26, Pentley Park

Detached House. 1936-7, with minor late 20th-century alterations. Designed by Paul V.E. Mauger, architect (1896-1982), for himself.

MATERIALS AND EXTERIOR

The house is constructed of buff-coloured stock brick with concrete detailing and features a flat roof concealed by a shallow parapet. The composition comprises a 2-storey main frontage range with a 3-storey north-west bay incorporating an advanced garage with a roof balcony accessed from a first-floor doorway to the tower. A 2-storey section has a recessed doorway below a shallow hood, with a 4-panel glazed door. To the left is a circular window; to the right, a wide 6-light window with metal frame, also below a shallow hood. Above are 3 regularly-spaced 2-light windows with similar detailing. A projecting chimney breast marks the south-east end.

The rear elevation features a set-back 2-storey end bay, its first-floor doorway opening on to a roof balcony above a formerly open seating area, now glazed. The garden front displays 2 four-light ground-floor windows and 3 three-light upper-floor openings, all with metal casement frames and shallow drip mouldings. An attached single-storey store with flat roof adjoins the north-west end.

INTERIOR

The off-centre entrance leads into a stair hall with a cloakroom to one side and double sliding doors to the main ground-floor living room to the other. A stepped dog-leg stair with handrail partition provides access to the upper floors. The kitchen and dining room lie to the rear of the house, accessed from both the hall and main living room. A doorway in the dining room opens on to the outside sitting area. The sitting room retains original features including plain flush doors, built-in cupboards and bookshelves, a tiled hearth surround, and a ceiling composed of full-width panels. Boarded floors run throughout the house except in the entrance threshold, kitchen, and bathrooms, which are tiled.

The upper floor is accessed from a landing and corridor with flush doors to storage cupboards leading to a bedroom corridor. On the opposite side of the landing is the doorway to the balcony over the garage, and a ceiling hatch to the upper floor of the tower, believed to have been the architect's studio, accessed by a fold-away ladder stored in a tall wall cupboard.

HISTORY AND CONTEXT

The house was one of three Modernist designs at Pentley Park sanctioned by Louis de Soissons, and consciously contrasted with the neo-Georgian style of de Soissons' Garden City masterplan. The house designed by Mauger survives in almost unaltered form, having been occupied by Mauger and his family, and subsequently by the present owner. Mauger began his architectural career in the 1920s and continued in practice until the 1980s, strongly engaged with domestic architecture and public-authority housing. He became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1938 at the recommendation of Sir Raymond Unwin.