Caroline Phillips

Journalism

Caroline Phillips
“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”

Caroline Phillips

Journalism

All Country & Town House articles

House Party

Country & Town House | 24 Apr 2016

This is a cool, modern house in which to bring together all generations of your family for a weekend shindig. Party central is near Stawley, Somerset. It’s a converted 16th-century dairy farm-turned-cider press that is now glossy-interiors-mag-feature-meets-heaven. There’s a 25-metre living/dining/playing space, another barn-turned-games room with a roaring fire in a monumental contemporary fireplace, acres of bleached wood floors and under-floor heating.


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The last days of summer in Sicily

Country & Town House | 24 Sep 2015

Tell people that you’re going to holiday in Sicily and you can see, on their faces, their imaginations conjuring up pictures of rolling hills, cypresses, red clay roof tiles baking in the sun, plump tomatoes bursting with flavour, cornfields, sheep and exotic, if benign, undercurrents of Godfather-related history. How satisfying, then, to realize that our family trip to SoloSicily‘s Fattoria Corleonese (near that Corleone, but more of that later) was to deliver on all of the above and more.

Monaci delle Terre Nere: an Italian hideaway from heaven

Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2015

‘I always dreamt of making an earthly paradise,’ reveals erstwhile engineer Guido Coffa. Mission accomplished. Working with his girlfriend Ada Calabrese – a passionate amateur interior decorator and an architect, Guido has created Monaci delle Terre Nere, the sort of boutique hotel that makes heaven look second rate. The property sits in 40 acres of organic farmland in the fertile foothills of Mount Etna, the volcano coughing angrily behind, the Mediterranean Sea beckoning serenely in front. The dusky-pink villa dates from 1800 – a noble family’s private home turned winery, then farm – and there are 19 bedrooms/suites, some in outbuildings on the estate. The refurbishment took five years and the result is the epitome of rural chic – where stylish-rustic meets cool-contemporary. ‘Having fallen in love with it instantly,’ he remembers. ‘I decided to devote my life and every drop of my energy to its resurrection.’

Get your rocks off in Nicaragua

Country & Town House | 24 Mar 2015

I’m suspended above the ground wearing a harness. Dangling over rain forest. I’ve already signed a waiver for death, dismemberment and suchlike. Now like some hybrid of monkey and horizontal parachutist, I’m rocketing past trees, rain forest and over coffee plantations. Jumping off the zip line at ceiba trees around which 60ft. high platforms have been built – there to ready myself to take the next leg of my treetop journey. Then careering off again as howler monkeys howl in the forest.

El Salvador: the little country that offers such a lot

Country & Town House | 24 Mar 2015

Almost nobody speaks English and we may be the country’s only tourists, as far as we can work out – which is a delight. Welcome to El Salvador. It is Central America’s least-visited country. Somewhere that has long struggled to gain tourists’ trust. A land perceived as dangerous and with gang killings, violence that has been going on since the 1990s. But if you don’t go into the shanty towns, you’re unlikely to be affected. Instead, we have a holiday in a little country with lots to offer… splendid wildlife and rich forests, colonial towns and beaches, vast mountain ranges and volcanoes. Above all, it’s never more than an hour to reach the city, sea or mountains by car from anywhere in El Salvador.

Bribing elephants with pumpkin seeds and spotting monks with iPads in Thailand

Country & Town House | 24 Feb 2015

The monk in saffron robes clutches a mobile phone and iPad. It’s an incongruous sight. Normally these holy men are holding alms bowls for donations of sticky rice. ‘It’s wrong to use Buddha as decoration or tattoo,’ reads a notice nearby. Across the forecourt I hear the strains of musicians playing instruments with names like Krong, Krap and Pia. Maybe a dignitary has landed. Maybe I’ve got culture shock.

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