The Romance of Classicism featured in the Financial Times

‘The Romance of Classicism’, a new book by George Saumarez Smith, has been featured in the Financial Times.

Published on 8th September 2026 by Rizzolli, The Romance of Classicism is a reflection on the George’s childhood, education, influences and career.

Read the article “The brand new country house” below.

“The Romance of Classicism, a new book by architect George Saumarez Smith, is a love letter to the country house. It features a series of stately, elegant homes that have seemingly sat in their landscape for centuries: in red brick or creamy Portland or Bath stone, with colonnaded porticos and arched doorways, surrounded by topiary-edged lawns and rolling English countryside. Inside, there are sweeping double-height staircases, octagonal landings, yellow-painted, antique-filled living rooms and large Palladian fireplaces. They are “classical buildings using traditional materials”, explains Saumarez Smith. They have also all been newly designed, and built in the past 20 years.

Country-house style is alive and well in the 21st century. A look that Saumarez Smith sums up as “quite comfortable, Howard chairs and chintz, Colefax and Fowler, that kind of thing”, is being maintained by architects as well as interior designers. Flora Soames brings swaths of floral fabric (often of her own design) to country homes in Gloucestershire or Northumberland, while Ben Pentreath (who studied at the University of Edinburgh at the same time as Saumarez Smith) mixes influences from both the 18th and 19th centuries and the 1960s and ’70s, across Regency manor houses and Scottish castles, as well as “new traditional buildings and country houses”. “A question that I often ask myself is, ‘If you want a country house, why not buy an old one?’” admits Saumarez Smith, a partner at the Adam architecture firm, whose career has spanned historical restorations as well as new-build country houses. “The idea of a new country house is one that elicits a ‘certain reticence’,” he writes. “It is a particularly English reticence, one that is uncomfortable about too much newness. I even feel it myself, loving as I do the worn, lived-in look that is such an important part of English taste and of old-fashioned country-house style.”

But there are many reasons to start from scratch, says Saumarez Smith. While current building regulations mean that “your ability to sort of adapt an old house to modern patterns of living is probably quite limited”, a new house “can be entirely tailored to your own needs. You can build it to a very high performance from an energy point of view – put in geothermal heating and all the infrastructure and insulation to keep running costs really low.” Plus “a new house is zero-rated for VAT”, he adds. An interest in classical architecture runs in Saumarez Smith’s family. His grandfather was Raymond Erith, best known for his postwar reconstruction of 10 Downing Street, but whose new yet traditional designs include the north London terrace that Saumarez Smith was born in, and Great House in the Essex village of Dedham. But classical architecture alone does not a country house make. It “is of prime importance, but so too is the quality of the collection it contains”, writes Saumarez Smith. “A carefully chosen variety of objects from all over the world has come to define English taste.”

For Soames, who is currently working on interior design projects from Dorset to the American East Coast, country-house style is crucially versatile. “It brings the outside in,” she says. “It absorbs pattern and texture. There’s room for storytelling, for a bit of whimsy and a lot of personality.” The key lies in “using the right architectural elements, from the architrave to the wooden floorboards and the fireplace”, says Charlotte Freemantle, co-founder of antique and reproduction specialist Jamb, whose first interior design project was the 300-year-old Aldourie Castle on the shore of Loch Ness. “Ambience and surface – the layering of textiles, the softness of the upholstery – is what new environments require to give a sense of soul.”

What unites this band of architects and designers is a desire to “champion patina and craftsmanship”, says Soames. “It’s achieved by blending old and new,” adds Saumarez Smith, who uses reclaimed materials such as tiles and slate, as well as “architectural fragments of old houses. It’s what I call ‘instant history’.”

“If a house looks like an old house and then it’s just full of stuff made yesterday, it looks a little bit odd,” says Sarah Morris, one half of Chelsea-based McWhirter Morris design studio. “I personally think that a few of the more classical things tend to make it feel more real.” At the same time, she often incorporates “modern-day requests and requirements for things like underfloor heating, large screens, gyms, spas”, while also making the classical spaces “attractive for more informal living”. She gives the example of a dining room of a Saumarez Smith new-build in Hampshire, “in a niche where normally you’d expect to find a serving table, we put a sofa”.

But there’s not a quick fix to achieving country-house style. Sometimes a project needs to be time-weathered to look good, says Saumarez Smith. “It’s probably about 10 years,” he says of the time needed for a new house to “bed in”. “But these are legacy projects. Most of my clients are not [creating these homes] just for themselves. They’re doing it with their children and possibly their grandchildren in mind.” The Romance of Classicism: Designing the English Country House for Today by George Saumarez Smith is published by Rizzoli on 8 September at £47.95.”

A link to this article can be found here.

The Romance of Classicism is available to order here.