The Mill, Part One

Over the holidays, I was tickled pink when a neighbor gave me a 1954 magazine clipping about the Mill, the French country house of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (or, as the article referred to them, "the world's most romantic couple."). Titled Our First Real Home, the article was a two-part series written by the Duchess herself, who described at length the renovation and decoration of the couple's first purchased home.  (Their previous homes had all been leased.) 

Formerly owned by the artist Drian, the seventeenth-century mill, Moulin de la Tuilerie, consisted of a millhouse and three outbuildings located, naturally, along a stream.  According to the article, the Duchess chose a fruit and floral theme for the home because "every house should have a theme in its decoration." She also established a vibrant color-palette for most of the rooms because she "wanted to have a fling with bright colors."  The exceptions to this are the Duchess's pastel-colored bedroom and the lighter-toned dining room.  Assisted by her decorator, Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen, the Duchess filled her country home with newly-purchased objects as well as furnishings from their previous homes, including pieces from York House and Fort Belvedere.  (If, like me, you have spent hours pouring over the Duke and Duchess of Windsor auction catalogues, you'll likely recognize a number of the paintings and objects seen here.)

As I've said before, I don't consider the Mill to be on par with the Windsors' Paris home, which was really most attractive.  I find the colors of these interiors to be jarring to the eye, and some of the decorative combinations are rather odd.  (One such example, seen below, is the drawing-room banquette, which was accented with red satin cushions.  Alongside it was a corduroy-upholstered chair.  See what I mean?)  That being said, I relish these photos, because they provide a glimpse into the lives of a stylish couple who, rightly or wrongly, fascinate me.

You might recognize some of these photos, for they later appeared in Suzy Menkes's terrific book, The Windsor Style. Because the article featured so many photos, I'm dividing them up into two blog posts.  And I've also included the original photo captions, because they're too good to overlook.

So, now, the tour of the Mill...

"Our Moulin de la Tuilerie as it looks through the entrance gate."


The Big Hall:

"Sometimes I think the big hall is my favorite room- it's so cheery and comfortable. The overscaled chintz was chosen to heighten this effect. The low leather chair is the Duke's pet and the funny twisted-root stool on the hearth he used to sit on to rest while elephant hunting in East Africa. The stairs in the corner lead to our bedrooms and to the drawing room."

"This group in the hall just inside the front door is worked out around a red and gold Louis XV chest I had in my London apartment. The two still-lifes painted in 1839 were the first things we acquired especially for the mill- were originally intended for the dining-room. The big faience swan I bought from the people who most recently had been living in the mill- it seemed so right for the room. The high-backed chairs are old Irish ones."

"This view of the hall from the pantry side reveals the dining-room door across the room- not too convenient for serving, as you can see. The rug under the sofa group is of felt embroidered in floral squares- I bought it years ago hoping to have a place for it some day. Gravestones in the floor were stolen from cemeteries during the French revolution- fortunately nobody's under them."



The Drawing Room:

"You step up through that tiny door in the center of the picture to reach the drawing-room. The sloping shelves behind the door cover the main stairs to the hall below. To give this forty-foot room the height it needed we removed the floor of the old loft above it, thus exposing the beautiful cross beams and buttresses. The screen behind the piano- a map painted by Drian- carries the carpet design up several feet like a dado."

"To give you some idea of the size of the room- the baroque mirror over the fireplace is ten feet high. On either side are the two paintings by Lorjou which suggested the color scheme of the room. The carpet was especially designed and woven but most of the furnishings are things we had- done over. The small door by the fireplace leads to our Bahamian bar."

"The banquette around the corner to the right of the fireplace contrasts a Jacquard-textured cotton with shiny satin cushions- the chair is covered in corduroy.  On the wall is the almost life-size portrait Drian did of me at the time of my marriage. The tree-trunk pedestals holding geraniums were in Drian's old studio in the barn."

"The sofa group is dominated by the famous picture Sir Alfred J. Munnings painted of my husband on horseback when he was Prince of Wales. On each side hang old French hunting carvings. The coffee table, given us in Nassau, has a map of the Bahamas in black and antique bronze painted under the glass top."



The Duchess's Bedroom:

"This shows how my room looks as you first come in. The far window behind the dressing table opens over the millstream; at night its gentle murmur makes such a relaxing sound to go to sleep by! The clear pastel colors are those I've always been fond of- they also harmonize with the two painted chests (you can see a corner of one on the right) that I've had since we were first married. The little Victorian rocker in the foreground, painted to match the room, belonged to my grandmother in America."

"My bedroom is long and narrow with sloping beams, a little like a tent- so I decided to emphasize this by draping the old beams with striped antique taffeta. The colors in the curtains are repeated in the harlequin bedcover- a present from my husband on my last birthday. Its pieces are put together by hand like a patchwork quilt- I had decided it would be too expensive but the Duke ordered it for me anyway as a surprise. The door in the far wall opens to the bathroom; at the right next to it is the entrance door from the upper landing."

"My painted trompe l'oeil chest gave us the idea for decorating the bathroom. We painted the walls with the same wood grain, adding amusing trompe l'oeil symbols held up by red tape- things like the jacket of A King's Story, gloves, opera glasses, bouquets of flowers, butterflies, a dog leash."

"To me flowers are an important part of the decoration of a room and one of my hobbies is arranging them. I always like white flowers in my own room. Sometimes they're a low arrangement like the roses opposite; sometimes tall, like the one here of calla lilies and spiky eremurus."



The Duke's Bedroom and Bath:

"All the furniture here came from Fort Belvedere- the drum is one from the Grenadier Guards with the Duke's own cipher, ER VIII, used when he was king. The small clock on the mantel was a christening present from his maternal grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Teck."

"The Duke's bedroom is also a quiet retreat. He has his favorite books and collections there- the old prints on the wall show the different uniforms of the Grenadier Guards from 1660 to modern times. A naval dress sword hangs there under prints of old navy uniforms."

"One of our planning problems was the Duke's dressing room and bath just across the landing from my room. We solved it by building fixtures into closets and cabinets and setting a stall shower in one corner (for he prefers a shower to a tub bath). Stairs at right lead to the bedroom."


To be continued....