Coleton Fishacre

There are lots of wonderful National Trust properties in Devon and many of them date back hundreds of years. Today we visited one that's celebrating its 100th birthday this year, the lovely Coleton Fishacre.

This Arts and Crafts style house was the country home of Rupert d'Oyly Carte and family. Rupert was the son of Richard d'Oyly Carte, an English talent agent and impresario. He's the man who introduced Gilbert to Sullivan and produced all their work. As you might guess, he made a fortune doing so and was able to build the Savoy theatre, where the G&S operas played, and the Savoy Hotel right next door. Rupert inherited the family business and built on his father's legacy, expanding the Savoy Hotel, refreshing the other hotels and restaurants in the Savoy group, including Claridge's and the Berkeley Hotel, and introducing cabaret and dance bands that became internationally famous.

The story goes that Rupert and family were sailing in the English Channel when Rupert spotted a lovely piece of land and thought, "I'll have that." Well, when you have as much money as he did, that wasn't such a far-fetched idea. He bought 26 acres and in 1923 started construction of the house and gardens.

The house is decorated in the Art Deco style and evokes memories of old Fred Astaire or Claudette Colbert films. The visitor's entrance is by the Flower Room where bouquets for the house would be arrange. The day I visited, the room was in use. Fancy having a room just for arranging your flowers.

The first room we visited was up one flight of stairs and down a short hall, and was Lady Dorothy Carte's bedroom. I found myself in exactly the right place at the right time, because Jeanne, the volunteer in the room, approached me and a couple other ladies and whispered, "Ladies, come here. I want to show you something." She then proceeded to hand me a rather heavy framed photograph of the room as it appeared in a magazine from the late 1920s.

She said, "You see, they've recreated this room exactly as it was then." She then pulled one of the ladies over to the art deco dressing table and invited her to open one of the drawers. She couldn't get it to budge and Jeanne laughed and said, "No, you can't, because this piece of furniture, being a reproduction, didn't have to be functional. None of the drawers open on any of the pieces in this room."

The unlikely highlight of the room was the bench in front of the dressing table. It was a combination bench and laundry basket and was the actual one owned by Lady Dorothy.

There were a couple of pieces of lovely period clothing in the room.

I remember owning an antique peach bed jacket like that years ago.

Art deco style glass vase:

Enameled accessories in a traveling case:

Clothes of the type that might have been worn by Dorothy & Rupert's son, Michael:

Michael's dressing room:

Michael was Dorothy and Rupert's only child. While driving with a friend in Switzerland, he was involved in a car crash and killed instantly at the age of 21. This tragedy triggered the rift between Dorothy and Rupert which would ultimately end in their divorce.

By and large, the bedrooms and dressing rooms seemed rather sparsely furnished. I don't know if that was meant to represent period styles or if the Trust just hasn't collected enough furniture of the period to populate the rooms. They were appealing, though.

I loved these tiles in a guest bathroom.

The National Trust is clearly trying to appeal to school children; to this end they had a bit of tech on display. The image of a xylophone was projected onto a table. If you hit the bars with the mallets provided, you can hear the pitch. Pretty cool.

By the time we reached the kitchen area, Jeanne, the lovely volunteer from Lady Dorothy's bedroom had moved on. She held up a utensil and asked if anyone could identify it.

No one could. She told us that no one in the house ever knew what it was until one day when there was a visitor from Scotland. He identified it as a Scottish porridge stirrer. I guess it's true that you learn something new every day.

She led us into the dining room

and pointed out the tables against the wall. They were half round and could be attached to the table to make it longer. The table was original, but only one of the chairs remained from the original set.

One assumes the colors have faded with time.

Jeanne then pointed out the four magnificent Lalique sconces.

The drawing room was quite handsome and masculine in style

and contained a fabulous cocktail cabinet.

Oh, how I want those chairs!

The library has a fascinating feature.

Over the fireplace is a picture of the Coleton Fishacre property

and above it is a dial which indicates the wind direction. It is connected to a wind vane on the roof and still works.

The last room we visited was also the grandest: the saloon (better known to Americans as the salon.)

There was a recording of 1930s jazz playing in the background. That and the doorway really captured the art deco style.

The house is great, but arguably the best part of of Coleton Fishacre is outside. There are formal beds and terraces and seemingly endless paths through the landscape.

We bought lunch at the cafe and carried it out to eat on a bench. We certainly found a great spot, don't you think?

We walked out to the end of the path and were rewarded with another amazing view.

We started back and passed the place where the granite for the house was quarried. How lucky they were to have that resource on site.

We enjoyed some last minute color as we hiked back uphill toward the parking lot and the journey home.

Splendid!