A classical collaboration: an acclaimed architect and his interior designer wife take on one of the most memorable projects of their careers in a grand manoir Normande near Columbus.

Rustic and elegant, homelike and imposing, this French-inspired stone manor house in the middle of 2,000 acres outside Columbus is a monument to the combined tastes, skills, and long friendship of three very knowledgeable people.

Architect Ken Tate and his interior designer wife, Charme, worked together from start to finish on this sweeping project. His keen eye for classic lines and perfect proportions is complemented by her skill for bringing rooms to vibrant life with textiles, furnishings, artwork, and accessories. Both have been widely published, and Ken has been celebrated nationwide for leading the movement of what has come to be known as the "new traditionalism." Their contrapuntal duet has been a long-developing theme: they grew up together on the same block in Columbus, absorbing from their earliest days a love for the 19th-century architecture in the beautiful old town.

"Once we became a couple in our late teens, the collaboration started," recalls Charme. "Our common interest in the built environment found fertile soil in our relationship. Our fascination with how people live and respond to their surroundings has been a never-ending source of inspiration."

They began their respective careers of design and architecture in the early 1980s, after apprenticeships in other firms, and shared office space. Each kept separate clients, though they worked together on about 20 percent of the houses Ken designed in those years.

Great talents thrive when working with a client of similar vision. For this grand house called "Windy Hill," situated so near the Tates' own childhood homes, Nancy Imes, a businesswoman and antiquarian whose extensive travels collecting European treasures led to her desire to have a piece of northern France in her home state, participated fully in the process from start to finish.

The usual getting-to-know-one-another phase of any large-scale commission was unnecessary in this instance: Imes had been close childhood friends with Ken's mother, and the ensuing years produced friendships among the next generation.

"I was really delighted when Nancy called me back in the mid-'90s," says Ken. "She is someone who has always had wonderful houses and excellent taste. I knew we could work well together."

"From the beginning, Nancy was more of a collaborator than a client," adds Charme. "She already had quite a lot of beautiful furniture, acquired in England, France, and Belgium, as well as wonderful collections of things like majolica and Palissy-ware and her own beautiful works of needlepoint done over the years. And she was very definite about the look and feel she wanted for what she calls her 'last house.'"

Ken took what might almost be called an actor's approach to this challenging job. His historian's eye swept over the vast property, and he immediately thought of the endless grassy fields of Normandy. Like north Mississippi, the region of France northwest of Paris is agrarian, composed of small villages rather than bustling cities, and bears memories of a devastating war on home turf, now sleeping in buried memory but never quite forgotten. Like many Mississippians, the rural French cling tenaciously to the past and to the soil and deeply treasure their architecture.

"And so we created a storyline for this house," muses Tate. "What we set out to achieve was a grand manoir that perhaps had not always been so grand. It is very much grounded in the turf from which it springs--like a sprawling mas built centuries ago, say in the late Renaissance period, for a hard-working, but certainly not wealthy, farming family. Through the centuries, the descendants of this family would have prospered and added rooms and upgraded details like boiserie paneling, for example, in whatever the style of the period was, but ever-mindful of the Palladian principles on which the original structure was designed."

Once the delightful fantasy was set into motion, continuing the imaginary timeline became an artistic challenge that amounted to a highly skilled game during the five years of construction. Because Imes loves all things English as well, the idea of some across-the-Channel influences were incorporated. "We saw the house reaching its aesthetic flowering in the Edwardian era," Tate continues, "a period that, in England, produced great gardeners like Gertrude Jekyll. With that in mind, we connected the house to the land beyond with terraces, parterres, a croquet lawn, and a Giverny-inspired space that Nancy calls the 'wild garden' adjoining the poolhouse."

New Orleans landscape architect Rene Fransen was called in to create the many gardens surrounding the house; here, too, Nancy lines was involved in the design process. A passionate horticulturist, she insisted on a purpose for even the smallest niche. Even in the smoky pale grey winter, the bones of the design are evident as if waiting for spring, when color will burst from every angle.

Charme, whose knowledge of period detail combines with an exuberant humor and love of eclecticism to produce her signature interiors, worked closely with Imes to achieve a common goal. "Even though this house is, obviously, very French in concept, we wanted to pull in some English country-house comfort," she asserts. Calling upon a hard-to-define, but instantly recognizable, style popularized and crystallized by the late doyenne of English interiors, Nancy Lancaster, Charme was not strict about provenance and period but rather assembled the client's possessions into a glorious amalgamation that puts comfort before pretension, charm and grace before elegance--although elegance is indeed exuded throughout each room.

A British influence is especially evident in the heart of the house. The breakfast room, the living area known as the "longroom," and the bookcase-lined stair hall feature exquisitely detailed woodwork milled, installed, and lime-finished by English artisans.

The formal front parlor and dining room retain their Gallic roots, although even within these mannered confines, history and humor have their say. In the parlor, a huge box-bay window lets in the view through leaded glass, framed by rough-hewn timbers. If the front door is left open to catch a refreshing breeze, a wild bird is likely to come in and swoop immediately towards this aviary-like source of light--as actually happened as the house was being photographed for this article. Thus the dialogue between nature and domesticity is reprised, at least until someone appears to deftly capture and evict the happy chirping invader.

In the formal dining room, two large round tables crowned by matching chandeliers rest on bare wood floors laid in a geometric pattern. The front window is dressed in cream silk, with handpainted panels and pelmet designed by Charme and executed in London.

The master bedroom is equally captivating, with lavish bed hangings and coverlet in a hand-embroidered fabric adapted from an 18th-century document textile by Chelsea. "Mrs. Imes has always loved fabrics, needlework, and sewing, so she was keenly involved in the fabrics selected for her house," Charme says. Even the powder room is touched with elegant textiles, including a singerie fabric on the walls and a starburst-effect tented ceiling.

Enchanting as the house is, the eye and mind of the visitor is always drawn back outside through one of the many pairs of tall doors opening onto the seemingly endless landscape.

By no means the grandest, but arguably the most charming, petite chose in the outdoor scheme is the "cat garden." A little walled courtyard nestled between the kitchen and the conservatory, it provides a safe haven for lines' five pampered Himalayan kitties. A bubbling antique fountain, whose spout is the carved stone head of a cat, provides the only sound in this quiet feline preserve, the cascading water the only movement other than the flitting of the butterflies around the buddleia and hydrangeas.

Somehow this engaging petit jardin des chats defines the very heart of Windy Hill. Comfort, elegance, and timeless beauty within and without, with attention to the smallest of details.

It's a forever house, in a forever landscape, the product of the combined sensibilities of forever friends.

The Imes home and Ken Tate's design are the subjects of a 2005 book, The Classic House: Windy Hill, published by Images Publishing (www.imagespublishing.com). The book is available at stores including Lemuria in Jackson, Square Books in Oxford, and Barnes and Noble.

Mandeville, Louisiana-based photographer Timothy Dunford spent 15 years as a Guild assistant cameraman in the Los Angeles film industry and now specializes in architectural photography.

A Classical Collaboration: Resources.

ARCHITECTURE: Ken Tate Architect, P.O. Box 550, 206 Covington St., Madisonville, LA 70447; 985/845-8112; www.kentatearchitect.com.

INTERIOR DESIGN: Charme Tate Interiors, P.O. Box 550, 206 Covington St., Madisonville, LA 70447; 985/845-8112; www.charmetateinteriors.com.

DINING ROOM: Draperies and pelmet: Bery Designs, London, England, www.berydesigns.com. "This company is renowned for meticulous handpainting on fabric to order," says Charme.

LONGROOM: Drapery fabric: Nomi Fabrics, Watsonville, California; available to the trade at David Sutherland Showroom, Dallas, Texas, 214/742-6501, www.davidsutherlandshowroom.com. "Nomi begins with pure Belgian linen and handpaints each color onto the fabric," Charme says. "This design is from the company's Art Textile Collection and is named 'Fortuna.'"

BREAKFAST ROOM: Fabric, "Biedermeier" by Clarence House (discontinued in this color); available to the trade at the Clarence House showroom, Dallas, Texas, 214/741-5600, www.clarencehouse.com.

MASTER BEDROOM: Bed hangings, pelmet, and coverlet fabric, "Passiflora" by Chelsea Editions (a London-based company doing business in the United States at Chelsea Editions Showroom, Fine Arts Building, New York, New York); available to the trade only, 212/758-0005, www.chelseatextiles.com. "The fabric was hand-embroidered in panels for the bed treatment, and the coverlet was custom-made to fit," Charme says.

Draperies: Silk fabric, Jim Thompson Thai Silk Company; available to the trade at Walter Lee Culp Associates showroom, Dallas, Texas, 214/651-0510. Trimming, Scalamandre; available to the trade at the Scalamandre showroom, Dallas, Texas, 214/747-4849, www.scalamandre.com. Hardware, Crown Hardware, Jackson (to the trade only), 601/922-7056. Fabrication (here and in long room), Idella Robinson, Delia's Ltd., Jackson.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIMOTHY DUNFORD