Weymouth’s Art Deco dream
Lorraine Gibson visits Portland House and discovers a lost lifestyle
Published in August ’17
On a gentle curve around one of Weymouth’s more genteel residential roads, a pair of unremarkable wrought-iron gates mark the entrance to Portland House, an architectural gem regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of the 1930s International Modernist movement – and the ultimate bachelor party pad that never was.
Sensitive furnishing really accentuates Portland House’s Art Deco styling
The inter-war years saw a feverish lust for life that drove hedonism to giddy new heights. Bright young things constantly sought ‘top-hole’ bashes where they could let off steam, and where better to do so than at weekend-long house parties?
Known as ‘Friday-to-Mondays’, this craze for marathon celebrations was started by Maxine Elliot, an American millionairess and close chum of Winston Churchill and the financier, J P Morgan. Her extravagant home, Chateau de l’Horizon in the south of France, was a magnet for the rich and famous and included a swimming pool with a chute wide enough to accommodate her ample derrière and, therefore, also roomy enough
for Churchill.
The trend grew. As opulent as they were decadent, these lavish affairs required similarly glamorous venues and, while the preferred choice was an imposing residence sur la mer, preferably with wall-to-wall aristos, royals, artists and actors, and located on the bone-white sands of the
Côte d’Azur or Antibes, when the need to party arose, any port in a storm would do. Enter Dorset, with its own unique coastal beauty, glittering bathing waters and agreeable climate – and Portland House.
With its rope banisters, tiled stair risers and recessed panel radiators, this is certainly not your average staircase
The sleek, Grade II-listed villa was commissioned by Geoffrey Henry Bushby, a wealthy young bachelor who lived in London but desired a secluded party house where he could let his hair down (which may well have proven somewhat tricky, considering that one of Geoffrey’s most cherished belongings was his antique walnut wig stand!).
Built in 1935, it – the house, not the wig stand – is regarded as one of the most important examples of its kind, embracing the Hollywood-Spanish villa style, inspired by the golden age of movies and adored by the decade’s beautiful people. It was designed by one of the foremost architectural partnerships of the time, Trenwith Wills and Lord Gerald Wellesley. The former’s wife scandalously ditched him for Vita Sackville-West; the latter became the 7th Duke of Wellington. Wills and Wellesley took full advantage of the elevated, sloping position Geoffrey had chosen and set about maximising the effect of its wonderful south-facing views over Portland Harbour. Standing on one of its two terraces, looking out over the water, it is easy to conjure up images of couture-clad, whip-thin socialites, insouciantly dragging on Sobranie cigarettes while admiring the sunset.
Right The landward view from Portland House may have changed enormously over the last 80-odd years, but the fundaments of the view that gave the house its name have changed little
The Twentieth Century Society describes Portland House as an ‘excellent, complete example of the Hollywood Spanish style in Britain. There are very few remaining examples of this style, certainly none with such a range of original fixtures and fittings.’ They also comment on how it ‘brilliantly reflects the popular imagery of the day: a combination of the glamour of cinema with the exoticism of the sunshine holiday. The style was popular in England … and we believe that Portland House is the best example we’ve seen to date.’
Sadly, Geoffrey’s beautiful party home never got to chime with the sounds of chinking glasses and sparkling conversation that he had so keenly anticipated, for he died on Christmas Eve 1935, aged just 36, some say of Spanish flu, which was raging at the time; according to his obituary, he died of a short illness after an operation in St George’s Hospital, Middlesex. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure, which would seem a tad harsh in the circumstances.
Two early views of Portland House below a portrait of G H Bushby , whose mother and sister got the benefit of his weakender by the sea
So new was the property that it had not even been furnished in the modern style, but was filled with dark, heavy 18th-century antique pieces from the Bushby family seat in Hertfordshire. One can hear Geoffrey’s mother, with wartime frugality, telling him not to bother with all that expensive, new-fangled furniture and to make do with the perfectly good family heirlooms that were trundled down to Dorset.
His mother and sister, Dorothy, inherited the house after his death, and they moved there with the aim of reclaiming some of the furniture and selling the place. But Portland House won them over and Dorothy ended up staying there: ‘We became so fond of the place, we decided to keep it,’ she wrote years later.
Some turbulent times followed when war came, though. The harbour was subjected to continuous raids and dogfights between enemy planes and allied fighters over the house were almost commonplace. Dorothy also wrote: ‘Fights between German and British aeroplanes often took place over the harbour and these grounds. The garden was littered with shrapnel.’ On 11 August 1940, ‘five bombs were dropped here. The windows blew out. Doors flew off hinges.’
Having never married, Dorothy ‘often wondered about the fate of this house’ after her death. As it became increasingly run down, she decided to approach the National Trust. They acquired it in 1979 and Dorothy stayed until she died there in 1983. It would be many years before it was renovated and made into a National Trust holiday rental, designed to give visitors a flavour of glamorous 1930s living.
A tiled window surround
Helen Brown, the building surveyor and manager tasked with the property’s £480,000 restoration, first set eyes on Portland House in 2010. She says: ‘It is an extraordinary survivor. So many houses of this period and style in Britain have long gone, encroached upon by development or simply demolished.’ But it had lost much of its gleam and when she was handed the project, she was given just five months to bring it back to the former glory of its heyday. ‘The roof was leaking, a ceiling was down and it was a draughty, cold building,’ remembers Helen. It was ‘single-glazed, [had] no insulation, it needed re-plumbing, rewiring and new central heating.’
They installed a ground-source heat-pump in the paddock for the heating and added modern plumbing for the bathrooms, ‘without damaging the original details – a challenge’. To tackle subsidence, they re-laid the lower terrace, using the original flagstones, and then they were able to move on to the smaller but equally important stuff, with some surprising results. ‘The black chandelier in the drawing room didn’t look very interesting,’ Helen says, ‘until we took it down to clean it and discovered it was actually crystal and silver.’
One of the sun-drenched terraces
With an opportunity to decorate the house in the style of the period, the Trust pulled out all the stops. Helen Mann, Property Manager for West Dorset, wanted ‘something that evoked the sophistication of the era.’ Interior designer Cathryn Bishop got to play with the best shopping list ever and set about sourcing pieces from all over the country that would ‘give the house a balance between vintage and comfort. Visitors need a home from home.’ Among her superb finds is a wonderful burr-wood ‘cloudburst’ suite, an octagonal cocktail cabinet and a wind-up gramophone: ideal for playing the latest Ivor Novello records.
Now fully restored and stunningly re-furnished in the style for which it was intended, the house is an absolute joy. Pass through the gates and you are on a sweeping drive, flanked by charming gardens designed by Hillier Nurseries. This in turn leads to the house via a further, palm-fringed drive that is pure old-school Hollywood. The house itself lounges elegantly at the top of a wide slope, overlooking the harbour. It is dazzlingly white, trimmed in Pacific-blue under a Dutch pantile roof, and reclines gracefully, like the guests it never had, watching the boats sail by.
A modern shower unit complements the stylish Deco design
Externally, it is a paean to Art-Deco and inside, thanks to the Trust’s experts and the authentic period furnishings, it looks for all the world like an Agatha Christie film set, all subdued hues, curved lines and elegant, linear pieces. Many of the villa’s original 1930s features do still survive, such as the aforementioned bathrooms, in the colours of the day (Germoline pink, sky blue and sage green), a bijou kitchen, many light fittings, cut-glass doorknobs and electric heaters.
Those two broad terraces, one above the other, were designed to catch the views as well as the rays, with most of the rooms sporting large French windows that open onto them. At each end of the front, wrapping around each corner of the building, are arcaded loggias, perfect for shade on hot summer days.
After the renovation the old furniture, so beloved of the Bushbys, got a new lease of life at the Trust’s Mompesson House in Salisbury. Perhaps that’s just as well as at long last, Portland House gets to serve its purpose of hosting house parties: for most of the year it is let as a holiday home that sleeps twelve. If you fancy polishing your monocle and dusting down your flapper frocks, the cost of living the high life, 1930s-style, depending on the time of year, starts at £1539 for three nights.
Allowing a rare peek inside, Portland House
also opens to the public twice a year, in May
and in October. The next opening is on 6, 7 and
8 October.
To rent Portland House, email cottages@nationaltrust.org.uk or call 0344 800 2075.
