AMAZING SPACE

Gary Marshall and Keith Hirst turned a nondescript Victorian house into a home that’s designed to astound

- AMY MOOREA WONG

When city-dweller Gary Marshall decided to move from London to the coast, he was looking for a property that was slightly out of the ordinary. Quite by chance, he happened upon the Victorian villa that’s now his home. ‘Finding the house was a real stroke of luck, as it’s in Ramsgate’s conservation area, but isn’t listed,’ says Gary. ‘It meant I could be brave with the space. It didn’t have anything of architectural or historical merit, so tearing it apart didn’t feel too sacrilegious. It was always a quirky building that looks more east London than east coast.

Taking a leap of faith, Gary moved into a rental property nearby and began reconfiguring the layout. He emptied the box-like building of many internal walls, replaced the staircase and sacrificed two bedrooms for high ceilings and structural surprises. ‘I wanted to create volume in the house and do something interesting,’ says Gary. ‘I ended up taking away 350 square feet of floor space, but uncovered some interesting features along the way as the structure of the house was revealed.’ Decades worth of time-worn plaster was carefully uncovered, a tactile chalky finish preserved in jagged-edged blocks atop the exposed original brickwork. ‘I wanted it to be rough and hoped that once I brought in other materials, it would feel welcoming,’ he explains.

HOME TRUTHS

THE PROPERTY

Victorian house, now a warehouse-style home