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“Excuse thechaos,” shesays sweetly,explainingthat thecast of Juliehas beenrehearsingin the high-ceilingedrooms``````as a party palace. She inherited it after her businessman father,Cob, died in 2006; she and her younger sister, Daisy, filledit with their friends. It’s a creative crowd that includesFlorence Welch, the Cumberbatches, Felicity Jones andRobert Pattinson. By Stenham’s account, they had an “amazingtime”. “It was kind of wild and magical, a sort of secondfamily creation. We threw massive parties for 10 years.” Thesisters sold up when the house started falling apart.She now drily claims to have “hosting fatigue”, though abohemian streak still persists in Bloomsbury. “Rachel wasbrilliant because she knew my affection for various items,knew Highgate really well,” she says, of the renovation. “Idon’t think I’d have done it with a ‘designer’. I’d have madean absolute shit show of doing it myself.” She’s had otherpriorities. After a string of hits at the Royal Court that sawher hailed as a bold new star of theatre, she has made themove into film, co-writing Nicolas Winding Refn’s The NeonDemon in 2016. At home, she cites modernism, F ScottFitzgerald and art deco as her design touchstones, butconcedes, “I missed my old house a lot, and I wanted to usestuff I’d grown up with.” (Her parents separated when shewas 13, and her artist mother, Anne O’Rawe, died in 2012.)The sitting room was conceived around a curved, Victorianchesterfield that Chudley found at auction and reupholsteredin bespoke ombré pink velvet (hand-dyed by fabric whizzLucy Bathurst of Nest Design). It sits alongside a hippo skull,a bamboo plant stand and a classical sculpture that belongedto her father, one of many dotted about the house. Throughan odd triangular extension at the back of the property – “itlooked like a tacked-on hut when I bought it, clad in horriblewood, so we tried to make it look modernist by stripping itback” – is Stenham’s writing room, a cosy space with slatefloors and even more books where she has been working onher latest project, Julie. “It’s my feminist-ish retelling, set inmodern London,” she says, leading me up a staircase.We emerge in her private lair: a sea-green bathroom anddressing room dominated by a painting by Faye Wei Wei,an artist Stenham has supported at Cob Gallery – the Camdengallery-cum-studio that she opened in 2011 with heruniversity friend Victoria Williams. The room’s most unusualfeature, however, is the pair of curved “walls” on either sideof the marble fireplace. “I’m so into these weird pods!” squealsStenham, delightedly opening their concealed doors to reveala loo behind one and a basin behind the other. Then there’sthe Napoleonic copper bath in the window, a grand flourishthat Stenham describes as “the tits”, and a series of walnutarmoires, designed by Chudley’s artist friend NatalkaStephenson in an art deco style. “I always imagined we’d havesome girl time here, pre-drinks and make-up and gettingready,” sighs Stenham, who loves clothes and has racks ofCéline and & Other Stories. “But does anyone actually dothat? The reality is we’ll all be late and confused and sweatyand there’s never enough time.”Her bedroom is impressive, dusky apple-hued and suffusedwith golden late-afternoon sun. (Chudley commissioned paintcolours from New York’s master colourist Donald Kaufman.)A picture by Stenham’s mother sits alongside the bespokebrass four-poster bed. More books crowd the floor and thewalnut art deco nightstands. “Excuse the chaos,” she sayssweetly, explaining that the cast of Julie has been rehearsingin the high-ceilinged rooms and scribbling notes on her giantkitchen table in the basement. It’s clear this is a happy home,bustling with activity. “There’s always big chat about goingout,” she laughs, describing “hitting Lamb’s Conduit quitehard” for dinner at Noble Rot or Ciao Bella. “But then wealways end up back in the kitchen, drinking wine.” QLIVINGAbove: the abstract tigers of ClarenceHouse’s Tibet fabric stalk the headboardof Stenham’s bed. Left, from top: a stripedstaircase leads from her writing room toher bathroom; a detail of the sitting roomsideboard. Below: the restored copper firesurround in the main sitting room``````POLLY WEARS DRESS, DIOR. BOOTS, SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO. LUIS RIDAO``````78