13 hours ago
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen: ‘I'm no longer lord of the manor'
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, who is filming the second season of Outrageous Homes, the series that spotlights the nation's pirate-themed pads and vampire-inspired lairs, has made the most shocking domestic decision of his career. Aged 60, he has given up on homeownership.
The foppish star of shows from Changing Rooms to Celebrity Bear Hunt, enthroned on a burnt-orange velvet couch in his newly redecorated drawing room, is describing how he signed away the Cotswolds manor house he has owned since 2007. Or two thirds of it, to be precise. The rest is now the property of the next generation: his two daughters, their husbands and four young children.
'I'm no longer lord of the manor,' he says, with a lordly sweep of a purple jacquard sleeve. So how do we describe the Llewelyn-Bowen ménage à dix? Hermione, the youngest daughter, 26, and manager of the family design studio, is seated next to him, taking business calls, calming a trio of overexcited dogs, and representing the views of her generation. 'It's a cult,' she says.
Meet the cast of what would make a riveting YouTube channel: presiding over the compound is Jackie, 60, Laurence's wife since 1989 and the queen of what her husband refers to as 'the mammocracy'. Cecile, 30, and her husband, Dan, 30, and their children Albion, eight, and Demelza, four this year, live in a converted garage block across the gravel drive. Then we have Hermione and her husband, Drew, 28, with their children Romilly, nearly three, and Eleanora, 18 months, who live in the big house along with their grandparents.
Hermione says: 'Hilariously, Cecile and I aren't on the deeds, because we inherit it anyway — it's actually the husbands.' Laurence adds: 'One of the most amusing things was having to sit down with a solicitor for them to assess whether Jackie and I were being coerced into this by our bullying sons-in-law. Our friends just can't believe it. They go, what happens if you all fall out?'
It's a reasonable question. Hermione says: 'We do fall out all the time. But we've got two choices. We get over it. Or we don't go round for dinner — and then that means cooking.' Withdrawal of Jackie's signature spag bol is the nuclear deterrent that has kept peace between the generations so far.
When the grandparents decided to divvy up the property, the garages had already been converted into a three-bedroom house for Cecile and co. The next step was partitioning the main building into two dwellings, each with their own kitchen, bathrooms, guest rooms and staircase. Laurence describes the project as '90 per cent complete. So we decided to indulge the extraordinary interest the disposition and decoration of our living arrangements engenders.' Which is why he has graciously invited The Sunday Times for a first look at the finished rooms and a chat about decor and decay.
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The alterations to the Elizabethan manor are intended to see the grandparents into old age. 'The staircase has been specifically designed with power points top and bottom, so we can get in a stairlift. Both Jackie's and my mother had MS. So it's not just about getting old. Things can go wrong. You use design to make things that might go wrong that little bit easier if you possibly can.
'So yes, we have provision for a stairlift. And yes, we have provision for a minibar on the stairlift. Because if it gets stuck halfway up, you've got to keep gin-drated.' Isn't that a bit morbid? 'I think, let's be morbid in our sixties, when we're still quite bouncy. And then let's never talk about it again.'
Apart from the new staircase, the kitchen was the most significant addition. They built a narrow extension with an orangery roof, and Laurence tailored a design from his Quintessential kitchen range around Jackie's culinary expertise. He designed a small galley for Hermione and Drew, set in the corner of what had been his Great Room, at the heart of the old building.
There's a distinct contrast between the grandparental areas of the house and Hermione's makeover. For instance, Hermione's is finished. A deadline was imposed by her second daughter, Eleanora. Work started on October 16, 2023, and Hermione's side of the house was completed by December 11, when the baby arrived. Then it slowed down.
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'We got to a point around the Easter of 2024 where basically we just ran out of everything. We'd run out of space, time, money. We had to just put the brakes on,' Laurence says. 'Jackie and I then had a very partially finished space. We only really kicked off again towards the end of last year. We are that couple on Grand Designs. All we need is Kevin walking down the garden saying, 'Well, I think they may have bitten off more than they can chew.''
Now his domain is nine tenths complete, what are Laurence's best bits? What would he pick for a Grand Designs montage of highlights?
After all those years on Changing Rooms, he adores nothing more than a grand reveal. A secret entrance separates the two households, the door clad in panels of faux book spines sourced from son-in-law Dan's firm, Original Book Works. There's a booze cupboard hidden behind a painting in the library wall of the sitting room. 'And this is Jackie's deep, dark, drag secret,' he says, throwing open a portal by the bed to reveal a coral-pink walk-in glam station.
In the corridor outside the bedroom, behind a wallpapered door is Laurence's dressing room, the interior papered in indigo flock, the better to showcase the rainbow colours and trippy prints of his favourite fits.
The award for most arresting pattern in the house goes to the kitchen flooring. It's a new print called Festivo, designed by Laurence and produced by Harvey Maria. 'They said, 'Are you sure about those colours?' They do such exquisitely tasteful Fulham sorts of things. And what I was giving them was Fulham, but 1982. The sort of floor that Jilly Cooper or Andrew Parker Bowles [Cooper's muse for Rupert Campbell-Black] would have been rolling around on.
'It owes a huge debt to those very decadent Eighties house parties, back in the day when everything was painted salmon or gin bottle green. It's exactly what I remember kitchens of my youth being like. And of course they're very fashionable now, with things like Saltburn and Rivals.'
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He pauses for effect. 'I feel as if towards the end of my life, I'm reverting.' He has been appointed design curator at the retirement developments Homewood Grove, in Surrey, and Siddington Park, near his home in Cirencester. He can barely begin to hide his enthusiasm for the topic of mortality and impending decline. On cue, Bridget the cocker spaniel arrives at my feet and spits out a disembodied baby doll head. Even the dogs are on brand. 'It's like the Addams Family here, isn't it?' he says.
Hermione refuses to be drawn into her father's gothic fantasia. One of the loveliest interiors in the house is her older daughter's bedroom, painted in a shade of pink called Fudge Cake, from Albany, and papered with a print called Romilly's Cherry Tree, based on the view of the garden. Laurence says to her: 'What I love about what you're doing with your side of the house, but also what you've done with the business, is you're translating something for a new format, a new generation, a new way of doing it. Because actually I am part of the old guard. I am, you know, kind of obsolete.'
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Hermione agrees: 'You use your Instagram like a 45-year-old woman treats Facebook. I'm so touched by that.' She wails in a fair imitation of her dad: 'Oh no, my boiler is broken.' 'I did that once, once,' Laurence concedes. 'It's tragic,' his daughter says.
The ground rules for cohabiting are a work in progress. When anything practical goes wrong, Hermione takes charge. 'I'm family PA. Yeah, I hate it. With all the contacts that we've got through local jobs, I'm the one that's dealt with them, so of course it will be me.'
Any other gripes? Laurence says: 'The only thing we share is the hall, which has now become like a lodging house hall with everybody's post just left there, and keys, and a bicycle and a pram.'
Hermione wishes it to be placed on record that her dad is continuing an infuriating habit she has suffered since childhood. 'Anything that we happen to misplace or put down and forget to take back at the end of the day, he will put just outside our door at night so that when I open the door in the morning, it gets stuck against a toy pram and comes back and hits me in the face.'
Lobby wars aside, this lifestyle fits Laurence like one of his bespoke Damask Dangereuse suits. Has he ever done multi-gen living before? 'No, not at all. In fact, quite the reverse. My father died when we were really young and then my mother was very ill with MS and she ended up being dragged off to the local home for incurables, which she completely and utterly rocked. She took over two apartments, knocked them through, had them decorated. My brother, my sister and I, when I first met Jackie, we were living in our family home on our own.'
The chaotic, close-knit household they have created together is the couple's idea of a happy ending. Laurence says: 'We're not going to be those old people sitting on a great big pile of cash. Terribly unhappy, terribly lonely. Owning a lot of stuff but not actually having the benefit of it. We are very, very privileged, but we have made this decision. We have manifested this life.'
