ENGLISH HOUSE TOUR | A Designer's Bold Oxfordshire Country Home

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Today we're traveling to the heart of Oxford Shshire to explore the bold, glamorous world of interior designer Samantha Todd Hunter. Her stunning estate is a masterclass in British decadence where rich colors, sumptuous textures, and fearless design choices come together in unforgettable ways.

[00:00:20]Rooms drenched in deep red touches of leopard print and velvet draped furniture create an atmosphere that is both dramatic and deeply inviting. Every space feels curated with confidence, personality, and that signature Todd Hunter edge. A blend of classic British charm and modern luxury. To watch Samantha's full home tour adree, scan the QR code on screen or visit homeworthy plus.com for access to all of our latest episodes adree and to receive other exclusive membership perks.

[00:00:58]Hi, Homeworthy. I'm Sam Todd Hunter.

[00:01:00]Welcome to my house in Oxfordshire.

[00:01:02]Please come in.

[00:01:24]You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. I'm Allison Kenworthy, the founder of Homeworthy, and we take you inside the world's most beautifully decorated homes and introduce you to the brilliant people who live there. Hi, Homeworthy.

[00:01:41]I'm Liz Lang. Welcome to Grey Gardens.

[00:01:43]Click the join button below to access all of our latest episodes adree and watch extended cuts of this and other homes opening the doors to new rooms and exclusive content featuring our beloved hosts.

[00:01:59]>> I can't wait to see. I'm so excited. And if you're looking to shop items inspired by this and other homeworthy taste makers, be sure to use the product links below or scan the QR code on screen to find fabulous furniture, coffee table books, and accessories that can transform your house into a home.

[00:02:21]Hi, my name is Samantha Todd Hunter. I'm a designer and welcome to my house in Oxfordshire. The story of this house is kind of divine because when my husband was 21, he was whizzing through the lanes of Oxfordshire with some blonde next to him in a sports car and he pulled up outside this house and looked at it and loved it and said, "That's the most beautiful house I've ever seen."

[00:02:45]And has remembered it like for years.

[00:02:49]And then 10 years ago, he's flicking through country life and sees the house up for sale. It took a year to get the house, wrangle it out of its previous owners, but we got it and it is 1707 Queen Anne had not been touched since 1959.

[00:03:11]So when we walked in or when I first walked in, literally shafts of light coming down from the top with dust peeling 1970s wallpaper going up the staircase. All the electrics were stapled to the walls. There was one bathroom. No central heating. I mean, it was falling apart. Foxes virtually lived in it. in what was our bedroom. The rose that's at the front of the house grew through the window around the room and out the other side. So that's how we got it. And amazingly we slapped a bit of paint on it and sort of put lots of blow heaters around the house and we lived in it for what 4 years I think before we actually um did anything. And it was great because we kind of we embedded ourselves in the house. We kind of we sort of understood how it worked, what we wanted of it. And initially we had this big grand scheme to do this massive renovation, big wing out the back, laundryies, massive boot rooms, la. And then we kind of just thought to ourselves, whilst it looks quite big, it's actually very small and quite compact to live in. We thought we hauled it back and did it was an extensive renovation. Just the behindthe-scenes work was huge. But in terms of structural, we didn't do very much. Um, we just made the kitchen a bit bigger. The key thing about this house is that the bones of it are absolutely exquisite. And you can't really go wrong. When the bones are good, the bones are good. And and all I can do is be um a really thoughtful and generous creator to the house and respect it. So there was no question about the love.

[00:04:56]Walk in. I honestly for four years we'd come down every weekend with one bathroom. I I have two daughters. I have two stepdaughters. So if there's six of us, we're like the Brady Bunch. We'd all pile in. We had Christmas parties with peeling 1970s paint and, you know, a light bulb hanging from a, you know, the center of a room. But we loved it. And then we kind of, you know, girded our loins, put our big girl pants on and said, "We really need to do something."

[00:05:25]So we did. And we used an incredible local firm who were just utterly brilliant. It was done in 7 months. It was incredible. It was done so quickly.

[00:05:34]Bizarrely in this room before we did anything, I had to put this grass cloth wallpaper up. And it was so crazy because I put the wallpaper up. We haven't even, you know, drilled a hole in the wall. But it lasted through the renovation. And it's kind of kind of the foc this this room. So did the work, you know, like lime plaster, walls, we had to strip everything. We had to put it all back together authentically and properly because obviously we've got list of building breathing down our neck. Um and then slowly once the big stuff was done, uh the heating, all the plumbing, making new bathrooms and stuff, we started sort of decorating and layering and bringing in all the bits that kind of make it home. And uh yes, that's where we are are today really.

[00:06:29]So this is the entrance hall and a large part of the listing of the house relates to this incredible staircase with the barley twist spindles that go obviously all the way up to the top. My husband has for a long time and together we've collected paintings. He's completely obsessed with art auctions and spent hours trolling to find really fabulous paintings, 17th, 18th century portraits.

[00:06:52]So, we've lined them. They go all the way up to the top, which is really fabulous. And that's really the story of the entrance hall. And then I produced this wallpaper as part of our Warra collection, which is an incredible silk.

[00:07:07]Not many people know it's silk because it does look like a sort of solid color, but it's actually silk in this watery watery aqua blue, which I adore. Very simple in here. Nothing has really changed from when we found the house, except that there was this crazy yellow floral '7s wallpaper that went up. I think we've slightly improved on that.

[00:07:31]It's where we have Christmas. It's always got a big tree that we take up to the top which is kind of fabulous. I guess what also speaks a bit to my um like natural style about taking tradition but giving it a little bit of a shakeup is we did this incredible leopard runner that goes all the way up to the top which is climbing leopards designed by Dian Fusenberg for the rug company. I have been passionate about this rug from day dot. Used it in tons of projects and then when we started doing the house um I consulted with the husband um thinking he would go no I want something far more traditional.

[00:08:13]Happily I won and it's this amazing story about these leopards that climb down the stairs. We worked really hard getting them in the right spots. The paws on the right tread. the tales uh where the tales landed. Um and if you see this staircase from the top of the house, which I'm sure you will, it's a wonderful story of these leopards going down. And I think the combination of the watery green walls and the emerald green staircase is another illustration of putting slightly off colors together. Um and I love I love that again that clash.

[00:08:53]So the so the climbing leopard stairc carpet is a really um central statement in this house and again a lovely an illustration of I I just the the mix of predictable tradition and totally offbeat as well. And that's very much a signature I I kind of am drawn to. Um, this conversation piece in the center of the room I honestly picked up in a back of an old barn for £100 and recovered it in this divine velvet and they're such lovely pieces of furniture in an entrance hall. You can sit and perch and three people can talk to each other and it's just again very old school but I love I started my career out I grew up basically uh working at Vogue Living in Australia. I was there for 10 years and it was an amazing launchpad into the world of design doing art directing shoots, design-led features. We had such fun. We'd upholster sofas in hot pink and put them on Bondi Beach and shoot them. And it was an incredible learning curve. I learned about every aspect of design from traditional to modern. I wrote about it. I interviewed incredible architects. I traveled. So I think from that perspective I just sucked up so much about every aspect of an interior be it the design of an arm of a chair how a room looks good traditional modern and then I came back to London and joined cond for a bit which was great uh sort of doing the same thing but in the cut and thrust of London which was very different to Sydney and I left Condast and I freelanced basically So I art directed for everybody. Marks and Spencers, Selfridges, Liberty, Next, uh Thomas Good, all all of the sort of big names and that was again another amazing learning curve and super fun. And then one day friend said, "Oh, will you come and style my house in France?" So I thought, "Sure." and do me some mood boards, just create uh it was a it was a sort of falling down mison uh demet in in a tiny village in southwest France.

[00:11:05]And I did that and it kind of clicked for me not running around being at the flower markets at 5:00 in the morning, shooting in a black studio till 2:00 in the morning. Uh just crazy stuff. It kind of clicked for me to have a slightly more curated approach to what I had been doing and just working in a slower way, building a house, building a room, something that stayed there forever as opposed to, you know, you create an incredible set for a magazine feature and then boom, it's gone. And I just loved it. So, I did that. And then a friend saw it and asked me to do their house. And it just rolled from there. I literally started my business at my kitchen table, picked my kids up from school every day, did my schemes while they were having supper. You know that sort of so many people have that same experience. And then as they got older, I think I got older and a bit more serious about the business. And so I set up Samantha Todd Hunter Design. And one of the first projects I did was an incredible one in Chicago for the Ritz Carton group which kind of launched me a little bit because again I didn't have a client to answer to. So I did this amazing really joyful space in Chicago.

[00:12:18]And again like most things it just sort of rolled from there. People saw that and got more calls. And then more recently, I've set up the Warbor collection, which is a furniture collection, which is kind of a side hustle, but a really big side hustle that I love. And that's uh traditional with a twist. Sorry to be cliched, but it kind of is. Upholstery taking its roots from 18th century, 17th century, 1960s, a everything really, and just sort of giving it a slightly more modern twist. And so we're really enjoying working on that. Obviously, it's peppered through all my interiors.

[00:12:58]And I suppose this house actually is a wonderful example of how I've bought in slightly quirky pieces into a very traditional setting. And that's kind of is the probably the signature of the studio. So trying not to be too predictable, but trying to be very authentic as well to um a building. So you'll see that when you walk around the house. Here we are in the drawing room. Before we even started the work on the house and a couple of years before I had to do this coral pink grass cloth on the walls, which was entirely impractical to do it before we done a massive renovation, but it became the sort of beating heart of the house as well as the kitchen. So having the grass cloth for me and I use it often in projects is it doesn't make a big pattern statement but I love this layer on layer on layer of color because of its natural you can see the grass coming through and it's just not a dense color on the wall and it just gives this really lovely warm cozy atmosphere. Pink is incredible. I I would do everything in pink if I could. This is an amazing painting again my husband found in the back of an antique center up the road uh during lockdown and it's it's Charles the first obviously. So again portraits play a major role in the house which probably is not something I would naturally have done. I'm a bit more modern in my choice of art. I love that we've mixed our tastes together um in this house and it's taken me down a path I I wouldn't have naturally gone. So that's been really fun to explore.

[00:14:47]Again, without sounding cliched, leopard always plays a role somewhere. They do say leopard is the beige of um interiors. I I I don't know. I just love the pattern and the busyiness and it's all about the clash. lovely old um Molica lamps I've collected for a long time with the gathered shade. It's busy and layered and interesting and I love a round table with a cloth. I think I think there would have been a time when people would howl at the idea of having a round table with a cloth but god they're good and again stacked and busy and not too like not too contrived. I think it's really important not to be too contrived. I hope my house is not too contrived. Really classic Howard sofas, the mainstay of an inter uh an English drawing room. And wonderful just in a very neutral linen.

[00:15:44]Again, this divine linen from Lee Joffer, which I've always loved um just for a pop of floral. And then I don't know about you, but I think every room, a living room needs a bar, a really good bar. So, I have them kind of dotted around the house. You'll see. But this is, you know, a busy stacked gorgeous tray filled with bottles and drinks and whatever is is a lovely um kind of drawing point in in a room. Um, obviously the fireplace is original.

[00:16:17]This beautiful painting we bought on our first date in Paris and she's called Violet and she's kind of sad because she's in her in mourning holding a violet and she looks very sad but we just adore her. So she holds a special place. The curtains are this one of my favorite fabrics is balcony stripe by Nikki Hasslam. Just heaven. And I've just kept them very simple. Some people probably might have done very fussy pelmets, which I love, but I didn't. I just thought simple in here was good.

[00:16:51]Um, and just with a lovely silk fringe.

[00:16:53]Always nice to add, again, that's the layering story. Things like a fringe around a cushion just here and there.

[00:16:59]It's just another thing to pile on. Um, and then beautiful, very old school lamps. These are cranberry glass lamps, which are again just so lovely. And then in the window, um, Alexander stools from the furniture collection. These are the dogs seats where they like to sit and look out the window. This is just a very classic X-frame stool. They look great.

[00:17:23]They work everywhere. They're lovely in a window, sometimes under consoles. So that's from the Warra collection. So lucky in this room because of the scale and the bones of the house. We've got these beautiful tall windows, which you know what? They don't really they almost the room needs nothing and it's perfect.

[00:17:39]So, I've just hopefully done a little bit of embellishment and um created something uh very uh warm and inviting.

[00:17:56]So, this is the dining room. Obviously, all the paneling is original and it was a very soft blue when we bought the house and that was divine.

[00:18:11]But as we lived in the house and how we used this room, which is not on a daily basis, high days and holidays and Thanksgiving coming up, I've got my roosters out. I just felt drawn to red.

[00:18:22]And so we have painted it red. Um, and everything is red. It's heaven. Again, it's the sort of grounding color for this room. And then the pink of the drawing room kind of leaves all the other rooms to kind of breathe as well.

[00:18:39]It's rather nice to have two really dense spaces. It's divine at night. It's divine in the daytime. So, the paneling is completely original. I mean, it's showing it probably could do with some full-on restoration, but we're happy with it. And then the furniture are pieces that we've picked up from auctions, you know, weekend activities, going to different antique barns and finding finding bits. This is just a bit of a mishmash collection of celery vasees, which I found again in an antique shop.

[00:19:11]The Victorians used to fill them with celery. I use them as candlesticks, but they are celery vases. The table again we found in a lovely old antique shop in Malbor. And the chairs belong to my father and stepmother and I'm very lucky to be their custodian for a while because they look beautiful in here.

[00:19:30]This chair belongs uh was where a dear dog of ours uh used to sit. As you can tell, it's rather grubby at the at the edge and we can't get rid of it because he died and we loved him. These are two quite incredible portraits of a queen and her daughter who uh were my husband's fathers. When I first met my husband, uh they hung in his apartment in Covent Garden and I swear their eyes followed me around the room and they didn't approve of me.

[00:20:02]They're slowly easing up and I don't feel quite so threatened by them, but they do look beautiful. um on the wall.

[00:20:09]And then in the corner, we've just got a little table for bat gammon. It kind of works there. It's where we puzzle in at Christmas. My father made me this back gamon board in Venice. It's one incredible piece. So, it needs to sit out. So, that's a sort of quite nice to have a gaming corner in a dining room. I probably would use this room much more.

[00:20:32]In fact, Saturday night, husband and I might sit and have dinner cuz we feel like it and light the candles. But typically when all the girls are at home, Easter, Christmas, birthdays, Sunday lunch is when we'd use the room.

[00:20:47]And I'm very I absolutely love setting tables. I love china. I have cupboards of it. In fact, I should just show you this cupboard, which I will walk up to.

[00:20:57]Um, I have cupboards of china. I collect it madly. Love setting a table. So I really enjoy dressing this room up. This table extends by another two leaves so we can get 12 14 around it. At Christmas time we have a Christmas party for the village and when all the villagers have gone the children and all their friends stay 25 people round the table, 25 people dancing on chairs. It has seen a lot of action this room. Hidden in the paneling here is this amazing cupboard and I've just filled it full of glassear and china and constant sprry vasees and again things that we've collected together over the years. Um, and I painted that a slightly different this kind of pomegranate pink which is kind of lovely when you open it up. But that's completely original. They were so clever when they designed spaces um that this clever cupboard is concealed in the paneling. When you close this door, sorry about the wine boxes, but again, it all just disappears, which is really again a wonderful feature of a 17th century house, 18th century house. I think color has always been core to me and I don't know if that was born working in Australia where we'd be shooting, you know, the light is incredible. Everything is so intense and when you do a feature for a magazine, you know, you need things to sort of sing off the page. So, I've always been naturally very drawn to color. And I don't mean everything has to be hot pink and bright green and lime. Just color generally, whether you're mixing chocolate brown and lilac or, you know, there could be dense darker colors, but just richness of color has always just you sparked something in me. I'm always drawn to it. But equally, I do understand there's nothing more beautiful than a pale white room with a pale floorboard and a white sofa in it.

[00:22:59]I mean, it that's also exquisite. But I think for me my natural way of approaching a house particularly like this is about the layer and I can't and that's where I'm at now. Probably wasn't so much 15 years ago. I have done many apartments and interiors which are all about toffee colored silk on, you know, a chocolate brown linen wall. Do you know what I mean? That kind of much more sort of muted. But as I've got older, more experienced, more houses under my belt, my natural inclination is to do, you know, a chintz, a fringe, a beautiful heriz carpet on top of a grass cloth wall, on top of a really busy, incredible picture frame, on top of a stack of books, a bit of leopard, just this constant layering. And I think that's a style that's very appealing. I hope it's timeless.

[00:23:57]I really never want to feel dated. So maybe some of my early stuff today might feel a bit dated, but I've, you know, we all improve, uh, learn so much over time, that this is where I've ended up. But that doesn't mean to say if someone called me up and said, I just want a white room with a Georgian ammoir and a cream silk sofa. I would totally get it and totally love doing it as well, but not for this house. And my house house in London is a similar thing. It's just like pile it on. That's just kind of very pleasing and how how I how I like to decorate design.

[00:24:43]So obviously we're in the kitchen and this room is 100% the heart of the house and if we were sometimes sometimes we're here on weekends, we will not leave this room. Everything happens in here.

[00:24:55]Originally, uh, the kitchen was an L shape. It stopped about here. And the only structural thing we did when we did the big renovation was to punch it out to there to create a rectangle. Much easier to work in. I love the idea. Um, I designed all this cabinetry to feel like a big old dresser, to feel like it had been here forever. I think utilitarian spaces are wonderful when they don't feel like utilitarian spaces. It could be, you know, a wall just a lovely wall of joinery that is not necessarily kitchen. So that was the intention here.

[00:25:33]There was a there has been a lot of chatter about the pink. I knew from the minute we started designing it, I wanted it to be in this really divine, it's quite famous now Farenball setting plaster. It's a very non-pink.

[00:25:49]You don't feel like it doesn't feel too girly. It's a really weirdly practical color and just joyous. Um, super big long table. We were kind of did not want an island. Again, it's a room rather than a utilitarian space. So, we've got this gorgeous massive oak table from Benchmark who make wonderful pieces. And then we've collected these chairs from I mean honestly some of these are probably were five quid and we've just collected them and they sort of work rather than having again a curated designed kitchen chair where they all match. There's something kind of lovely about the tone of the wood is not quite right. The style is probably not my favorite but I do love it around this table. Black and white checkerboard the best. I think it's like the leopard of the drawing room is the black and white checkerboard. It just again adds this other layer twist interest to the space.

[00:26:47]We've got um in this uh wall of cupboards is kind of fabulous. I was talking about the bar earlier. I hope it's tidy. There is a bit of a bar going on here with china above. Um there's a fridge hidden in there.

[00:27:05]Um, glasses all sort of in here and my laptop. Um, big double sinks. Wonderful.

[00:27:13]We did two sinks in the kitchen. Really, if you can, the best thing ever. And then I guess laying the table is my favorite pastime. These are these gorgeous plates which I recently got from a lovely dealer in Somerset. Um, these lovely geranium leaves, green and white, big favorite. And flowers, too.

[00:27:35]Flowers and fruit and candles. Love I love pulling all that together. This little room down here was um a pantry originally, not very big. And I had to get into it a guest L, a laundry, a cupboard for the mop, etc. And it's amazing how much you can fit in a small space if you try.

[00:28:04]So in we go to the study which was when before our renovation a laundry just filled it with bookcases. And actually we don't call it the study, we call it the courtroom because my husband is a barristister. And I designed this joinery hopefully so it feels like it' been here forever and belonged to the house. Love painting rooms dark. There's a lot of chat in design about, oh, if it's a small room, you should paint it light, white, keep it light just for space. And I just never really get that.

[00:28:36]I think to create dense spaces is so wonderful. People relax in dense spaces rather than a white cube. I feel so this is a again another faren ball color. I think it's called h blue. Um we have masses of books and we're books are exploding so this doesn't really cover it but they're essentially a mix of wine, cricket, law, art, literature. Uh these lights I designed um to go uh for this room. They're based on a design from a brilliant designer in Paris, hotel in Paris. And these chairs were the starting point for the Clementine wing chair. Uh one is that they are the Clementine wing chair which is part of the furniture collection. Um just in blue and white ticking and these cute little stools which again I found in a barn and covered them in a little bit of tiger. Lovely. We put these fires in a couple of the rooms. These are just gas fires but they're the best. They look like they belong. They look like a real fire. and just add, you know, just a lovely touch. Um, this desk was my grandmother's, which she had in her study, so I'm very happy to have it here. And then the curtains are divine.

[00:29:55]They're a shoe macker linen, and I've lined them in a red and white ticking, which is really cute. And again, here we've got a pelmet, which I mentioned pelmets in the drawing room, but here it's sort of they it fits really nicely.

[00:30:11]So this room is lots of curling up, watching TV in front of the fire, a little bit of court and reading.

[00:30:25]So here we are in um the master bedroom.

[00:30:28]Again, it's beautifully proportioned. As opposed to the other room, we don't have a window on both sides. It's got some very original paneling on this section of the room. This cupboard here was an entrance to the annex next door, which we don't own, but it was once part of the house, but it's quite fun knowing that that's the door to the next house.

[00:30:50]We've got um two really cute chairs.

[00:30:53]Again, I found these in a in a in the back of a barn. We upholstered them and they're kind of kind of regal sitting there. All the bedrooms I did just really simple seaggrass carpet. again such so right in an old country house and I with layered with rugs I think it's a really nice kind of keeping it a little bit bit on the down low not being too extravagant with everything I I like that touch I've got another one of these two-tiered bedside tables here by the bed so practical so brilliant a lovely long stool at the end of the bed always handy the walls are just painted in a really soft blue. I think my next project with the house is to be wallpapering this room. Um not sure what in, but that's another project. Um and then it goes straight through into a little dressing room which is kind of divine. Um, it's wallpapered in a very famous Prem, which is a 17th century design. Still going, still current, still relevant, and I love it. We've got another bar set up here, which is kind of fun. So, what happens in this in this part of the house is, which is actually half the house, um, we have this, we could lock ourselves away. We've got a bar, bathroom, little sitting room, bedroom.

[00:32:25]It's really great. Um, and then this leads into um a little snug which was is a study for me and um just a nice place to hide away. Another piece from the furniture collection down here, the Amelia Ottoman, which is a great round buttoned piece. This is um an old vitrin that I uh found again in the back of a barn and it is now home to some trainers. Um but I love I love this piece. And then we just go down here into um the master bathroom.

[00:33:06]This was a room that you could only access from the kitchen when we bought the house. There was a ladder behind the fridge and it was a like secret den for the boys that used that grew up in the house and we um we had to create this sort of uh link the two to turn it into our bathroom. So again the bathroom is in the eaves really lovely big bath at the end. I collect I love birds and so I found all these lovely birds, owls, which have a sort of their home up here.

[00:33:40]And then we've got Mr. and Mrs. portraits on either side of the bath and either side of the vanity, which is kind of cute. Um, again, this was all designed in the studio. And it's a vanity. I love it. It just looks like a chest of drawers rather than a vanity, per se. And again, that's a kind of theme about bathrooms, kitchens. I love them not to feel utilitarian in any way, but like rooms.

[00:34:16]I think this house really represents a project that my husband and I have done together. He's not an interior designer, but that we've created together as a team. I've been able to express my interior design loves alone. Do you know what I mean? I I haven't had any any kind of list of things I have to achieve. I've had no brief. It's literally just been this lovely evolution of things that we love. We love buying paintings. We love antique furniture. I love a bit of modern. I love a bit of leopard. I love a bit of weirdness. He We've done that together.

[00:34:55]And it's like that old story. What I love to talk about, you know, in fashion, my favorite thing is a tweed with a flowery print. You know, it's the here I think I've been able to do that clash. And I love that clash. London is a similar thing. It's a clash. But for here, this is when we walk in on the weekend and it's oh my god, thank God we're here. It's heaven like the fire.

[00:35:18]It's just a happy place. It's a really happy place and the kids love it and our kids are grown up adults, fullyfledged in the world, but they all love gathering here. It's a it's a place where everyone's really, you know, it's not an effort to come to. It's also a lovely place because I can rattle around here on my own and there's something really nice about that having a house of some scale that you don't feel lonely in when you're on your own and and we never do. So, it's easy just for two of us.

[00:35:48]It's easy when it's six of us. dogs, family, Christmas, the whole village. It It's just works. Thank you so much for coming home worthy. Great to meet you.

[00:35:59]See you soon.

[00:36:05]Thanks for watching. Go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content and shopping guides.