Escape to the Country

Knitwear designer Victoria Stapleton weaves a vivid life at her bucolic English estate. 

- Naomi Rougeau

Standing outside knitwear maven Victoria Stapleton’s home, which seems straight from a Wode house novel, as she recounts the scene of a Playboy shoot on the property some 40 years prior, it’s not terribly difficult to imagine the Playmates in all their suntanned, oiled up, frosted hair glory. Perhaps they were perched atop a vintage Rolls? Or maybe it was a Jaguar? Let me be clear, the circa-1800 vicarage is the very antithesis of 1970s smut, but if I’ve learned anything in the first few minutes of my arrival, it’s that this quintessentially English residence is a delightful study in contrasts.

Welcome to Hill House. A mere 45 minutes by train from London’s Victoria Station in the quaint village of Stanstead Abbotts, Hertford- shire, the pleasingly symmetrical, wisteria- covered brick Georgian set on 15 idyllic acres boasts the following: hand blocked wall paper; a disco ball hanging in the kitchen; heirloom bird sculptures created by Stapleton’s mother-in-law mingling with stuffed ring-necked parakeets (her husband’s handiwork); and a bare male mannequin (decapitated, no less) for no apparent reason on the front steps. “It’s a real mixture here,” Stapleton says. Indeed.