‘Downton Shabby’: A Commoner Takes on an English
Castle
A Los Angeles actor and producer moved across the pond
to restore his crumbling ancestral home. But fixing up a 50,000-square-foot
manor isn’t easy.
By Joanne
Kaufman
June 18,
2022
People who
search genealogy websites often find birth and marriage records, newspaper
clippings, faded photographs or maybe a long-lost relative.
Hopwood
DePree found a 60-room English manor.
As a child
growing up in Holland, Mich., in the 1970s, Mr. DePree was transfixed when his
beloved maternal grandfather, Pap, a history buff, told him about a huge slice
of rolling land across the ocean where his forebears had a grand house called
Hopwood Castle.
Fast
forward three and a half decades. Mr. DePree, by then an actor and producer in
Los Angeles, was at his computer early one night in the spring of 2013,
trawling an ancestry website.
The past
had become a favorite destination for him after Pap’s death in 2008 and, two
years later, the sudden death of his father, Thomas, from a massive heart
attack. Mr. DePree was left unmoored, uncertain about the way forward. Tracing
his roots was a comfort.
That
fateful evening, he saw a link to a story about a Lord Hopwood of Hopwood Hall
and an old black-and-white photo of a very stately home in Middleton, England,
just outside Manchester. Increasingly curious, Mr. DePree made some email
inquiries and booked a flight to see firsthand the family seat.
A
50,000-square-foot, brick-and-stone manor built in a quadrangle around a
timber-framed hall, Hopwood Hall had seen better centuries. The roof leaked
prodigiously, dry rot was ascendant, moisture seeped from the walls, plaster
was falling from the ceilings, windows were missing panes, floors were missing
boards, many sections of the house had been vandalized. Trees were growing out
of the chimneys.
And yet …
there were doors dotted with rivets from the medieval period — some sections of
the house date to 1426 — and doors with their original hand-forged hardware.
The wood-paneled walls in one of the parlors were decorated with intricate
carvings from baseboard to ceiling. The fireplace in a room known as the
reception hall was embellished with an iteration of the Hopwood family coat of
arms; the family’s heraldic animal, a stag; and the Hopwood family motto, “By
Degrees.”
“When I
walked in, I felt something in me change almost immediately. I knew this place
was special,” Mr. DePree, 52, said. “But I was told during that first visit
that if nothing was done, within five or 10 years, Hopwood Hall would crumble.”
He
chronicles his efforts to save the hall in “Downton Shabby: One American’s
Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family’s English Castle,” a memoir
published late last month.
Hopwoods
lived in the house until the early 1920s, according to the book. But after the
two heirs were killed during World War I, their grieving elderly parents closed
up the property and moved to London. A cotton company used the hall during
World War II, and in 1946 an order of monks moved in for a few decades. By the
late 1980s, the property had become the responsibility of the local authority,
which had neither the will nor the wherewithal to maintain it. Then came Mr.
DePree.
The “DIY”
in the book’s title is, perhaps, more than a bit misleading: Mr. DePree, who
bears a passing resemblance to Owen Wilson, isn’t the guy reglazing the
windows, plastering the walls, stabilizing the foundation or replacing
floorboards. Hopwood Hall’s longtime caretaker, Bob Wall, has joked that the
acronym really stands for “Dim Inexperienced Yank.”
“I think
people here had been hoping someone would spearhead the restoration,” Mr.
DePree said. The reception hall will soon be ready for its
close-up.Credit...Hopwood Hall Estate
But credit
where credit is due: The Yank has come a long way from the humiliating moment
when he stood in a parking lot of a Home Depot in Los Angeles, almost in tears
because he couldn’t figure out how to work the stick-on tiles he had bought for
his bathroom floor.
“I’ve
learned how to mix mortar and make plaster molds. I’ve learned to do pointing
on bricks,” said Mr. DePree, who sold his house in Los Angeles five years ago
and moved full time to Middleton to immerse himself in the preservation
efforts. “But I wouldn’t say at all that I’m a skilled craftsman by any stretch
of the imagination.”
Still, he
has done plenty of heavy lifting since 2017, when he signed a contract with the
Rochdale Borough Council, the local authority, to assume responsibility for
Hopwood Hall. (The Council had first verified his familial bona fides.) The
deal gave Mr. DePree five years to come up with a practicable and fully
detailed plan to save his ancestral home and create a sustainable model to keep
the lights on.
“His quest
really is the stuff of dreams,” Neil Emmott, the leader of the Council, wrote
in an email. “When we first heard about Hopwood’s ambitions, we weren’t sure if
they constituted a viable proposal. Nonetheless, slowly but surely, we have
seen how his hard work and determination coupled with the help of many
community volunteers is turning the fantasy into reality.”
“Hopwood
was just feeling his way when I first met him, but he’s become more confident,”
said Geoff Wellens, a local historian. “I truly believe that if anyone can get
the job done, it’s him. It’s his family’s old home. He has that family tie.”
Bit by bit,
Mr. DePree has become the public face of the effort, its cheerleader in chief
and dedicated fund-raiser. Recent grants from Historic England, a government
agency, and the Rochdale Borough Council total more than $1 million.
Thanks to
an acquaintance, Mr. DePree was also invited to join Historic Houses, an
association comprising the owners of many of Britain’s largest private
residences. At the first gathering of the group that he attended, he met the
very welcoming Lord and Lady Carnarvon — “Geordie and Fiona” — the owners of
Highclere Castle, where much of “Downton Abbey” was shot. He also met Julian
Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey” and the owner of Stafford House, a
grand pile on the south coast of England.
“Start with
the roof,” Mr. Fellowes advised the newbie about Hopwood Hall. “Make sure it is
dry and go from there.”
Soon after his
move to Britain, Mr. DePree started a YouTube channel, posting videos for
friends and supporters to chart the progress of the restoration. He also wrote
a one-man show about his travails and triumphs, and toured it at comedy
festivals around the country.
The price
tag for the home improvement is $13 million, with annual operating costs
estimated at $800,000, Mr. DePree said. Proceeds from his show have been
contributed to the cause; a chunk of the royalties from his book will go toward
it, too.
“Many
country houses in the U.K. have had to find ways to reinvent themselves to keep
up with the enormous costs of operating, staffing and maintenance, and Hopwood
Hall is on a similar path,” Mr. DePree said. He hopes to turn the manor into an
arts hub for the local community and a tourist destination. A wedding
destination, too. Hopwood Hall will have around 25 bedrooms to accommodate the
festivities.
There are
now sometimes as many as 30 paid workers and eager volunteers at the hall on a
given day. “We’re moving forward quite quickly,” said Mr. DePree during a
recent Zoom call as he walked through the carriage entrance, currently a holding
area for the large squares of slate that will soon pave the roof. “This year
has been exciting because I’ve been walking into rooms that it had not been
safe to walk into before.”
But
progress isn’t necessarily steady. “A few weeks ago, there was evidence that
maybe there were bats in the hall, so we had to immediately halt what we were
doing and check with experts and do a bat survey, because bats are a protected
species,” he said.
Flying
mammals are among the many complications. Hopwood Hall is also a “Grade 2*
listed” building, a designation by Historic England for structures of
particular architectural or historical interest. Consequently, walls can’t be
knocked down willy-nilly; a newly discovered door can’t be pried open without
permission.
Slowly, Mr.
DePree has grasped that he isn’t in Los Angeles anymore. “I’m learning about
heritage skills and understanding that you can’t use modern materials,” he
said.
In other
words, drywall from Home Depot is not an option. Instead, you have to locate
some goat hair and, using medieval techniques, mix it with lime mortar. And no
off-the-rack windows — you have to use specific glass, Mr. DePree said, “and
load it into a leaded-glass window, which is a whole skill unto itself.”
Hopwood
Hall’s carriage entrance will be restored to the glory that was familiar to
previous residents, like Lady Hopwood in the 19th century.Credit...Courtesy
Local Studies Centre, Touchstones Rochdale, Rochdale Arts & Heritage Centre
Under the
terms of his agreement with the Council, Mr. DePree can move into Hopwood Hall
as soon as it’s safe to do so — perhaps this year. At some point, he’ll
officially become the owner of the property. “We’re getting closer to the point
that it can be entrusted to me,” he said.
“Obviously,
the family connection was a selling point with the Council,” Mr. DePree
continued. “I don’t think any of this would have happened without that
connection.”
His
grandfather, he said, would be proud. “He loved history and he loved his
Hopwood identity,” Mr. DePree said. “Maybe several hundred years from now,
people will read about this project and there will be one or two lines about
me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment