How One Couple Brought Keythorpe Hall Back To Life

After careful restoration, the custodians of Keythorpe Hall opened their home for exclusive use, where family and guests live off the land, says Carole Annett

‘You won’t find tinsel and baubles here,’ says Barbara van Teeffelen of Keythorpe Hall, who along with partner Giles Godfrey, owns a Georgian manor house wallowing in 25 acres of heavenly Leicestershire countryside. ‘We like our decorations to be more natural.’ It’s a philosophy which extends far beyond the foliage intertwining the staircase and dried alliums hanging like bursts of stardust.

Barbara van Teeffelen and Giles Godfrey

The couple became owners of Keythorpe Hall in 2012 almost by accident. Godfrey, who had grown up nearby, and van Teeffelen were living and working in London when his father sent him the estate’s details, with a note: ‘For the price of a cottage in the Cotswolds, you can have this.’ Initially, they would head up the A1 on weekends with numerous friends, have big dinners and spend hours hacking away at the 1.8 acres of overgrown walled garden. ‘It was like a mini Lost Garden of Heligan,’ van Teeffelen says.

‘We realised quite quickly it’s hard to be cooking for 20 people and then going back to work on Monday,’ she continues. Once the kitchen garden was cleared (with the additional help of a couple of pigs), they began growing their own fruit and vegetables with an emphasis on biodiversity and quality over quantity. ‘We literally started with a packet of seeds in one hand and a “how-to-grow book” in the other.’

Over time, there was more produce than they could eat themselves – friends like chef Ollie Dabbous of Hide in Mayfair started to use it in his restaurant – and an idea began to crystallise.

Originally completed in 1843 for the 11th Lord Berners and sitting within the traditional hunting grounds of Rutland and Leicestershire, this was a house built for entertaining. ‘There would have been a cook, dairy maids, gardeners, a whole team of staff, with everything processed in house,’ says Godfrey. ‘That’s what we wanted to recreate.’

The couple decided to make Keythorpe Hall available as a fully-staffed, exclusive-use country house where the gardens feed family, guests and staff and the land fuels the property via biomass. They travelled extensively, visiting estates and restaurants such as Babylonstoren in South Africa and Fäviken in northern Sweden. The game-plan was cemented by a trip to Ballymaloe cookery school in Ireland for a six-week sustainable food programme. ‘It was magical. We learned everything from baking bread and vegetable growing to milking cows. All while I was eight-months pregnant,’ van Teeffelen says.

Considering the estate as a home, one which the family would live in when there were no paying guests, determined its decorating style. The pair did most of it themselves over five years, creating individual schemes for the seven bedrooms in the main house (there are three further bedrooms in an adjoining apartment) and working with an architect to create bathrooms out of existing space. They avoided any major structural change and sourced British makers and brands wherever possible. Edward Bulmer was approached for his expertise on historical paint colour: the main corridor now boasts ‘EB Keythorpe Red’, a bespoke colour inspired by the original hue. ‘We wanted everything to look like it had always been there,’ says Godfrey.

Dotted with vintage finds and family heirlooms, each room has a talking point. Godfrey, an avid antiques collector, collaborated with dealer Richard Steenberg to find pieces like two enormous Chesterfield sofas from Soho House’s Somerset outpost, Babington. The couple sourced reclaimed tiles and sinks and as they unlocked the house’s secrets – including an original wallpaper hidden behind a fireplace – used it as inspiration for something new. ‘We took a fragment with hand-painted butterflies and flowers on it, like a chinoiserie, to Watts of Westminster, who were brilliant at finding something very similar for us,’ enthuses van Teeffelen.

In the Tapestry room, Delft tiles provide a nod to van Teeffelen’s Dutch heritage. Taps were sourced from Barber Wilsons, a family-owned company, dating from 1899 and based in North London. ‘We paid them a visit and had a wonderful day looking at old wooden brassware moulds. We wanted a feeling of abundance, lovely big taps that feel like they can keep on turning.’

Serendipitously, the local towns of Oakham and Stamford are a hive of craftmakers, many of whom have become collaborators, like Charlotte Gaunt of Charlotte Krone Studios. ‘She came to buy a bunch of flowers,’ laughs van Teeffelen, ‘and got chatting. She explained she was a textile designer and I literally dragged her into the house. We walked around for two hours, bouncing ideas off each other. She’s made bespoke napkins, placemats, tablecloths, lampshades and a bed hanging for us.’

Keythorpe Hall has now played host to numerous families and parties, enjoying the tennis court, croquet lawn, a heated pool, stables and paddocks; they can even bring their own horses. The couple relish the opportunity to create tailored itineraries: this year that has included a Regency extravaganza, with guests dressed in costume, waltzing, carriage rides and picnics on the lawns at nearby Burghley House, and an American family obsessed by WW2 were able to drive a Sherman tank.

‘We make our own bread, our own butter, some basic cheeses. Then there’s a lot of fermentation, a lot of preservation, a lot of jam making.’ It’s a way of extending the life of the produce from the garden which can be used throughout the year. ‘We are not yet perfect, but we believe every little step contributes,’ says van Teeffelen. A beautiful house, flowers from the garden, homegrown food, exceptional hospitality, not to mention a purposeful feeling of circularity. It all sounds wonderful to me.

Keythorpe Hall is available for exclusive use from £8,000 a night. Book via keythorpehall.co.uk

PHOTOS: STORIES FROM EROS; SIM CANETTY-CLARK