Ah—sunny funny London! Dismal and slightly chilly as usual. London has long been my go-to city for art museums and theater. Since one of my best mates lives there with his family, I’ve popped into town many times—beginning in 1986 with my sister Susan. On that first trip, we stayed with Michael and Karli, and I fell instantly in love with high tea at Browns and shopping at Liberty.

The famous London story that still gets told today is when we went clubbing. In the 80s, nightclubs in London were private, very posh, and difficult to gain access. Once per week cool guys from Paris came over and created Cafe de Paris. Michael led us to the back of a very long line—or queue, as they call it in England. At the time, I was part of the Los Angeles club scene and had even made a movie in 1986 called, Modern Girls, about girls going to nightclubs in LA looking for guys. There was no way I was going to wait in line. So, I grabbed my sister and Michael and marched straight to the front ,confronting the doorman, "Do we have to wait in this line?" He heard my American accent and, it must have been my bossy-pants tone or club savvy, but he unhooked the red velvet rope and ushered us inside. Michael is still impressed, "Only Anita could have pulled this off."

The Cotswolds is a whimsy of poets inspired by English gardens where pubs are local gathering spots. The “Tribe of Five”—my parents, me, and two of my nephews—arrived after Germany and before London, as if transported into the Canterbury Tales. We wandered through Chipping Camden, Broadway, Burford, Upper and Lower Slaughter, and Bourton-on-the-Water. By the time we stopped for fish and chips, my father had had enough of quaint villages and had a hissy fit—he wanted military sites. Our booming American accents drew the attention of a British couple at the next table. I braced for embarrassment, expecting a lecture about loud Americans, but instead the wife leaned in: “My husband feels the same way! We’ve been arguing—he wants battlefields and I want more villages.” We all laughed, realizing we weren’t so different after all.

Foxhill Manor at Dormy House was everything I imagined England to be—chic, charming, birds chirping, sweeping countryside views—like stepping into a Hugh Grant movie.