The secluded Frogmore Cottage on the Home Park Estate, Windsor. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
The origin story of Frogmore Cottage is surprisingly apt given its 21st-century royal residents. Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, had it built in Home Park, Windsor, in 1801, as a bolthole for her and her daughters to escape the pressures of the palace. Sound familiar?
In 2018, it played a similar role for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Its grounds were chosen for their engagement photos. They returned to Frogmore House for their wedding reception.
The cottage – a wedding gift for the couple from the late Queen – underwent an extensive (and expensive) renovation and was their marital home until they left for America in 2020. Frogmore also played a significant role in the couple’s Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, which revealed photos of their private wedding party and family life for the first time.
Now it’s at the centre of another royal row: King Charles has offered it to Prince Andrew, meaning the Sussexes will have to hand over the keys. And it has been claimed that the King began the process of evicting the Sussexes shortly after the publication of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare.
The cottage has a history of housing those on the fringes of royal life. Past residents include Abdul Karim, the beloved attendant of Queen Victoria who was treated with hostility by the rest of the royal household (recently depicted in the film Victoria & Abdul) and the exiled Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, of Russia. In 1875, Queen Victoria visited Frogmore Cottage for breakfast and wrote that she had seen an “immense number of little frogs” there that she found “quite disgusting”.
More recently, it was converted into apartments for workers on the Windsor estate.
Since the Sussexes moved stateside, it has been largely unoccupied, although Princess Eugenie, her husband Jack Brooksbank and their son, August, moved in temporarily.
The cottage, which is secluded, completely private and comparatively humble by royal standards, is likely seen as an astute choice of home for Prince Andrew. It has not been confirmed whether he has accepted the offer – or if he has a choice in the matter. The large, Grade II listed home isn’t really a cottage in anything but name, but it is considerably smaller than Royal Lodge, the 31-bedroom mansion that Andrew has lived in since 2003 and shares with his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York.
At least Frogmore is newly renovated: in 2019, it was given an eco-friendly facelift with £2.4 million (NZ$4.6 million) of taxpayer money (which the Sussexes subsequently repaid). Rumours abound about a floating yoga floor, a £5000 (NZ$9600) copper bath, non-toxic paint from the Organic & Natural Paint Company and a gender-neutral nursery. But the public didn’t get a glimpse inside until Harry & Meghan aired in December last year.
Glimpses from the documentary show Frogmore Cottage has a muted colour scheme and a rustic-chic open plan kitchen straight out of Country Life magazine. One can assume this was all carefully planned given Meghan’s well-documented interest in feng shui.
The Sussexes purchased a sofa from high-street stalwart Loaf – an upgrade on the “second-hand sofa we’d recently bought on sale with Meg’s credit card on sofa.com” that Harry complains about in Spare. Sleek gallery lighting replaced Harry’s Ikea lamps from Nottingham Cottage.
And, even if it does have a yoga studio, the cottage is far humbler than their US$15 million (NZ$24 million) Californian home in the moneyed enclave of Montecito. It is also understated in comparison to Anmer Hall in Norfolk, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ home, which has 10 bedrooms, a pool and a tennis court. One guest at Frogmore described the inside of the cottage as “a lot nicer than my house, but not super lavish”.
That’s not to say it isn’t tastefully decorated. The cottage has been Soho House-ified in a calming palette of creams, greys and greens, with interior designer Vicky Charles reportedly chosen by the Sussexes to redesign it. Charles has a star-studded client list that includes the Beckhams and George and Amal Clooney, and was the brains behind Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire. Nick Jones, the chain’s founder, is a personal friend of Meghan’s. Charles left Soho House to set up her own interior design company, Charles & Co, with Julia Corden, wife of actor and TV host James.
Original panelled doors are visible in one shot of the cottage’s kitchen; as it’s Grade II listed, the original doors, windows and period features have been retained, although the couple reportedly installed new staircases and fireplaces. The palace confirmed the house had structural work on the ceiling beams, floor joists, heating systems and wiring but didn’t comment on the decoration. There were also plans to create a “granny annexe” for Meghan’s mother, Doria, which didn’t come to fruition.
Some raised eyebrows at their decision to install a “green energy unit” with a biomass boiler to provide the cottage’s heating and hot water at an estimated cost of £50,000 (NZ$96,000) but that’s probably a decision the King, as a keen conservationist, would approve of. He would certainly approve of the vegetable patch, which Harry and Meghan created to embrace The Good Life and grow their own produce – although it’s no patch on the King’s kitchen garden at Highgrove.
In the end, Frogmore wasn’t the Sussexes’ forever home – they lived there less than a year. Now, Prince Andrew could be the proud new owner of a copper bath and a specially sprung yoga floor.
Telegraph interiors editor Jess Doyle on the Sussexes’ kitchen makeover
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding list was peppered with items from the homeware line, Soho Home, so when it was reported that they’d sought the help of Vicky Charles to freshen up Frogmore, it hardly caused a storm in a hand-thrown teacup.
They’re not alone in their desire to add Soho Home glam to their pad. The “looks like vintage” but (crucially) isn’t, has become ubiquitously desirable amongst those that can afford it - we’re talking Brazilian marble dining tables for £5995 (NZ$11,500) and leather beds for £6995 (NZ$13,400). Particularly since it opened its Cotswolds outpost, Soho Farmhouse (where Meghan had her hen do), in 2015. Apart from being rather expensive, it curates “objects” that look collectible and furniture that’s comfy but cool. How very Meghan. Look closely and you’ll spot several of its classic hallmarks within the Sussexes’ Frogmore Cottage kitchen makeover.
Note the rustic wood panelling that clads the kitchen island – very modern-rustic? Then there’s the little swan-necked wall lights with empire shades – an old-school design detail that the group has helped to bring back into fashion. See too, the tea tray with the chunky earthenware teapot and mugs (placed, however, inconveniently far from the kettle).
But what is curious, is that the key ingredient of the Soho House look – a luxe but lived-in feel designed to make you feel at ease – is strikingly absent. The muted palette that apparently also characterises the rest of the cottage’s interiors here appears cold; the counter stools look unwelcoming (was this why Meghan preferred to sit on the island?); and the way the beige paint colour has only been taken up as far as the picture rail serves to make the ceiling appear even lower (an architectural detail of which, according to their Netflix documentary, we know the couple are not fond).
Most telling is the on-trend open shelving above the kettle is completely devoid of cups, plates, pictures or anything that might give the room a little life. A sign, perhaps, that they knew they wouldn’t be in it for long.
Washington Post: The mindset should be - less fuss, more fun with company.