MIES - Homewood House

Homewood House by Patrick Gwynne

Originally built as a family home for his parents, Patrick Gwynne - perhaps Britain's greatest unsung architect in the modern era - designed the Homewood House at the age of 24. His design was greatly inspired by the leading modernists of the time and in particular Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, whose influence is clear to see. A sleek linear façade of white concrete is elevated upon elegant pillars, seemingly hovering amongst ten acres of woodland gardens; the house is a picture of serenity.

The Terrazzo-Finished Spiral Staircase

The interior spaces include a rather austere study complete with starship enterprise style desk and a vast living and dining area flooded with light from a wall of floor to ceiling sash windows that look out across the spectacular grounds. 20th century design classics by Bertoia, Breuer, Mathsson, William Plunkett, Saarinen and Eames amongst others are scattered throughout the house. Every inch of space has been carefully considered and designed down to the last detail, there is an oddly shaped drawer or cupboard specially created for every object.

The Sleek Interior at Homewood House

Gwynne's Victorian Garden

The house also had a formal-informal Victorian Garden which was converted to growing vegetables during the Warand returned to being a garden when Patrick Gwynne lived in the Homewood from the end of the war until 2003. He had been apprenticed to Ernest Coleridge and then worked Wells Coates, a founder member of the Modern Architecture Research Group (MARS). The house was inspired by Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Tugendhat House. Gwynne became very interested in the garden but, except for the terrace and swimming pool, made no use of the Abstract Modern Style. The style of the planting design can be classified as gardenesque but, because of the ericaceous soils it looks Japanese and the relationship of house:garden is also Japanese. The living room connects to the dining room to the outdoor balcony terace from which spiral stairs lead to a sun terrace on the roof and a staircase leads down to the swimming pool and the large garden.

Patrick Gwynne lived at the Homewood his entire life, sleeping in the only designed single bedroom the house has until his death in 2003. Although Patrick had updated and improved the house over the years, it took a great deal of work to keep things in order. Having never married or had children he donated the house to the National Trust in 1992 and ten years of restorative work began.


There is little question that Gwynne's Homewood House belongs in the pantheon of modernist houses. It's simple appeal coincides nicely with the timing of Patrick Johnson's Glass House and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House and Barcelona Pavilion. Ultimately, Gwynne was Britain's best answer to the onset of modernism in the 30s and 40s. His Homewood House, albeit unknownst to many, provides us with one of architecture's best kept secrets to this date.