Villa Vista is a striking piece of midcentury design set within its own private corner of the 440-acre Heythrop Estate, just outside Chipping Norton and six minutes from Soho Farmhouse. Where much of the Cotswolds trades in exposed beams and honeyed stone, Villa Vista does something different: clean midcentury lines and a warm, 1970s-California-by-way-of-the-Cotswolds palette, set down a private road amid mature woodland and open parkland. It sleeps up to eight across four individually styled bedrooms, with grounds generous enough to properly disappear into.
At the centre of the house is a kitchen-diner built for a group — a long breakfast bar, double ovens and a separate utility room — with patio doors opening straight onto the garden, so cooking and eating slide easily outside. The outdoor kitchen carries the theme on: a gas barbecue and a Gozney pizza oven sit beside a dedicated outdoor dining area, while the sitting room’s working fireplace, relaxed seating and easy flow onto the terrace make it the room nobody quite wants to leave once evening sets in.
The four bedrooms each have their own character. The Master occupies its own private terrace, with a super king bed, a double shower finished in pink tile, twin sinks and a walk-in wardrobe. The Corner Bedroom, a king room with built-in wardrobes, looks out over the terrace and grounds; the Twin can be made up as two singles or zipped into a super king; and the Littlest Bedroom, smaller but full of character, has a feature window over the garden and its own dressing table. A third bathroom, with a deep bath, walk-in shower and double vanity, serves the remaining rooms, while a butter-yellow tiled cloakroom sits close to the main living space downstairs.
Outside, the grounds are the real point of the place. A sunken fire pit sits along its own path through the garden, a private roof terrace with sun loungers catches the evening light above the rooftops, and — tucked among the trees a little further out — a wood-fired hot tub and a traditional sauna offer a genuinely quiet corner to disappear into after dark. A private study, fitted with a proper desk and an armchair, gives anyone who needs to dip into work somewhere considered to do it.
Villa Vista sits within the Heythrop Estate’s own private parkland, a genuinely peaceful setting that still puts the best of the Cotswolds within easy reach: Soho Farmhouse five miles away, Daylesford Organic twelve, Diddly Squat Farm Shop seven, and Blenheim Palace eight, with Chipping Norton, Burford and Bourton-on-the-Water all a short drive further out.
