Seeking a change from city life, Bee van Zuylen happened upon a deceptively spacious country home in which to put down roots, entertain friends and house the many treasures found on her travels
FEATURE COSMO BROCKWAY PHOTOGRAPHY JAMES MACDONALD
Hidden behind a high stone wall in a sleepy Cotswold village is a house the owner, Bee van Zuylen, calls an “enigma”. She describes it thus because its unassuming setting – tucked away and low down – and its nondescript facade give no clue to the delights that await within.
Bee herself, surely one of the most colourful characters in this most traditional of villages, exudes all the warmth and charm that comes from a life very well lived. Born in Paris to Anglo-American parents, her first taste of the English countryside that she now loves so much was, in fact, distinctly dismal: “I was packed off to Heathfield – a girl’s school I hated.” She later laughingly admits that she ran away from home aged 15 and ended up at school in Switzerland – a scene much more to her taste. A passion for horses and great skill for dressage and showjumping brought her back to the fields of England and kindled an affection for the “timeless, unchanging nature of it all”.
Fast forward two marriages and two children later, and it is clear, standing in Bee’s wider-than-expected flag-stoned hallway, that the years have brought not only much travel but much acquisition too. Marriage to a Dutch baron and becoming the chatelaine of his glorious ancestral pile, the largest castle in the Netherlands, was a more recent chapter in Bee’s life. A full-size portrait of the celebrated Madame de Pompadour reigns supreme on the wall in
the entrance hall, looking unperturbed by her ever-so-reduced circumstances. The enormous painting was found in an attic there and brought over in a horsebox, alongside her horses – an adventure one feels the Versailles courtesan would have rather enjoyed. Pointing out the pair of elegant inherited Queen Anne armchairs set against the sky-blue walls, Bee laments that her beloved Japanese dog, a Shiba Inu called Ziggy, had “a penchant for walnut in his younger days and chewed away happily on them”. Chew marks notwithstanding, the chairs make for a distinguished scene flanking a Siena marble-topped console table, found in “the good old days of tramping up and down the Pimli
