Bella Pollen's Oxfordshire home (credit: Vogue, June 2011)
It is only fitting that a writer should have such a wonderful room in her house, isn’t it? This delightful reading corner is part of author Bella Pollen’s Oxfordshire home, featured in the June 2011 US edition of Vogue. Happily, Vogue has made the article and photographs available online and it is well worth a look. This isn’t just a library I lust after; I want the entire house, garden included! After all, who wouldn’t want to look up from their book to see this:
View of the Church of St Mary from Bella Pollen's home (credit: Vogue, June 2011)
The Captive Reader 
If you get the house, can I come and visit, please? I love it, too! Irrespective of libraries, I love sash windows. Many years ago, when I was 12, I visited the house of a friend (daughter of a wealthy family) who lived in the most beautiful town house where sash windows were floor to ceiling and when you opened them, they gave onto a little terrace where Mama served us with afternoon tea from a silver tea pot and bone china … then there was a small garden down to a gate which gave onto a park shared by the 15 glorious town houses around it, in three groups of five. I’ve never forgotten it and always wanted such a house, tall windows, high ceilings, a terrace for afternoon tea … it’s just not going to happen, but we can all dream …
You’re definitely right, you can’t go wrong with sash windows (ideally, a great many of them). Your childhood friend’s house sounds perfect – definitely the kind of place to inspire a bit of lust!
I’m with you – just give me the whole house and garden. 🙂
Isn’t it perfect!?!
I should love to be able to send you the article I once wrote which kick-started with my 12-year-old self visiting the house I mentioned. But I don’t have your email Claire, so here is how I started that article:
“One summer’s day in 1956 I went to tea with a friend who lived in an elegant town house overlooking a private park, one of 15 such houses set out in three blocks of five. At the time I lived with my parents in our newsagents shop and had only seen such houses within the covers of glossy magazines. At a stroke I entered a world where Oriental rugs graced polished oak floorboards, famille-rose porcelain played host to exuberant displays of delphiniums and larkspur, and tea – from a polished silver pot – was served on a veranda accessed from the drawing room via floor to ceiling sash windows. It was at that moment I fell in love.
What I had not realized then was that the style with which I was so instantly enamoured was Georgian, for although my friend’s house had been built in 1853 and was, in effect, early Victorian, it had all the attributes of a house built at least half a century earlier and with its tall rooms, sash windows and panelled doors simply oozed Georgian style.”
I continued to define Georgian and Regency style and how we might re-create those styles in our interior deocrating.
Please do send me the full article! My email is thecaptivereader@hotmail.com.