Step Inside Peter Mikic’s Sun-Splashed Oxfordshire Country House

When it comes to rural retreats, British tradition tends to demand a trophy proudly set on a faultless greensward, a neoclassical paragon with a complement of heroic columns. But the getaway that Peter Mikic, an interior designer with an alluringly maximalist brand of glamour, and his husband, media consultant Sebastian Scott, recently constructed rejects the look-at-me school. Located on 170 acres in Oxfordshire, some 50 miles distant from their London digs, the building is discreet, even featureless at first glance. A low-slung masonry building emerging from a wind-ruffled meadow full of flowers and backed by thick woodland, it might, just possibly, be a chicly renovated barn or stable. Or even, perhaps, a onetime industrial building, an impression furthered by the graffiti mural near the front door. Of course, it’s not just any idle tagging. Painted by a friend’s daughter, the plein air work was a gift to the couple when they married last June.

“Everyone is shocked by the house, really,” says Mikic, a native Australian whose rangy stature, luxuriant whiskers, and piercing blue eyes give him the appearance of a Victorian soldier of fortune. “It is so unassuming, which is what I love about it.” Open the front door, though, and suddenly, startlingly, a different experience greets the eye. Expansive glass walls reveal that the building wraps a spacious walled courtyard that is as manicured and tranquil as the larger landscape—award-winning designer Tom Stuart-Smith was responsible for the high-contrast grounds—which is carefree and lively with wildlife, from deer to endangered red kites. “The public rooms, as well as our bedroom, face the woods, but the kitchen and guest rooms open to the courtyard, which is really the focal point of the house,” Mikic explains of the latter space, which is dotted with domes of clipped yew. A swimming pool occupies an adjacent walled area.