After living in Paris, Miami, New York, and London, Jason and Amanda Howard were ready for a more pastoral life. In recent years, the couple had rented a weekend cottage in Wiltshire, a corner of southern England known for its “chalk downs”—rolling limestone hills—and grew very fond of its quiet beauty. They also enjoyed the easy two-hour drive from London, where their two kids went to school. Once their youngest left for university in 2020, they decided to move to Wiltshire permanently, and began looking for a property with enough space to host family and friends. “I always wanted to live in the country,” says Amanda, a former model who used to travel the world on assignments with Ralph Lauren, Givenchy, and Armani.
During their search, Amanda and her husband, a reinsurance executive, heard about an old farmhouse whose owner was open to selling but did not want to deal with any real estate agents. The owner also did not want to let anyone inside, on account of the pandemic. The Howards took a look at the exterior of the house, an 18th-century redbrick construction with sash windows and Dutch gables, then walked around the grounds—a vast green field with views for miles—and decided to make an offer on the spot. “It was a dream,” says Amanda. “The location and the land were just beautiful.”
Even without having set foot inside, the couple knew there would be renovations involved: Someone had to build their dream kitchen, the one where they envisioned cooking elaborate Sunday roasts. They called Sarah Vanrenen, an interior designer known for reviving historic homes with creative color palettes and layered textiles. Vanrenen and her design partner, Lauran Hanbury, work out of a studio in the town of Hungerford, just 15 minutes away from the Howards’s newly purchased farmhouse.
