A hillside lake house in Connecticut imbued with an English country aesthetic by Nina Carbone

The brief, not that Nina needed it, was to soften the space and imbue this brand-new building with a sense of history and warmth. To do so, she reached across the pond for inspiration, landing, as so many do when looking to create relaxed interiors, in the British countryside. ‘The English country aesthetic celebrates imperfection: things don’t have to be pristine, and a little lived-in is what it’s all about. An un-fluffed sofa, for example, is what makes a home feel welcoming’, she says.

The house borrows from this sensibility, and combines a Robert Kime-inspired palette (‘nothing in the house is overt in its colour or chroma, and that was very Kime’, says Nina), with antiques upholstered in textured fabrics and wallpapers in botanical prints. Calling upon British designers such as Sanderson, Carolina Irving, and Lisa Fine, a sense of comfort was introduced.

‘We kept asking ourselves: "how do we make this house feel like it has a bit of history?” and I think the answer is antiques’, says Nina. ‘Inherently I love a mid-century Italian, Swedish or Scandinavian piece, but here I went in another direction. I wanted the furniture to be unadorned and robust’, she explains. ‘Nothing too decorated or fussy’. A melange of the clients’ own pieces and those sourced by Nina add a sense of depth to each of the spaces. On the floor, antique Persian rugs - specifically chosen for their patina and for being ‘worn in areas’ contribute to this sense of history.

The bedrooms, being spaces ‘you tend not to spend too much time in, unless you’re a pre-teen’, says Nina, offered the opportunity to introduce a bit more pattern. ‘I always lean towards botanicals’, she explains of the pretty floral and foliage prints on the walls. ‘They also provide a nice link with the landscape outside’, she adds. In the boot room, which doubles as an informal entryway on the lower-ground floor, Thomas Strachan’s ‘Sherwood’ wallpaper sets the tone for the rest of the space, which lends itself to long summer afternoons spent lounging by the pool.

What that house boasts, that you wouldn’t necessarily find in its Cotswolds counterpart, is a kitchen which firmly roots it in its stateside location: glamorous, light, airy and awash with marble, the kitchen was built for entertaining. ‘We knew it was going to be this green-grey colour, but wanted to do something a little bolder in the back-kitchen so it didn’t feel like an afterthought’, she explains of the pantry, whose entrance is discretely hidden among joinery in the kitchen. ‘We chose Farrow & Ball’s ‘Railings’ and paired it with a Bardiglio stone countertop which picks up on the steely grey. It was important that it felt just as considered as the kitchen’, she explains.

It is no small feat to start with an expansive, ultra-contemporary blank canvas and finish with a warm and comfortable family home. But it is one that Nina has pulled off seamlessly. ‘As designers we have fabrics or wallpapers that we’d love a client to use, but it's rare that the whole house is exactly as we’d want it’, she says. ‘This one is. It’s really special to finish a project and really want to move in yourself’, she laughs. And we can see why.