Turner Prize-winning home gets rid of ballot for stays and you can already book
A Turner Prize winning house is now available to rent as a holiday home.
A House for Essex is designed by FAT Architecture and Grayson Perry, the beloved British potter who is known for his ceramics, cross dressing and the recipient of the conceptual art prize in 2003. The home sits on the River Stour, close to where the artist grew up, and was completed in 2014. It was always designed as a work of art that people could live in, as well as the setting for a number of other pieces by the artist over the subsequent years.
To look at, the building looks quite like a multi-layered ginger bread house or a tiered wedding cake that grows as you move through the property from the front door. Conceptually, it is meant to "evoke the tradition of wayside and pilgrimage chapels. It belongs to a history of follies, whilst also being deeply of its own time".
The home sits on the River Stour (Getty Images)Until now the popularity of the home meant it could only be booked by those who triumphed in a ballot. Now letting firm Living Architecture has opened up the booking system so it’s simpler for holidaymakers to plan stays.
The house, which has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, is sat at the end of a private lane in "undulating landscape". Guests enter through a large wooden door into a lobby and hallway, off which a small bathroom is situated, and across the hall the staircase leads to two bedrooms and a second bathroom on the first floor.
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The first-floor bathroom has both a shower and large sunken bath, from where you can soak and take in the views. Each bedroom has an internal balcony overlooking the main living space, as well as views across the river.
The kitchen and dining area has a fireplace and wood burning stove, while the living room has a double-height ceiling lined with decorative timber panelling and coloured tapestries made by Potter.
Other specially commissioned artworks including furnishings, pots and mosaic floors celebrate the story of Julie Cope - a fictional character whose story is told throughout the house. The tale goes that Julie died after returning from a dream trip to India with her husband rob, having been struck by a delivery driver.
The interior of the home tells the story of a fictional Essex womanAs the doting husband had promised before her untimely departure, Rob built a tribute to her life in the form of the house, much like Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife.
"A House for Essex is a testament to the idea that art and architecture can lift our spirits and allow us to experience the world through the eyes of others, both in reality and fiction," an ad on Living Architecture reads.
Perry explained the inspiration behind the home several years ago. It “goes back to the doodles I did 20 years ago with my daughter: we’d imagine a person, and then that person’s family, and then the house they live in. It made me think it would be quite nice to design a building, which developed into a church", he told The Guardian.
The property can be booked from £395 a night with the promotion SMASH20 (for new bookings between now and November 13 on living-architecture.co.uk to mark Grayson Perry’s Smash Hits exhibition at the National Galleries Scotland.
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