Rachel Ashwell has just returned from a shopping trip. She sweeps through the kitchen, quickly tidying up before heading to her workroom, where she's putting the finishing touches to a new bedlinen collection. Around her are carefully organised piles of samples and inspiration, while at the same time she’s corralling friends for an upcoming visit to a country brocante.
The woman who coined the term “shabby chic” 37 years ago is constantly on the move. Over the past four decades, she has built a remarkable career in America as a successful designer, bringing her unmistakable sense of British charm and eclecticism stateside.
She has launched her own interiors range, designed homes for celebrities, opened shops, hosted her own television show Rachel Ashwell’s Shabby Chic, run a café and a B&B and written 12 books. So how did she find herself settling in a small Somerset village on the edge of Frome?
"I left England when I was 19, so America had been my home for much longer," Rachel says. "But I always missed the seasons. And, as a designer, I believed I’d become a little one-dimensional in my inspiration. I felt the need for a fresh infusion of creativity."
Initially, she rented locally while searching for a permanent home. "I was drawn to this part of Somerset because I had friends here. It was especially important for me to be near places such as Bath and Frome, which are so inspiring." It took two and a half years to find the home she was looking for.
A warm stone manor dating from 1645, it is complete with an established walled garden filled with old-fashioned climbing roses and a small orchard. Since moving in, Rachel has added her own touches to the garden, planting jasmine to climb over an archway and growing dahlias in raised beds for cutting. Beneath the stone mullioned windows, fragrant lavender softens the house's sturdy architecture.
The house had been beautifully maintained when she bought it, so there was little structural work required. As it was a Grade II-listed property, she chose not to alter the layout, focusing instead on a decorative refresh.
Her signature style, which she describes as “a little bit boho, a little bit traditional and a little bit glamorous”, sits comfortably alongside pieces that have personal significance: family photographs, treasured collections and her mother’s old armchair in the snug, upholstered in a timeworn paisley fabric.
The kitchen, with its original flagstone floor, has largely remained unchanged in layout. Rachel replaced the worktops with marble, added simple scaffold-plank shelving and converted the Aga to electric, introducing a floral stone mosaic splashback behind it.
A small blue cuddler sofa from Rachel's new collection for Next provides a welcoming perch by what is now the main entrance, where guests can relax and pull off muddy boots after a walk. "I added a bit of elegance with my crystal chandeliers and velvet pieces," she says. "But then my distressed furniture gives it the shabby."
It is in her workroom that her signature style is most obvious. Soft pinks and turquoises provide a backdrop to painted furniture, a gilded ballroom chair and constantly evolving moodboards pinned with fabric samples, photos and pages from her latest book. Floral fabrics and faded silks in muted shades spill from baskets and chairs.
Although Rachel is an avid collector, a passion she attributes to her antique-dealing parents, her interiors never feel overcrowded. Aside from her study, the rooms remain calm, practical and carefully curated, with decoration used sparingly but effectively.
In the sitting room, loose-covered sofas are layered with floral cushions from her own collection, while antique lighting, painstakingly rewired, casts a soft glow over the shell-pink alcoves.
Throughout the house, she balances elegant pieces with more utilitarian objects, pairing a crystal candelabra with a painted bucket or a marble-topped table displaying a collection of religious figurines.
In the snug, her mother’s armchair sits alongside one of Rachel’s squashy sofa designs, protected with washable loose covers and topped with a frilled cushion designed to withstand muddy paws from George, her cockapoo, who appears to have claimed every comfortable chair in the house as his own.
Upstairs, antique French furniture, painted dressing tables and embroidered sheers create rooms that feel romantic. Rachel has deliberately kept the bedrooms sparse, making calm spaces that feel like sanctuaries. Floral bedlinen and soft painted walls provide colour without clutter, while an antique rail in the main bedroom displays a row of elegant dresses, known as "the girls", once used in the window displays of her New York shop.
Even the attic, one of Rachel’s favourite spaces, reveals her gift for elevating the everyday. In the linen store, stacks of textiles are arranged against pink plaster walls, while reclaimed floorboards have been subtly embellished with hand-painted floral trails by artist Benjamin Peck-Whiston, designed to look as though they have been uncovered over time.
Rachel still divides her time between Britain and the United States. Her daughter lives in Los Angeles, where Rachel also maintains close friendships and business ties, but with both her roots and her son now in Britain, Somerset has firmly become home.
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Daisy Bendall is the Houses Editor at Country Living and House Beautiful, where she spends her days sourcing some of the most inspiring homes across the country. Prior to specialising in real homes, Daisy worked for Good Housekeeping, Red, Elle Decoration and Prima, styling shoots, covering the latest decorating trends and hunting down the best buys for your home.
