Inside Essex's "wonderhome"

October 5, 2015 11:02 AM

John Trevillian has spent the last 25 years transforming an ex-council house near Stansted into a historic fantasy. “Everyone thinks I’m independently wealthy or that I’ve got a degree in interior design. But all I had was these stories in my head." (dlTheGruaniad)
posted by Kitteh (31 comments total)

Jason would have picked this as a location for The Leisure Class, LOL.
posted by TenaciousB at 11:05 AM on October 5, 2015

It's all a bit cluttery for me... that dining room is delicious though.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:16 AM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

This seems gloriously eccentric.

"the unexpected cost of removing a gas stump from the garden"

WTH is a "gas stump"? I'm English but don't recognize this at all; Google isn't helping. A Guardian typo?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:25 AM on October 5, 2015

I like it but then if I look at any of the rooms for more than a minute, there is so much stuff my brain shuts down and goes searching for minimalist or starkly designed interiors to compensate.
posted by Kitteh at 11:31 AM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wow, that kitchen brought me right back to my grandmother's house growing up! It's definitely not how I would personally style my interiors, as my tastes tend toward the minimalist, but it's gorgeous and so clearly a labor of love.
posted by capricorn at 11:34 AM on October 5, 2015

I think this is AMAZING. Sure, it is cluttered and not to my taste, but it's not straight out of a furniture catalogue and it has been done with wit & an eye for colour. It is marvellous.
posted by kariebookish at 11:50 AM on October 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

This chair. Yes please. So rather than "entertain" guests I may preside over them.

Sure, it'd be a weird power dynamic for them, but it would amuse me.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:53 AM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

WTH is a "gas stump"?

Probably a stump on top of gas lines. You can't just burn it (god forbid it burns down to the roots and you have a slight leak). You can't just yank it out with a hilux and a chain (you might have the roots wrapped around the pipe and yank the pipe out causing a major clusterfuck). It requires a certain bit of finesse.
posted by Talez at 11:56 AM on October 5, 2015

All the houses in Essex are like this.
posted by dng at 11:57 AM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Checking in from Essex. It's amazing to me that anyone in this place can have the kind of dreams that result in this house.
posted by still bill at 12:14 PM on October 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

I just watched "Iris, " a documentary about Iris Apfel, and she and her husband have several homes that are as cluttered and as wildly stuffed with strange and terrific things as this house. I love that sort of thing, even though I'd be constantly trying to find a clear surface all the time if I lived in it.
posted by xingcat at 12:17 PM on October 5, 2015

I wouldn't want to live in such a house, but I would definitely love to visit it. It really is like a number of settings straight out of a number of different fantasy novels.
posted by orange swan at 12:24 PM on October 5, 2015

The sun may have set on the British Empire, but they will never be outclassed in terms of Eccentrism Per Capita.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:51 PM on October 5, 2015 [13 favorites]

The sun may have set on the British Empire, but they will never be outclassed in terms of Eccentrism Per Capita.

Whell.. that's just their way, innit.

I can remember my Gran say that so very much strangeness can be just excused by that phrase.
posted by LD Feral at 1:26 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

How much for the whole office room with the desk and candlestick phone
posted by The Whelk at 2:11 PM on October 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

I love this so much, but I admit my first thought was all the work it would take to dust all the things.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:11 PM on October 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

The transformation reminds me of seeing the house I owned 1976-1981 and sold for around $30,000 turned into a 'House of Style'- not how it was referred to when I lived there.
I mean, it looks kind of familiar, but oh, so different. Very weird.
posted by MtDewd at 2:28 PM on October 5, 2015

Hah, several times I've considered doing something similar with my long-time apartment.
posted by rhizome at 2:43 PM on October 5, 2015

You could film an entire season of Doctor Who in that house.
posted by webmutant at 3:42 PM on October 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

Needs more cenobites.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:02 PM on October 5, 2015

Older story with video.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:24 PM on October 5, 2015

"Gas Stump" is likely the top of a capped gas line that protrudes above grade. You can see them around on city property sometimes, big (obviously durable) cap. You'd likely have to do a utility shutoff for the line to remove and recap the line elsewhere.
posted by AAALASTAIR at 4:47 PM on October 5, 2015

I would also like to work in that office. Anything I would do in there, no matter how frivolous, would seem to be Important Work.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:52 PM on October 5, 2015

I love my own, over-stuffed, uber-geek Fortress of Solitude on the Prairie but damn, I'd arm-wrestle the Whelk two out of three for that desk.
posted by Ber at 6:06 PM on October 5, 2015

I love these so much. I may be a crazy person, but I don't think these rooms are too cluttered at all. When I was growing up, I knew someone who had antique things everywhere, and that's more or less what I'd like my own house to be like.

Plus, when you live in a small space, it can actually make the space feel bigger if there's more stuff in it. I mean, unless you go overboard and make your place into a hellish nightmare of kitsch. I walk the line.
posted by teponaztli at 6:27 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I grew up in a house that my friends called Louis the 14th's attic. Absolutely stuffed with wonderful furniture and gilt everywhere. It was completely OTT, but it was the most fabulous place to walk into when you were high as a kite.

I often miss it, sitting here in my sterile white modern box. The floors don't even creak.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:37 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's all a bit cluttery for me

This is the understatement of the century. I feel claustrophobic and get the heebie jeebies just looking at the photos.

Plus, when you live in a small space, it can actually make the space feel bigger if there's more stuff in it.

I have heard people say that before, but I have never seen it work in practice.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I dunno, the tchotchke-choked houses I've ever been in have been filled much more with little things. Quantity over quality, IME.
posted by rhizome at 7:03 PM on October 5, 2015

I have a friend with a similar "bigger on the inside" fractal-cluttered apartment and it seems to really work cause

A) All the clutter kinda goes together in an overarching aesthetic so it looks more planned then it actually is.

B) It's a converted commercial building so it's basically one long hallway with a kitchenette at one end so I don't register it as "house" but "cool warehouse someone lives in."

C) It is by Manhattan standards comparatively big anyway with the stupid tall ceilings.
posted by The Whelk at 9:15 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Compared with the "Noovo Reesh" Essex of Chigwell that place is positively minimalist.
posted by essexjan at 2:42 AM on October 6, 2015

British houses are small anyway, and it seems he's subdivided a lot of the rooms.

I have to go and visit this when it's open to the public later this month! I want to see if it feels cramped.
posted by tel3path at 7:04 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]