Description

786/0/10161 GREENHOLM ROAD
12-OCT-07 1A

II
Private house, 1966, by Edward Cullinan and Ian Pickering for John and Wendy Garrett. Extended by Cullinan in 1973.
MATERIALS:
Reclaimed London stock brick, timber, reinforced concrete beams.
PLAN:
A suburban detached two-storey house on a narrow infill site at the end of a row of early C20 houses, the relationship with which was established by the sloping garage roof (now demolished) designed by Cullinan for the adjacent property to the north. Open-plan living space on the first floor, and solidly sub-divided bedrooms, bathroom and garage on the ground floor to provide privacy, sound-proofing and a sense of enclosure. The main entrance is in the north elevation leading to a central lobby, from which the rooms and stairs lead. Compact bedrooms are arranged along the north side: main bedroom and guest room, with two smaller interconnecting children's rooms between. Along the south side are the garage, bathroom and utility room. The first floor is a single space, set back from the ground floor along its north side. It is divided into a living area at the east end and dining/kitchen areas to the west by a central spiral staircase encased in a solid brick core. The kitchen opens on to a rear terrace and grassed ramp to the garden. The single-storey rear garden room extension with bathroom and stores, added in 1973, is connected to the house by a glazed passageway.
EXTERIOR:
The house has a ground floor base of reclaimed London stock brick with a stained timber-frame for the first floor, over exposed reinforced concrete beams. Window frames are of stained timber. The deep northerly pitch of the roof was originally felt with slate chippings, but has been re-roofed. The narrow south pitch is glazed. The rear extension is of brick, the roof a brick-paved terrace and grassed ramp. The silhouettes of east and west elevations express the complex section. The east (street) facade has timber garage doors, a high level bedroom window to the north, and at first floor level vertical glazing and opening timber panels up to the roof line. The west (garden) elevation is similar at first floor level, with replacement timber doors from the kitchen opening on to the terrace. It reads as a single storey, due to the extension concealed beneath the grassed ramp and terrace. The south elevation is a blank brick wall on the site boundary, a small parapet concealing the glazed pitched roof behind. The north façade is dominated by the pitched roof at first floor level, stepped near its base, with the two levels linked by a strip of windows angled outwards. At ground floor level, the brick wall with parapet is punctuated by a band of windows beneath concrete lintels, with a cantilevered concrete canopy above the front door. Beyond the arched glazed link, the garden extension is slightly below ground level. Its wall slopes down to the garden and are angled to partly enclose a small decked terrace. The original sliding doors have been replaced, and to their west is a porthole window.
INTERIOR:
Inside, brick walls and stairwell are painted white. The first floor is open to the steeply pitched timber-lined roof, and has prominent exposed timber beams. The ground floor ceilings are rendered and painted white, open to a strip of timber-lined pitched roof along the north side, and with an added skylight above the front door. The extension has a flat timber-lined ceiling. Internal doors are stained timber. Original fitted furniture remains. This is unpainted along the north side of the living space, painted bright yellow and orangey-red in the children's bedrooms, and painted white in the main bedroom (at the time of inspection). Units on the south side of the kitchen have been refitted (they are original to the north) and the bathroom has been remodelled.
ANCILLARY FEATURES:
Brick boundary walls to the front and sides are an integral part of the composition.
HISTORY:
This suburban detached two-storey house was built in 1966 to the designs of Edward Cullinan with Ian Pickering for John Garrett MP and his wife Wendy (the house is therefore also known in the architectural literature as Garrett House.) The structural engineer was S Jampel & Partners and the main contractor, EG Kirk & Son. The house was extended in 1973, again by Cullinan for the original owners, when a linked garden room was added to the rear. There have been some alterations since that time, mostly of a minor nature although the bathroom and kitchen areas were remodelled in the late 1990s.
Cullinan's early private houses represent a body of work before his eponymous architectural practice became well known for its socially-minded offices, housing and community buildings. They were important commissions for Cullinan, providing opportunities for him to explore domestic design themes early in his career and from which one can identify his combined interest in Modernism and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Some of his earliest houses were designed for family or friends, sometimes with limited budgets or needing a response to a difficult or confined space as can be seen at No. 1a Greenholm Road. Others, such as Horder House, Hampshire (1958-60), Law House, West Sussex (1966-8) and Knox House II, Suffolk (1967-68) were in rural locations where space was unconfined but where the house designs needed to respond to their landscape setting. No. 1a Greenholm Road was one of Cullinan's earliest house designs sharing much with his slightly earlier urban houses at No. 62, Camden Mews (1963-64), designed as his family home, and No. 12, Bartholomew Villas (also known as Kawecki House of 1964-65, but now much altered). Here he developed his ideas of open plan-living yet on a small scale with the relationship of the house to its surroundings a key consideration.
REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION:
No. 1a Greenholm Road is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* A good, and little altered example of Edward Cullinan's early work, and specifically domestic design.
* A house with an imaginative plan, rich textures in the use of materials and fitted furniture, of a very personal design.
SOURCES:
Edward Cullinan Architects, 1984, Edward Cullinan Architects. RIBA publications
Powell, K, 1995, Edward Cullinan Architects. London: Academy Editions

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087151

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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