“John and Kelly wanted an environment where they'd be at ease alone or with fifty people, which was tough to do without making the living room look like a hotel lobby,” says Boshears. “So I suggested the idea of an English country house, flexible in floor plan and function. The Travoltas are very particular about their guests – they want them to have every possible amenity, and they take great pride in making sure family and friends get five-star treatment.”

Lessons learned, says Travolta, over a lifetime of staying in five-star hotels. “My real evaluation of a living style came from first-class hotels,” says the actor, whose nomadic profession has made him an expert of sorts on away-from-home living. “You pay a lot of money, but they have every feature down: the best way to serve you, place tables, arrange seating areas. They study comfort.”

“The art of comfort,” Preston adds.

“Right. So much money is invested in the art of comfort that if you don't absorb what they're doing, you're wasting tons of time.” (As a result, perhaps, Travolta, a cheerful gourmand who keeps a cook on call twenty-four hours a day, insisted on having dining tables in most of the rooms in case “he – or you – want a midnight snack of a filet mignon burger,” says Boshears.) “I told Chris,” Travolta continues, “'Get pictures of places like the Palace in Gstaad, copy the idea, and let's come up with our own version of seating areas, where in one room people can be having drinks in there, cigars here, playing games in the middle.”

Nothing of course, teaches you as much about people as decorating with them – as the Travoltas found out. Despite his wife's tropical background, Travolta was "happy to discover that Kelly's taste was more like my family's," he says. "My mom bought and sold antiques, so our house was full of them. Even I knew they were valuable," he laughs. "But, as a kid growing up in the fifties and wanting to be like everybody else in New Jersey, I kept asking, 'Couldn't we put plastic around them?' Still, I inherited the antique sensibility, and when I saw that Kelly had the same thing, I thought, 'Did I marry a part of my mother here?'"