A 17th-century Cotswold house by Emma Burns with calm, textured interiors

The childhood of television and film producer Dame Pippa Harris is steeped in memories of Charleston, the East Sussex home of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, which became the gathering place of the Bloomsbury group. Pippa’s grandmother, Noël Olivier, had been one of the group and Pippa’s school holidays were spent either at the house, where Duncan – by then a fairly elderly man – was still living, or tramping across muddy fields to visit it from the house of Vanessa’s son Quentin Bell and his wife (Pippa’s mother’s cousin) Anne Olivier Bell. ‘I remember Charleston very much as a home,’ says Pippa. ‘I thought it was a bit cold and the beds were rather uncomfortable, but in terms of what I have come to love about art and design, that house was incredibly formative for me.’

As soon as Pippa began to earn money working part time for the Contemporary Art Society in her university holidays, she spent it on art. This included Bloomsbury pieces, of course – on her walls are works by Duncan Grant, Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell – but also more contemporary pieces by the likes of Maggi Hambling, John Hubbard, Gary Hume and Bridget Riley, which she bought while they were still relatively inexpensive. Pippa now serves as chair of trustees for Charleston, which has been preserved as a museum and gallery.

However, her day job is running multi-award-winning Neal Street Productions (whose work runs the gamut from Call the Midwife to Oscar-winning First World War film 1917) with her childhood friend, the film and theatre director Sir Sam Mendes. Their friendship in part led her to this house in the Cotswolds, which she shares with her husband Richard and their daughter Ella.

‘Sam and I grew up around here together and both decided to move back when we had children,’ she says. ‘He had a cutting room at his house nearby, so it meant living out here was feasible. We would be away from home when filming, but a lot of the post-production was just down the road in Sam’s barn.’

Pippa’s house is a former rectory, the oldest parts of which were built in the 1600s. There is a newer wing of beautifully proportioned rooms – now the kitchen and the main drawing room – added around the 1740s and, while the house was in good condition, Pippa says they ‘wanted to let it breathe. We also felt strongly that we preferred to have a combined sitting and dining space, and Emma brilliantly came in quite early on and said, “You need to reconfigure the whole heart of the house.’’’

The Emma in question is Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler’s joint managing director Emma Burns, a neighbour and old friend who came on board almost seven years ago and has since been slowly redesigning the interiors in stages, one set of rooms at a time.