Heart Home magazine Issue 12 August 2014 | Page 26

This was the apotheosis of the fantasy lifestyle
that she had, for so long, promoted in the
magazine. The departure – both physically and
symbolically – represented a marked transition,
in the exchange of not only the single life for the
married, but also of the urban for the bucolic.
While it was neither deliberate nor conscious

at the time, the trade-in of Vogue House for
something more deep-rooted and resonant in
the rolling Somerset hills would ultimately reangle the spotlight, training it in the direction
of her own home. Cabbages & Roses would,
after all, one day emerge as the very expression
of her life at Brook Cottage.

The kitchen – in Christina’s words, the “hub of the house” – was once the parlour.
The exchange of the two rooms makes perfect sense, with its large table, the kitchen
is now sizeable enough to accommodate friends and family.