“As you may have noticed,” Clare Scheckter says with a wry smile, “I absolutely love colour.” It is fair to say that the cupola-topped, light-filled entrance hall of her immaculate 18th-century manor house would be an arresting sight in any hue, but in its current vivid orange shade, it is breathtaking.
“I had one word in mind when we began our renovation: bright,” she continues. “We had been living in Atlanta for 12 years and I’d got used to year-round sunshine. I wanted everyone who walked in to feel happy and uplifted, so I looked for the brightest orange I could find.”
Today, the entrance hall of Laverstoke House, which Clare bought in 1996 with her husband, Jody – the South African Formula 1 champion turned entrepreneur and organic farmer – is filled with eye-catching contemporary art and black-and-white family photographs, including one of Milo, her toffee-coloured cockapoo.
Built in 1798, with additions made in the mid-19th century, the Grade II* listed house is one of the finest country estates in the south of England – a paradigm of Georgian elegance amid the Hampshire Downs. The land was purchased in the 18th century by the Portal family, who had established a thriving paper-making business, which at one point supplied the Bank of England for its banknotes. In 1798, Harry Portal commissioned a Palladian mansion in neoclassical style, designed by architect Joseph Bonomi the Elder.