Schreiber House And Attached Swimming Pool

Detached house with attached swimming pool, built 1962–1964 by James Gowan for Mr CS Schreiber, a furniture manufacturer, and his family, and constructed by CP Roberts & Co. The swimming pool was added by Gowan in 1968. The house is built in blue rustic Staffordshire engineering bricks with rounded "specials" for all corners, and features aluminium double glazing. The plan comprises two oblongs to the north with a longer oblong to the south, linked by a central core.

The exterior is mostly three storeys with a basement, with the three feet by one foot six inches planning grid powerfully expressed throughout. Piers of brick separated by continuous vertical strips of glazing define spaces with specific functions. The front facade has two bays, each with piers flanking two strips of glazing and linked by a recessed slightly lower bay. To the left is a half-height bay of three glazed strips flanked by piers, behind which rises a wide blind pier with a slightly lower strip of horizontally set windows to the right. The rear, garden-facing facade repeats these features with slight variations.

The interior is arranged in four layers: service rooms in the basement, living rooms on the ground floor, master bedrooms on the first floor, and children's rooms and studio on the second floor. Each floor is an open suite of rooms, but concealed doors can be used to divide the space for privacy; the planning module is also expressed internally, including in the panelling. Because the main view over the Heath is to the north and away from the sun, the rooms extend through the full depth north-south, with the cross-section stepped to form a clerestory at roof level. An important feature is the built-in furniture, largely designed by Gowan and made by Schreiber's factory, installed over a number of years. The standards of workmanship and finishes inside the house are exceptionally high for their date; money was spent not on ornament but on high-quality materials. The ceilings are precast concrete troughs faced with Bath stone; the floors are San Stefano marble. Further features of interest include a central vacuuming system and external York paving electrically heated to keep it clear of snow and ice in winter.

In 1968 James Gowan completed the external landscaping with a 30-foot diameter sunken and domed swimming pool set in a turf mound, with two circular changing, shower, and WC rooms. The pool has a marble surround and base, with glazed tiles to other surfaces.

This was Gowan's first commission after ending his partnership with Stirling. Schreiber was to remain his most important client, and this is probably his most significant work. The lineage from Stirling and Gowan's Ham Common flats is discernible, but Gowan's work from the mid-1960s shows greater austerity in massing and use of brickwork. He is seen as one of the first architects in the 1960s to incorporate elements of 1920s idioms into his work—here reflecting early Dutch modernism. The result is one of the most significant town houses of the post-war period.