The cottage from The Holiday - let's take a closer look
Nancy Meyers' films are renowned for their deeply covetable interiors, each of which embodies a certain kind of sophisticated lifestyle. Who wouldn't want to live in Meryl Streep's sprawling Mediterranean-style mansion in It's Complicated, while Diane Keaton's elegant Hamptons beach house in Something's Gotta Give is another special favourite. Interestingly, however, the American director perhaps reached the peak of her interior design powers with the creation of a very different kind of house, a tiny, charming English country cottage. The house where Kate Winslet lives in house-swapping rom-com The Holiday (a film we watch every year without fail) is undoubtedly one of the most desirable interiors we've ever seen on film, and it's the style closest to our hearts. Although the rooms of Rosehill Cottage only ever existed on a Hollywood sound stage, that doesn't make them any less covetable.
Where is the cottage from The Holiday?
We were devastated when we found out that the Rosehill Cottage of the film doesn't exist in reality. The exteriors were built from scratch in a field and the interiors are sets - Honeysuckle Cottage in Holmbury St Mary (which was for sale in 2021 and was briefly available on Airbnb) provided inspiration for the crew who designed it. The cottage is the home of Kate Winslet's character, who conducts a home swap with Cameron Diaz's LA mogul, and thus provides the setting for Diaz to fall in love with the dreamy Jude Law amidst her comedy dealings with the English countryside.
The cottage from The Holiday has become a phenomenon, summing up the best of the English cottage look and creating a dream of Christmas in the countryside for thousands. The exterior of the cottage, lightly dusted in snow, is like a composite of all the honey-coloured, sightly wonky cottages you can stumble across everywhere from the Cotswolds to Yorkshire, and the interiors encapsulate the perfectly imperfect, cosy look characteristic of the ideal cottage. All the features are there including wooden beams, an open fire, the slightly shabby country kitchen of our dreams, faded chintzes and that tiny, beautiful roll-top bath. Cottages come into their own in winter, and seeing first Kate Winslet and then Cameron Diaz occupying the space in their inimitable style certainly adds something to its desirability.
If you've caught the bug, scroll down to see how you can incorporate some of the atmosphere from the cottage from The Holiday into your own house.
MAY WE SUGGEST: Caroline Holdaway's dream Cotswold cottage
1/7Rosehill Cottage's kitchen, where Kate Winslet weeps over Rufus Sewell and has an unfortunate encounter with the gas hob, is a model of the pretty country kitchen, with open shelves housing a collection of blue and white ceramics.
2/7The living room is full of comfortably stuffed armchairs and chintzy, mismatched fabrics. An antique drum has been used as a coffee table. Jean Monro's ‘Salisbury’ fabric is the perfect faded chintz for a country living room.
3/7To keep the room from looking too chintzy, the sofa is upholstered in a gentle pink stripe - find similar at Ian Mankin.
4/7Instead of a coffee table, the living room has a tufted ottoman in the centre of the seating. The ‘Plymouth’ model from Swoon, available at John Lewis, is a similar design that will work well in practically any interior, cottage or not.
5/7No country cottage is complete without a cosy reading nook. The one at Rosehill Cottage has higgledy-piggledy bookshelves and a comfortable, Howard & Sons-style open-arm chair. Such chairs are widely available on Vinterior or via major antiques dealers such as Lorfords, or for a new design try The Odd Chair Company.
6/7The bedroom has a distinct shabby-chic aesthetic, with a white metal bedstead and more mismatched furniture, including a white metal bed frame and painted side table. The Original Bed Co is our go-to for metal beds – try their ‘Carie’ model for a similar feel.
7/7The bathtub (and Cameron Diaz squeezing herself into it) may be one of the most enduring images of the film - a tiny tub for a tiny space. Note the floorboards which have been pained with a black harlequin design. Fortunately, you can buy the very same bathtub - the Tubby Torre - from The Albion Bath Company, for all your small bathroom needs.
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