The humor—or horror, as the case may be—is that the house is indeed haunted. “We start telling ghost stories,” she explains. “Nothing was bought quickly.”The furniture is a mix of comfortable upholstered pieces, antiques, and family heirlooms. “No one needs to be scared.” (Reuters) Rob Lowe isn’t the only one who communicates with the dead. time several years ago. The property was also a meeting point for the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and remained in the original family for some three centuries.“We have a lot of history to live up to,” admits Schiffer. The second is, of course, her answer—though she assures that she did give him a verbal response in the interim.While Coldham Hall initially served as a weekend getaway from London, the family moved there full-
One bedroom, per Schiffer’s insistence, was wrapped from floor to ceiling in Galbraith & Paul crimson lotus wallpaper to create a tentlike effect.If the furnishings lean traditional, the art that fills the walls acts as a wonderful juxtaposition. They often take creative meetings here. “We all sit together.” She and Vaughn abandon their healthy diet on the weekends, serving hearty English classics like shepherd’s pie and Yorkshire pudding. Judge for yourself… I don’t want to seem like a nut. “Shooting fabrics are made of moleskin, which means it lasts forever,” observes Schiffer. And the plans include an office to improve security at her historic 14-bedroom country pad. Claudia Schiffer’s English Mansion came into her ownership after a spur-of-the-moment visit 15 years ago, upon which she and her husband, English director Matthew Vaughn, knocked on the door and asked if the owners would consider selling, a few months later it was theirs, according to Architectural Digest who featured the vast home earlier this year. “There was this Andy Warhol exhibition at the Pompidou,” she recalls, “and I remember thinking, One day, if I have enough money, I would like to buy one of those.” A decade into her career, she purchased her first Warhol, a camouflage painting that now hangs in the study.When their clock tower burned to the ground a few years ago, and she and Vaughn were forced to think about what they would want to rescue if the fire spread to the main house—luckily, it didn’t—they immediately turned to some of the art. One arrived at her doorstep in Mallorca on her birthday. 5 Dog lover Claudia Schiffer Credit: Getty Images “I had told him over dinner, ‘I love tortoises and I’ve always wanted to have one.’ ” And voilà! “They used to always have magnets and strings going down to check if there was anything valuable,” says Schiffer, adding that they found nothing. I don’t want to end my career here,” the actor jokingly added.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Claudia Schiffer is reportedly planning to convert a wing of her 14-bedroom Tudor mansion into luxury accommodation for her dogs at her 530-acre Suffolk estate. “We had a medium go around, and she told us that actually all the ghosts in the house are lovely,” she deadpans. So 15 years ago, when the Teutonic bombshell and her now husband, English film director Matthew Vaughn, turned into a half-mile-long driveway—unannounced and on a whim—to inquire whether the owners might consider selling the historic house at the end of it, Schiffer naturally won over her audience. Claudia Schiffer recently gave a tour of her haunted Tudor mansion in … “We’re not very formal,” she adds. These days, after dropping the kids at school (not a single paparazzo in sight), Schiffer and Vaughn retreat to their study with a cup of tea, where they work at desks alongside each other.
People come down at their leisure to eat or read the paper in the great hall. “The whole idea of the house is that everyone can roam. We don’t enjoy going to lots of parties. Much of the furniture is upholstered in sturdy, practical fabrics like corduroy and moleskin. Claudia Schiffer—member of the original supermodel club, iconic Guess? “No one needs to be scared.” In particular: Ashkan Sahihi lenticular photos of each child, an Adam Fuss photogram of Cosima when she was a baby (“Sadly, when I came to understand that he does this sort of thing, it was too late for the older children”), and a pair of Ed Ruscha paintings that say marry me and yes.