Benjamin'S Mount And Attached Steps

Benjamin's Mount and attached steps is a private house built between 1967 and 1969 by architect Erno Goldfinger for Jack Perry. The house is located off Westwood Road in Windlesham and is alternatively known as Perry House or Teesdale.

The building employs timber post and lintel construction, clad in timber and full-height glazing, with a brick rear wall to a central patent-glazed conservatory. It has a flat roof and is arranged as a single-storey structure with a canted plan organised around the central conservatory. The larger living area sits to the north on rising land, while four bedrooms and a bathroom occupy an angled wing to the south.

The seven-bay living wing features a projecting roof supported on posts and an exposed laminated beam, which opens on to a terrace and creates a strong visual link between interior and exterior space. All bays except the end bays are fully glazed with separate opening timber top lights and a door in the return abutting the conservatory. The entrance front presents a contrasting character, with only top lights and two entrances reached by terrazzo steps. The principal entrance to the north has full-height glazed double doors. The most distinctive external feature is a projecting timber-clad water tank positioned above the utility room. An integral car port is located at the northern end. The conservatory features aluminium patent glazing set against a blue brick rear wall.

The interior exemplifies refined timber finishes throughout, with exposed laminated ceiling beams, timber panelling to walls, and full-height doors. The entrance hall contains a terrazzo floor, boarded walls, and a full-height mirror reflecting views through the full-height glass doors opposite. The living room centres on a freestanding wall clad in marble with inset shelves, accommodating a fireplace. This marble treatment reflects Goldfinger's use of the material elsewhere in his work, notably at Alexander Fleming House and Balfron Tower lift lobbies. A study area with bookcases sits behind the fireplace. At the opposite end, a folding screen and two steps separate a two-bay dining room furnished with a round marble table that complements the marble fireplace. A kitchen is separated by a sliding screen over a counter fitted with drawers and a tiled top, with quarry-tiled flooring. Original cupboards incorporating a sink and upper storage are positioned against the end wall.

Behind these principal rooms runs a top-lit service corridor with boarded walls and quarry-tiled floors, connecting the principal entrance hall to the conservatory. This corridor gives access to a lavatory, utility room, scullery, and a second service entrance flanked by cupboards. The conservatory contains an S-shaped path of terrazzo leading through to the bedroom wing, which features full-height panelling with contrasting beading to door surrounds and a corridor beneath a curved top light. All small bedrooms are panelled. The bathroom features mosaic-tiled flooring, a shower, boarded walls, and a timber-panelled bath surround with separate lavatory. A mirror masks the door to a dressing room. The master bedroom at the end is panelled with mosaic tiling to the en-suite bathroom walls and bath surround.

Jack Perry was one of the first businessmen to develop trading links with China during the 1950s and 1960s, and the house's form may reflect these eastern connections. The design was arrived at through a long process of refinement and elimination, with drawings retained in the house. Benjamin's Mount is the only post-war private house in original condition by Erno Goldfinger, an architect widely celebrated for the quality of his public and commercial commissions in the 1950s and 1960s. His own house of 1939–40 was the first Modern Movement house acquired by the National Trust. This is the only one of Goldfinger's commissions where he had the freedom of budget to express his love of luxury materials and fine finishes. The house achieves a homogeneity of richness and quality not found in his other work, with timber given a weight and gravity rarely associated with the material in modern building. The house marks the culmination of Goldfinger's interest in planning, combining openness and freedom of circulation with spaces that function as distinct events.