After years spent moving around the country, Penny and David O’Kelly have put down roots in North Yorkshire. Ruth Campbell visits their stunning Georgian farmhouse

PENNY and David O’Kelly’s beautifully proportioned Georgian farmhouse, set in elegant, formal gardens in the midst of open countryside, has often been likened to a grown-up doll’s house.

“I remember my niece saying that when she first came down the drive,” recalls Penny. “She thought it just looked so cosy and calm.”

It is not hard to see why people make the comparison. Having lived in ten different houses over their married life, this is the home Penny and David, who retired from the Army ten years ago, have always yearned for.

After years living in transient service quarters, where walls had to be painted magnolia and they couldn’t alter or extend their accommodation, here, they were able to put down roots and invest all their energy and emotions into creating their perfect family home.

As well as keeping chickens and establishing a well-ordered vegetable plot, Penny was delighted to be able to indulge in the colours she had always dreamed of.

“I was like a child in a sweet shop,” she says. “People always say they’re going to paint their houses in bright colours when they leave the Army, but no-one ever does. I like subtle, calming colours and neutrals so went for Farrow and Ball’s String and Cream and pale blues and greys, apart from the dining room, which is a deep red.

“It was lovely to create a home where I could put pictures up where I wanted, without thinking I’d have to take them down and fill up all the holes afterwards. I could have baskets hanging from my kitchen ceiling and knew I wouldn’t have to pack things up because I’d have to move again.”

They first heard about the five bedroom farmhouse, set in 22 acres outside Northallerton, through Penny’s mother, as it belonged to a son of one of their neighbours in Scotland.

With stunning views taking in Penhill in Wensleydale and the Cleveland Hills, as well as Richmond and the pretty village of Ainderby Steeple, it was in a part of the country where the couple had always wanted to settle.

At the time, David was on an unaccompanied tour in South Africa and teaching assistant Penny was living in Army accommodation in Camberley.

“I came up to have a look at it. It had something about it and I could see how it could be made into a wonderful home, but it was too expensive,” she says.

They walked away, but one year later, it was still on the market. They put in an offer and it was accepted.

Although it needed some improvement, many original features such as working shutters, architraves and solid wooden floors were all still in good condition. Penny and David loved the character of the house, with its original butcher’s hooks in the kitchen and adjoining cool rooms, and a listed staircase.

“There used to be a bell at top of the stairs which was rung when the cows were coming in and to let the farm workers know when lunch was ready," says Penny. Even the old pigsty, which had been used to keep geese and is now a store, had to be sympathetically renovated using limestone mortar as it is a listed building in itself.

While David and Penny were keen to bring the interior up to date, they were also determined to preserve the personality of the building.

The couple, who have two grown-up children, Charlie, 26, and Katie, 23, set to work straight away, repainting the yellow exterior and adding an elegant sandstone porch.

The Yorkshire flagstone entrance hall has the feel of a traditional country house. Sadly, the original old kitchen range had been pulled out and, when they pulled down the ceiling as part of their renovation work, the original horse hair insulation came away too. But once they had installed an Aga and fitted stylish duck egg blue Charles Rennie Mackintosh Profile ash units, it began to feel more like the heart of their home.

Elsewhere, Georgian-style windows have been reinstated, bedrooms and bathrooms re-done and a £2,500 stone fireplace installed in the drawing room.

Penny went to school and later worked and shared a flat with fabric designer Vanessa Arbuthnott, who remains a close friend, and her quirky, designs feature in most rooms.

“I love Nessa’s fabrics and I think this house lends itself to them. They’re often the starting point for the colour scheme of the whole room," she says.

The couple have accumulated antiques from parents and grandparents plus crockery and fabrics from Galloway in Scotland, where Penny’s parents had a farm.

“I also love going around junk shops, which sends my husband into a fit of panic,” she laughs.

Penny, who keeps scrapbooks with tickets and invitations from all the events the couple have attended since they married, bought a lot of Polish pottery when they lived in Germany and now collects contemporary Scottish pottery, all of which is displayed on their kitchen shelves.

A signed, framed photograph of Laura Fellowes – the daughter of Diana, Princess of Wales’s sister, Jane, and now godmother to Princess Charlotte – pictured with a young Prince William at the Duke and Duchess of York’s wedding, hangs in the downstairs lavatory. Penny used to teach her at Glendower Preparatory School in South Kensington.

“In this house, everything has a memory attached to it,” says Penny.

Many of the paintings on the walls are by artists the family has personal connections with, such as Sally Oyler, who Penny went to school with, and wildlife artist Donald Watson.

But, while grazing sheep and cattle can be seen from almost every window, much of the artwork dotted about the house is at odds with the traditional pastoral scenes outside. The elephants, hippos, zebra, ostriches and giraffes which feature throughout reveal the couple’s love of Africa, where David was once stationed with the Army and where Penny spent part of her childhood.

“I was brought up in Malawi for five years and David had a six month tour in South Africa, when I enjoyed lots of visits. We also visited my sister living in Nairobi,” says Penny. “We loved the whole way of life there, the smell, the people, the animals and the freedom you have, all of that.”

They have lived in the house for 12 years. The yew hedge, planted when they first moved here, is now well established and the lettuce, peas, broad beans, strawberries, redcurrants, beetroot, potatoes, rocket and chives in the vegetable patch are thriving. They have also planted a damson and plum trees, to add to the old apple tree they inherited.

With fragrant rose beds at the front of the house, where there is a recessed ha-ha, flower beds at the back and side are filled with swathes of lavender, peonies, bleeding hearts, rhododendron, agapanthus and poppies.

Penny has future projects in mind. “I would love to knock the drawing room and office into one so that we can sit and look out on the garden from the house,” she says.

But after a lifetime of moving, this, she agrees, is their forever home.