Guest is Jen Bernard, an interior designer and managing director of Bernard Interiors, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. she is reimagining the growing are of high-end residential care and she's a leader in the field, and it's fascinating to hear about the huge potential in the market. We chat about her aim in moving away from the stigma surrounding care homes and its typical institutionalised design; she instead creates an environment which is not only beautiful but appealing. Jen recently completed the Nightingale Development - a block of luxury apartments overlooking Clapham Common - in 2020. Tune in for more...

Welcome to episode 152 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week’s House Guest is the furniture designer and interior decorator, Tim Gosling. Both a highly prominent and eminent figure in the world of interior design, he is known for creatively combining historical and modern techniques to create bespoke designs. Tim has an incredible eye, and is intent on creating pieces that are both timeless and sentimental. A great raconteur, he chats about the significance of colour, his renovation project of his own 57 room French Chateau and even his stint on stage in a pantomime. He fascinatingly reveals that the spectrum of colour has changed and developed in history, and continues to do so, and he recants working with Graphenstone, a carbon neutral paint company, when renovating the Chateau. Tune in for more stories.

Welcome to episode 151 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week’s guest is rug designer Deirdre Dyson. First and foremost an artist, Deirdre nearly had her career stalled by a headmistress who told her: ‘You cant make a living out of art’. Hence she left school without the necessary qualifications and worked as a secretary while compiling a portfolio. She talked herself into a place at Byam Shaw fine art school by doing shorthand for the head in the afternoons. By the second year she had a scholarship and also met her designer husband, James. Tune in to hear more about how she enjoys the restriction rug design imposes on her art,  spending lockdown on a boat in Guadaloupe and why Paris is a special place.

Welcome to the 150th episode of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week's guest: Louise Bradley. Louise Bradley is one of the UK's leading interior designers. Her name is synonymous in the industry with bespoke luxurious design, and she is known for creating classic, contemporary and luxurious spaces. She chats about how the design industry has changed over the decades and how she has adapted and grown her business. She's recently completed a new book: Interior: Louise Bradley... tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 149 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week's guest: Toby Lorford, who is blowing the cobwebs off antique-buying. ‘Antiques bring history into an interior, softening it’, says Toby Lorford of Lorford’s Antiques and Lorfords Contemporary, who started his first antiques shop in Tetbury, Gloucs in 2003, with a view to creating a new breed of antiques shop and modernising the way antiques are sold. He now has two hangars full of traders and a company that offers a concierge service. Along the way he started his own furniture company, Lorfords Contemporary, thanks to chef Marco Pierre White (it’s a lovely story) and thinks that antique dealers should get together more to sing from the treetops about how it’s the ultimate in recycling. He has big plans for changing the way we shop…. tune in for more.

Welcome to episode 148 of the House Guest podcast, where Country & Town House Magazine's Interiors Editor Carole Annett chats with experts from the world of interior design and decoration. This week's guest: Sophie Garnier of Kalinko