Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen unveils transformation at Cotswolds home and reveals ‘gin in bed’ Christmas plans – exclusive

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen isn’t one for understatement, so perhaps it’s no surprise when he says that in his house, “every day is Christmas Day”. “The whole family gets together, literally, for drinky-poos on a daily basis,” he says. “So we don’t have that moment just before the King’s speech when everyone’s half a bottle in and really fighty, because we get [to do] that every day of the year.”

The domestic arrangements of the Llewelyn‑Bowen family are far from conventional – in the modern sense. For the past five years, Laurence and his wife, Jackie, both 60, have shared their colourful, eclectic and sprawling manor house in the Cotswolds with their two daughters, Cecile, 30, and Hermione, 27, their two sons-in-law, Dan and Drew, and their four grandchildren.

All three families inhabit different parts of the Grade II-listed, 17th-century property in an arrangement that celebrates intergenerational living as well as a more traditional approach to family life. “This is what family units should be like,” says the interior designer, TV presenter and bon vivant, who is joined by his younger daughter, Hermione, for our chat. “This is what most people’s family experience is all over the world.”

Quality time

All ten family members will come together on Christmas Day in a celebration that, for Laurence, is all about hunkering down and relieving the pressures of contemporary life. “It’s very straightforward,” he says. “Christmas is the midwinter feast and the point when living in the northern hemisphere becomes quite unpleasant.

“You have virtually no daylight. You have an incredible quantity of rain and, if you live in the Cotswolds, a lot of mud. All you want to do is light the fire, eat far too much and hope the sun rises in the morning.

“Whatever your religious angle about it, this is the most difficult time of the year, in terms of the outside environment. Plus, we’re all knackered. There’s nothing wrong when, for a few days, you step off a fast-spinning planet and forget about your AI and Chat GBQ, or whatever it is,” he says with a wave of his hand. Hermione rolls her eyes. It is also, he claims, the only time of the year when “the magnolia British are prepared to step outside their ‘greynaissance’ and do something a little more extravagant”.

For a designer whose middle name is “flamboyant”, his Christmas decorations, especially in the “tasteful” dining room, are low‑key. There is no Christmas tree because the ceilings are too low – “it ends up looking so fat and squat” – so framed pictures are festooned with garlands instead.

“We still put up the same garlands as we did 20 years ago and now my girls are growing up with the same ones,” says Hermione, who manages Laurence’s interior-design company. “It’s third-generation childhood trauma by garland,” quips her father, who is in charge of the festive aesthetic.

The table is laid the day before Christmas Eve by Hermione, who jokes that she was “trained in silver service before I could speak”. This year, Christmas Day lunch will be prepared by Cecile. “She’s quite fancy, which we’re all slightly worried about,” Laurence says. “She’ll do potatoes with sea urchins,” Hermione grimaces.

Festive fun

The day itself kicks off at 7am, with the grandchildren opening their stockings, after which the families will disperse and go for walks before regrouping for lunch in their finery. This year’s dress code is orange. “It’s a much kinder colour than red,” says Laurence, who, as you might expect, has several orange three-piece suits from which to choose.

After lunch, more presents will be opened in front of the fire, and by 11pm, he and Jackie will have the place to themselves again. “By that stage, we’re in bed with the gin,” he says. “We used to host for about 30 people, so Christmas always felt as though we were working. So we’ve always had that sense of clawing a little back for ourselves.”

Their four adored grandchildren – Albion, nine, Demelza, four, Romilly, three, and Eleanora, two – not only inject seasonal excitement but are also an endless source of pride and pleasure. “One of the real benefits of us all living together is that Jackie and I have this incredible, informal relationship with them. I’m the person who’s taught all the grandchildren to say f***,” he says proudly. “Albion’s forever having sleepovers here and I’m forever on my knees playing with the girls. I feel I’m part of an organism that’s going into the future.”

“There’s a beautiful level of co-dependence between all of us,” Hermione adds. “We’re our own individuals, but we’re also made up of everyone around us.” Laurence’s sons-in-law are now on the mortgage, too, “so they’re not my tenants, they’re stakeholders”. This fits into his plan for his “tribe” to “benefit from what I’ve done when they need it and not as some kind of posthumous thing”.

His only rule for communal living is that “if anything goes wrong, you sort it out immediately and talk about it”, he says. “No one can sit on anything and you have to go out of your way to understand other people. I will roll my sleeves up. If things are a bit fraught, I will talk about it.”

The family call him “the guv”, he says, which seems an unlikely nickname for someone as dandy as Laurence. However, he explains that in engineering terms, a governor is a “relatively unglamorous cog that’s there to regulate”.

Tackling new challenges

That system went slightly askew last year, when Laurence’s participation in Bear Grylls’ reality show Celebrity Bear Hunt nearly ended in tragedy, as he was dragged under a raft in the sea off Costa Rica and almost drowned.

What did he learn from his brush with death? “No matter how fast the speedboat is going, no matter how many explosions are around you, no matter how loud the James Bond theme tune is in your head, be aware that you are a 60-year-old grandfather who lives in the Cotswolds and who should have a pocketful of Werther’s Originals in your wetsuit. That’s where I went wrong.

“However, I’m much happier with the fact that I tried and overdid it, rather than being that guy hiding behind the sofa. Jackie has this great expression, which is: ‘As you age, you should never stop being brave.’

“But we’re at that age when there’s a lot that can go wrong – we’re in Sniper’s Alley – so you have to take full responsibility for your physical housing. You need to spend more time being philosophical.

“Previous generations of 60-year-olds would have spent most of the day looking at shapes in the fire. We don’t. We listen to podcasts and paddleboard and do this and that. I’m not sure all these distractions are a good thing.”

Does he feel as though he should slow down a bit? He shrugs. “No, not really.” Laurence’s star hasn’t dipped since he found fame in the 1990s on Changing Rooms. He maintains a high profile on TV and his design business produces his own brand of textiles and wallpaper. His plan now is to focus on his original calling: painting. He has a fine art degree and his work has been shown in three recent exhibitions.

There are no plans for him to take part in any more reality TV shows, although he reckons he’d look “good in a cloak” on The Celebrity Traitors. “Jackie says I’m not even allowed to do The Great British Bake Off in case one of the cherries falls on my head. “

Nevertheless, he’ll be back on our screens next year with a new series of the BBC’s House of the Year and another run of Outrageous Homes on Channel 4, plus the launch of his own YouTube channel. It doesn’t sound as if Laurence will be watching the shapes in the fire any time soon.

“The world has decided I’m not going anywhere,” he says, philosophically. “From the early days, I didn’t want to be a bore or do shows that would p*** people off. “You need to understand who you are, be true to who you are and enjoy doing what you do. That’s what I’ve always done. And maybe that’s the legacy I’m leaving for my tribe now. “