Listed Building: THE BOAT HOUSE (412515)

POOLE SY99SE LAKE DRIVE, Hamworthy 958-1/4/236(South side) 21/12/94 No.75 The Boat House II Detached house. c1936. For Mr Cullen, a Lloyds' underwriter. Reinforced concrete with steel beams, clad in whitewashed red brick in Flemish bond. Flat tarred concrete roof and hipped blue-glazed pantile roofs to porch and roof shelter. Rendered brick internal stack and metal framed casement windows. Rectangular plan round central internal light well. 2 storeys and roof terrace with shelter; 4-window range. Main front faces garden and Poole Harbour to south and has canted projecting single-storey loggia to centre with hipped pantile roof and metal-framed French windows, flanked by 3-light metal casement windows now replaced by plate glass. Part of 2-light metal casement windows to first-floor centre above loggia and similar 3-light windows either side. Windows have external projecting blinds. Roof terrace is bounded by parapet with pantiled verge, the outermost broken by square brick piers carrying timber pergolas over outer bays. On entrance side to north is hidden by higher ground level. Part-glazed front door to first floor right of centre approached by open porch, 2 bays deep with hipped pantiled roof on square brick piers over elliptical-arched concrete bridge over ground floor area. One and 2-light windows with concrete lintels and cills of varying heights. 2-bay roof shelter to centre of roof terrace with hipped pantiled roof and 2 low 3-light metal casement windows. Shelter is flanked by roof terrace parapets with pantiled ranges and timber pergolas supported by 5 bays of timber posts either side of shelter, and square brick piers outermost. White-washed canvas screens to front of pergolas with 'porthole' openings to alternate bays. Side elevations have casement and porthole windows. Roof terrace has conical oval skylight to centre. INTERIOR: house incorporates fittings of 2nd Class Drawing Room of the transatlantic liner RMS Mauritania. Bedrooms are known as Cabins 1-3 and are grouped round a galleried first floor with a large oval opening to ground floor with maplewood balustrade and columns round light-well, which has internal decorative glass roof below skylight. Front door opens into gallery with open-well stair down to main living room on ground floor. This large room has maplewood panelling in Louis XVI style with elliptical-arched heads to main panels and to window openings and doors. Square bevelled glass mirrors are set in panelling. These are L-shaped banquettes with buttoned upholstery round sides of room and to inglenook fireplace. Beamed ceiling has panelled ornament evoking plasterwork of liner's original drawing room. Cabins (bedrooms) have mahogany panelling. Original, nautical style fittings to bathroom. Kitchen to west side of house was formerly part of self-contained service flat where original bell-board may still be seen. The Boat House is, with Landfall (qv), the most complete surviving Modern-style house of the inter-war period in the Bournemouth area. The fittings from the Mauritania, on which the first owner Mr Cullen is said to have often travelled, give it a special interest. These elements have been re-used with wit and style in a way which evokes their original context. (Metropolitan (Magazine): London: 1991-: 64-71). Listing NGR: SY9843690478

Record last edited

Mar 31 2011 3:47AM