Step Inside Castle Howard, a British Icon in the Midst of a Major Restoration

Of the Brideshead Revisited manse, designer Remy Renzullo says “the notion of ‘finished’ doesn’t really exist”

As published in Architectural Digest, May 29, 2025

Photography by Simon Upton

In the Long Gallery Octagon, workmen hang a new chandelier made by Wilkinson LTD. to replicate the 19th-century originals designed by Charles Heathcote Tatham that hang at the opposite ends of the space.

If you recognize the great domed silhouette of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, England, it might be because you remember either the 1981 television production or the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited, based on Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel of class, aristocratic English Catholics, and World War II. In both adaptations, Castle Howard stood in for the stately house at the center of the drama. But the Baroque palace’s own story is even more captivating than any fictional account, as Remy Renzullo, the young American interior designer currently working on the still-private residence’s update, can attest.

An 18th-century lead copy by Andrew Carpenter of the Farnese Hercules, one of several statues that placed along the temple terrace running south east from the main house (seen in the distance).

Uncannily attuned to the frequencies of 18th-century Britain, Renzullo is part of the team assembled by the house’s current custodians, Nicholas and Victoria Howard, as part of the estate’s “21st-Century Renaissance,” a restoration project whose first fruits opened to the public in April. Though various projects are ongoing (Renzullo says “the notion of ‘finished’ doesn’t really exist” in a house like this), the completion of several important rooms feels like a milestone. And a sumptuous new book commemorating the place and its history will be published by Flammarion in November.

The designer’s initial encounter with the house was magical. He had reconnected with old friend Blanche Howard during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and she introduced him to her parents, who were looking for a designer—though she didn’t specify for what. He thought perhaps it was a country house near Bath. Once he realized he was Castle-bound, Renzullo made his way north in the midst of a blizzard. Because of the lockdown, the couple were totally alone in the house as the snow fell. After welcoming him in, he recalls, “Nick and Vicky just took me on a whirlwind tour through the whole house.”

Aged pink silk panels, applied in the 1950s, define the Little Sitting Room. The George III–style sofas wear a Watts 1874 damask.

Now in his early 30s and a well-traveled native of Connecticut, Renzullo was a natural for this project. “Remy instinctively ‘got’ what we were trying to achieve,” Victoria says. “We wanted the rooms to feel as though they were timeless, that they had always been here. I call him the ‘anti-decorator.’ He often rejects ideas because they will look too decorated.”

Recalling the architecture of 17th-century Italy, the house and its contents are the products of a British fascination with that country and its ancient culture that emerged in the late 17th century and flourished into the 18th. In 1699, the third Earl of Carlisle commissioned fellow staunch Whig and member of London’s Kit-Kat Club John Vanbrugh to design a house befitting his family’s keen interest in European art and architecture. This was a gamble; technically, it would mark Vanbrugh’s debut as an architect—he was better known then as a dramatist, and had spent the years 1688 to 1692 imprisoned in France for his role in helping to bring about the Glorious Revolution, which deposed James II and ushered in the reign of William and Mary. Nevertheless, Vanbrugh worked closely with the more established Nicholas Hawksmoor, and the resulting structure is now considered an iconic example of the English Baroque style.

A George III painted and parcel gilt tester bed by John Linnell with hangings of red Trianon damask by Tassinari & Chantel and custom passementerie by Watts 1874 commands the Castle Howard bedroom. The walls are swathed in a gathered silk faille by Claremont, and a 19th-century Axminster carpet covers the floor.

Vanbrugh’s design comprised a central structure topped with an imposing masonry dome that would be flanked by two wings. Classical details like Roman-style pilasters adorned the exterior—Doric on the north side and Corinthian on the south—along with cherubs, urns, coronets, and ciphers. But much to Vanbrugh’s frustration, the West Wing was not built before his death in 1726. In fact, construction wasn’t completed until 1811—staying true to Vanbrugh’s footprint albeit in a succession of different styles. Throughout the 18th century, successive earls would add to the house’s impressive art collection, bringing back treasures from the Continent, and adding to the overall impression that Castle Howard is like the experience of a Grand Tour made manifest on English soil.

Looking up into the frescoed central dome, which was restored in the early 1960s after being destroyed by fire in November 1940.

Indeed, like many grand English houses, the story of Castle Howard has been one of intergenerational collaboration. In addition to the Howards themselves, there were the architects, designers, stonemasons, gilders, upholsterers, painters, and carpenters who have built, researched, and restored the different facets of this unique stately home for centuries. Today, the core team comprises Nicholas and Victoria; Renzullo; the venerable interior designer Alec Cobbe, who has special expertise in picture hanging (having advised the Royal Collection); and architect Francis Terry (a well-known proponent of a style often called New Classicism). Working together on one of the centerpieces of the house, the Tapestry Drawing Room, Renzullo, Cobbe, and Terry began with a fact-finding mission through the house itself—and through the archives.

The recently refurbished Tapestry Drawing Room features a set of 1706 wall hangings depicting the four seasons, now reunited and displayed for the first time in 250 years.

In 1940, a chimney fire broke out, destroying the masonry dome, central hall, dining room, and state rooms. Luckily, the Four Seasons tapestries for which the Tapestry Drawing Room is named were in storage, and survived. The current restoration has brought the space back from ruin, and the tapestries—which were made for the room—will be on view there for the first time in more than 250 years.

“The 1710 interior is a mystery,” Renzullo says of the daunting yet exciting task, noting that though there are photographs from the 1920s, the room had already been redesigned by the late 19th century. They looked to Vanbrugh’s wider oeuvre, and at the work of other great Baroque architects and designers like Daniel Marot, who didn’t contribute to Castle Howard per se, but was active in Great Britain during the same period.

A dressing room was converted to use as a bathroom for the adjoining Castle Howard Bedroom. The artworks are all either by, or in the circle of, Jean Baptiste Monnoyer. Antique tub from The Water Monopoly; Dutch painted leather four-panel screen.

“If we were trying to decide what a window or doorframe should look like for this room, we’d say, ‘Well, let’s just go and look around.’ And what’s amazing about Castle Howard is that because of the way in which it was built, because of this sort of multigenerational approach to not only collecting, but actual architecture, the house is filled with endless examples.”

Ultimately, their research and design could only come to fruition with the help of extraordinarily skilled artisans, some of whom—unsurprisingly—work for companies with long family histories of their own. One such expert is Philip Gaches of Gaches Traditional Plasterers, established by his father in 1948. Gaches hand-modeled the new plasterwork in the Tapestry Drawing Room using a technique called “running,” forming and installing the plasterwork in situ according to Francis Terry’s designs. “The design of the plasterwork scheme is inspired by the work of the renowned Italian stuccatore Giovanni Bagutti who, along with his colleague Mr. Plura, created the sumptuous work in the Great Hall at Castle Howard in the 18th century,” Gaches points out.

Furniture and artworks were stored in the Great Hall ahead of the completion of rooms.

Renzullo also plumbed the archives to craft creative solutions for the Castle Howard Bedroom that feel current today. “One of the most beautiful rooms, it’s grand but also still used—and open to the public,” he says. “And it has a really important suite of furniture made by John Linnell.” He studied drawings and designs in the Linnell archive at the Victoria and Albert Museum and came up with a plan for a new bed hanging that seems as though it has always been there. He also turned to an 18th-century technique to craft a gathered-fabric covering for the walls. Noting that the room doesn’t get a lot of light, Renzullo says this texturing gives the space “an amazing three-dimensionality.”

Renzullo considers the Howards patrons rather than clients, and they all share the belief that the interiors shouldn’t look like museum period rooms. “The house has always been referred to as a living thing, the given reason being that the family still live here,” Nicholas Howard notes. “Of all the different elements, though, seeing the Tapestry Drawing Room grow from rough stone walls to a complete room has been the most exhilarating. It feels as if we’ve heard a whisper of what it must have been like, 300 years ago, to watch the house itself come into being.”