We went to England to visit my husband's sister.
She asked what I wanted to see. I said Charleston.
I love a living museum. I've been to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West; to Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, a furnished cave home in the limestone mountains of Puglia where people lived until the 1950s; and of course Green Gables (LMM's cousins actually lived it in). Give me a pioneer village any day. Playing house, for me, was always about the setup, the staging, the stuff.Living museums are a bit like haunted houses without the jump-scares. You feel the presence of former inhabitants and find yourself guessing at the psychology behind their choices. It's part of why I got into film set design — imagining what someone who only exists on paper would pick for a bedspread, or whether they'd want big or small coffee mugs, natural fibres or cheerful synthetics. Living museums do the same thing, except the story is already over. Walking through a house knowing the family troubles, the adulteries, the successes and failures — it's a real trip.
Charleston is the modernist home and studio of painters Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's sister) and Duncan Grant. In 1916, on Virginia's recommendation, Vanessa took a lease on the 16th-century farmhouse and moved in with Duncan, his lover David Garnett, and her two young sons. Her husband Clive Bell stayed mostly in London but visited often. Duncan and David, like many of their Bloomsbury friends, were conscientious objectors of the war; farm work nearby kept them out of the army. The household lived openly outside the era's expectations of marriage and domestic life, and Charleston became the place where the Bloomsbury Group gathered to imagine society differently. “They lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles” perfectly sums things up.
More importantly (for us) - Charleston is an impeccably decorated house!
Every surface of the home was painted, sometimes more than once — in modernist, often naïve styles that leaned on geometric patterns, bold colour groupings, natural textures and inventive design. The magic and charm is palpable through the almost chaotic, overlapping aesthetic.
Vanessa Bell's stylewas heavily inspired by Roman frescoes and the natural world, Bell's designs featured earthy florals, trompe l'oeil faux-paneling, and rich but balanced colour theory that made cluttered, vibrant patterns feel at home.
One of the most iconic pieces in the house, a utilitarian cabinet, was decorated by Bell in her characteristic circular "roundel" motif, to transform it into a piece of art.
Vanessa and Duncan lived in the Charleston estate for over 64 years and opened their home to countless visitors and roommates throughout the decades. The Charleston Trust was formed after Duncan's death in 1978, and the house has been open to visitors since 1986.The Bloomsbury group believed that art shouldn't just be hung on the walls but should be brought to life. Everything can be made beautiful and no surface is off limits. Kind of like our little BAA shop.
