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33 P rince Charles o n c e d e - s c r i b e d H o u g h t o n Hall as "one of our coun- try's priceless jewels, a great house — in my humble opinion, one of the greatest in England." That's considerable endorsement from a man who resides in many such jewels. Houghton Hall, commissioned in 1720 by England's first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, rambles along 350 acres of stunning Norfolk parkland. Walpole, a man of substan- tial taste and money, built his country home without re- gard to cost. Today, Houghton stands as one of Britain's most splendid Palladian houses; its English baroque interiors and furnishings, designed by William Kent, remarkably preserved. The prince spent time at Houghton as a child — it's about two miles from Sandringham, where the Queen has a country es- tate. Nearby is Anmer Hall, which the Queen gifted to Prince William and Catherine Middleton as a wedding pres- ent. Houghton, the ances- tral home since 1815 to the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley, has a new generation of family that has endowed it with an art vibe and an impressive collection of contemporary outdoor sculp- ture, including a James Turrell Skyspace and works by Zhan Wang and Richard Long. It's a private home, but many areas are open to the public, includ- ing last year's sold-out show of Damien Hirst's paintings and sculptures. Lady Rose, the 34-year- old current Marchioness of Cholmondeley, was a model with aristocratic lin- eage before marrying David Cholmondeley and becoming chatelaine of Houghton. While immersed in the redecoration of her private bathroom, she reached out to London-based de Gournay to purchase pan- els of its Amazonia wallpaper. Hannah Cecil Gurney, director of de Gournay and daugh- ter of founder Claud Cecil Gurney, suggested instead that Lady Rose reproduce the blue paper from Houghton's Cabinet Room in a new col- orway of her own design. "It has been one of our favorite examples in the world of ex- quisite 18th-century hand- painted Chinese wallpaper, and we always dreamt of re- producing it," Cecil Gurney says. "That was when Lady Rose mentioned the antique panels that she had, just a few months previously, discovered in her attics. It was the most serendipitous timing." The extra Cabinet Room panels had been rolled up for hun- dreds of years, protected from the degrading effects of light and time. Hand-painted on a striking cobalt paper, the oriental-garden design daz- zles in rich pinks, greens, and reds, with gold-leaf accents on the petals and leaves. "It was a breathtaking experience to unroll them — and a very rare moment that we were unlikely to come by again, " Cecil Gurney says. "The attic panels convinced us that we had to reproduce them, no matter what." The result is a hand-painted wallpaper collection named Houghton, based on the great estate's original panels. To cel- ebrate, de Gournay introduced the collection at a lavish din- ner party hosted by Lord and Lady Cholmondeley. Dallas interior designer and anti- quarian Joseph Minton and his partner, Kevin Peavy, were among the 80 guests, which included some of de Gournay's top clients from around the world. Minton has been com- missioning de Gournay wall- paper for almost 40 years and was the fi rst to use its Coco Coromandel, a design based on a coromandel screen from Coco Chanel's Paris apartment. De Gournay Houghton wallpaper in rose. Houghton Hall Amanda Brooks, Amy Astley Dominic Evans-Freke, Guy Goodfellow Jacques Bec Martin Brudnizki, Jonathan Brook De Gournay dinner at Houghton Hall Joseph Minton, William R. Eubanks, Kevin Peavy (continued on page 34)