Insider: Carina Cooper

When you walk into any of Carina's homes, you know immediately that you have arrived someplace extraordinarily special. Carina, a colorful chef and writer, grew up in one of the most beautiful houses in England, which dates back to Elizabethan times. Carina's taste has always been colorful, imaginative, and impeccable. Her first flat in Notting Hill was done with such style -- Boho chic (way before the phrase was coined) meets the California flea market. She was wildly ahead of her time -- influenced by Mexican and Western style way back when -- and her singular style has continued to inspire all of her friends to this day.

"When buying your first house, it's more important to imagine if you could be happy there than the practical considerations."

Carina possesses an amazing ability to find unique properties. From Hollywood to Notting Hill, the Devon countryside to Ibiza, she creates magic. At her farm in Devon, pictured left and throughout post, she brings Moroccan textiles and French antiques to the English countryside, and, as with her cooking, brilliantly marries unconventional ingredients to create something original, and fabulous.

I COLLECT...bird nests, pebbles...anything from nature

If you weren't a writer, what would you be? An acrobat

If you could live in any era? It would be the 1940's

In your next life, what would you be? I'd come back as one of the swallows from my barn who makes such a heroic journey from Devon to Africa and back again in a year.