At The Grove's Wisteria Cottage, Golden Paint Colors Set the Tone

a living room painted in a golden paint color with beadboard walls, curtains on window and a ochre couch

(Image credit: The Grove)

published 30 August 2025

Arriving by golf buggy at the exterior of Wisteria Cottage, a newly renovated, standalone holiday home on the grounds of The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire, it's hard not to be impressed. On one side, the twisting wisteria that gives the cottage its name climbs up a more traditional facade; on the other, a modern but sympathetic glass extension cuts a majestic figure.

I'm staying for just a night — one of, if not the, first people to stay at the cottage since it was re-imagined by Martin Hulbert Design — with some friends in tow to make the most of the property's three-bedroom, three-bathroom floorplan. I used to live just around the corner from the Watford-adjacent hotel, perhaps best known to the locals as the design hotel where professional athletes and celebrities go to stay when they don't want to be so in London, as well as for its luxuriant buffet that, in the age of TikTok virality, is far from the hotel's best-kept secret.

I wasn't, given the brevity of my stay, expecting to make myself too at home in the cottage — a single night stay flies by far too quickly. However, on entering the space through the expectedly charming stable door, there's a warmth and ease in the design, created by Jay Grierson and the design team at Martin Hulbert Design, that instantly feels grounding.

the exterior of a cottage with a glass extension — The painted exterior of the cottages extension gives a glimpse of the palette inside.

I put this down, in a large part, to the color palette the design studio has curated — a thread of 'golden' shades of yellow, oranges, greens, and browns that link the rooms together. "It was really important for us to use only natural colors," Jay tells me, as I catch up with him via Zoom after my stay. "Nothing too 'chemical'. We didn't want anything to fight. It had to be very calming. You walk in and you get a sense of relief."

The warm color scheme didn't, however, garner instant rave reviews from the clients or decorators. "It's not that it was a risk with that color, but it shocked quite a few people when they saw it going on the wall, and we had to do some convincing. But as it all came together, it all made sense," Jay recalls.

Each space is a variation on the palette, meaning there's a journey as you move throughout the house, without anything deviating too far. As Jay says: "Every room tells a story."

a living room painted in ochre yellow with a plaid rug, and a gallery wall — The circular floorplan offers brilliant vistas of the rooms as you move from space to space.

The drawing room takes the idea to a darker, golden ochre — clad in beadboard wall paneling and with the ceiling painted in a semi-gloss that brings some depth to it, a clever idea for one of the cottage's largest rooms. The small study adjacent to it is painted a tone up, a slightly lighter variation that distinguishes it as a separate space, yet still connects them.

In the dining room, the paint color takes on a golden-greenish tinge across the ceiling and the woodwork, complemented by a terracotta zellige tile on the walls that balances out this slightly cooler undertone. "It's about creating that little extra layer of magic and a surprise. You wouldn't necessarily expect tiled walls outside the bathroom or kitchen in a home, but in environments like this, you can push it a little bit further. You walk in the room and it's like you're in a sort of jewelry box."

a dining room with a dresser, table, curtains and a zellige tiled wall — The cottage's original exterior window and door openings have preserved on the inside of the dining room, offering a view through into the drawing room.

The cottages (of which two have been renovated: Wisteria and Dingle) were previously not used for staff, not guests, so there was a lot of work to be done inside to address the "lack of soul and character"; however, Jay notes that Wisteria Cottage already has a great layout and sense of flow that didn't need much changing, with the entryway, dining room, kitchen, and drawing room looping around in the ground floor floorplan.

The kitchen color takes on an earthier palette, but with highlights of warmer ambers and caramels through the kitchen curtains, and an alcove pantry clad in zellige tiles which come to life when you switch on the cozy lighting within.

a pantry lined with zellig tiles in a warm yellow with brown cabinets — The pantry is well-stocked for guests, like a little jewelry box in the kitchen.

a yellow bedroom with beadboard panelling — Floor-to-ceiling painted beadboard makes this smaller guest room feel super cozy.

The palette persists upstairs, most noticeably within the first guest bedroom, clad in beadboard panelling again, even across the ceiling, following the pitch of the roof. Its material and color drenching at its finest, and creates a real sense of cocooning. This room, Jay tells me, is painted in Edward Bulmer's Lute, but the other rooms throughout the cottage are paint colors from Dulux.

"We use Dulux a lot, mainly because decorators love to use it," Jay tells me. "It's very practical, and great for touch-ups. The cottage had to feel like a home, but ultimately, it's a hotel suite, so it has to stand up to wear and tear."

a bedroom with a fabric wallcovering in yellow with white floral pattern — This embroidered wallcovering is from the Lola collection for Schumacher.

a bedroom with a pitched ceiling and large patterned headboard — In the primary bedroom, an oversized headboard grounds the bed in the space.

Through the other guest bedrooms, the colors weave through various materials. The wallpaper in one bedroom is a classic golden yellow, while in the primary suite, a terracotta upholstered headboard anchors a more classic neutral space.

a bathroom with beadboard panelling painted in a bright yellow

However, it's in the primary bathroom ensuite that I really basked in the color. It's a surprisingly flattering yellow, so it turns out, for a bathroom, and luxuriating in the freestanding bathtub for half an hour, I came to the conclusion, this is a color that everybody should be decorating with right now.

You can stay at Wisteria Cottage from £3,480 per night.

Hugh is Livingetc.com’s editor. With 8 years in the interiors industry under his belt, he has the nose for what people want to know about re-decorating their homes. He prides himself as an expert trend forecaster, visiting design fairs, showrooms and keeping an eye out for emerging designers to hone his eye. He joined Livingetc back in 2022 as a content editor, as a long-time reader of the print magazine, before becoming its online editor. Hugh has previously spent time as an editor for a kitchen and bathroom magazine, and has written for “hands-on” home brands such as Homebuilding & Renovating and Grand Designs magazine, so his knowledge of what it takes to create a home goes beyond the surface, too. Though not a trained interior designer, Hugh has cut his design teeth by managing several major interior design projects to date, each for private clients. He's also a keen DIYer — he's done everything from laying his own patio and building an integrated cooker hood from scratch, to undertaking plenty of creative IKEA hacks to help achieve the luxurious look he loves in design, when his budget doesn't always stretch that far.