Halnaker House

Description

Halnaker, one of Lutyens’s last houses, shows a return to his early vernacular manner; on the entrance side, there are gables and a hipped roof. The windows, however, are Georgian and the South front is symmetrical, expressing on one side the Music Room’s double-height, and on the other an open sleeping verandah. Butler says the house has an ‘ordinary, no nonsense quality’, and it is true that there are no habitable halls or extravagant corridors. There is, however, a double staircase (so as not to bump into musicians going to their gallery), and an outdoor dining room on the South terrace with outside fireplace and glazed roof. (Amery et al., 1981, cat no.276)

Halnaker Park, one of Lutyens’s last country houses, built 1936–8 for Reginald McKenna, Chairman of the Midland Bank. Though the banks that Lutyens designed for McKenna included some of his best classical work, at Halnaker he recalled his early vernacular mode. Whitewashed brick and Sussex tiles, the client’s choice. Heavy hipped roof. Asymmetrical n (entrance) front, two pairs of bold gables uniting the ne service wing visually with the main range. Off-centre entrance leading to a large double staircase along the n front, reached between two wooden columns. s front symmetrical in outline, the deeply recessed centre originally accommodating an ‘out-of-doors dining room’ with fireplace and glazed roof. At the e end a library with an originally open sleeping veranda above as at Monkton House, West Dean (p. 694). Double-height music room at the w end, which was for a time converted into a swimming pool. A curious circular open bell-tower asymmetrically placed on the roof. (Williamson et al, 2019, p.411)

Bibliography

Amery, C., Richardson, M. and Stamp, G., (1981) Lutyens, the Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944): Hayward Gallery London, 18 November 1981 – 31 January 1982. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.

Williamson E, Hudson T, Musson J, Nairn I (2019) Sussex: West. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Aslet, C. (1982) The Last Country Houses. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Butler, A., 1950. The architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens: the Lutyens memorial series. Vol 1: Country Houses, Country Life: London and Scibners: New York.

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1026406

Client

Rt Hon Reginald McKenna