That moment when French culture was at its most refined, most searching

I've finally understood what this house is about, this extraordinary attempt to make one space after another work without discomfort or falsity. You want to make a perfect stage set for conversation, enlightenment, for that moment when French culture was at its most refined, most searching.

E. de Waal, Letters to Camondo (2021), 111

A separate pantry for decanting wine

In this house one room leads onwards, unfolds, interlocks. I stand in your library and can go in three directions. The grand salon leads to four other spaces. There are alcoves and spiral staircases from bedrooms up to the servants' rooms so that clothes can appear and disappear. You catch sight of a winding staircase arcing up, bisected by a balcony. There is a hidden suite of rooms for the butler, a silver chamber, a separate pantry for decanting wine.

I think your bathroom might be the only room with one door.

E. de Waal, Letters to Camondo (2021), 52

Light, sun and air were prized in a way that medieval and Tudor forebears would have found incomprehensible. So were bathrooms.

The balancing act which so many owners of older country houses had to perform was to live in a congenial 'muddle of museum carpets [and] ruined castles' - Harold Nicolson's description of life at Sissinghurst - and still have mod cons and home comforts. The older the house way, the harder that was. By the 1920s light, sun and air were prized in a way that medieval and Tudor forebears would have found incomprehensible. So were bathrooms.

A. Tinniswood, The long weekend (2016), 137