How Penally House went from a 19th century manor into a ‘truly joyful home’

With its exuberant colour scheme, layer upon layer of pattern and texture, and a dining room decked out in an exotic 3D under-the-sea theme, Penally House is the perfect antidote to long, grey winter days. Its careful redesign over the past 16 months has ensured it’s not just a fairweather home, but one that can be loved in sunshine and rain.

‘Penally has been the most brilliant lab for experimenting with so many different ideas,’ says interiors designer and QVCUK presenter Anouska Lancaster, owner of the late Georgian manor, in the North Cornwall fishing village of Boscastle.

‘We wanted to respect the 1830s heritage of the house without it feeling like a safe, stuffy stately, while also putting a really modern spin on things. It was all about creating a truly joyful home.’

Finding the house, says Anouska – who shares it with her husband, specialist printer Greig Scott, the four children they have between them and their two dogs, Otto and Stanley – was true serendipity.

With a main base in Berkshire, but a passion for Cornwall, the family knew they wanted to eventually make the county their permanent home. After they spotted Penally House for sale online in the autumn of 2021, the couple did a cheeky drive-by before their viewing the next day, as it seemed too good to be true.

‘It was better than we could have imagined, like something out of a Disney movie,’ says Anouska of the three-storey, six-bedroom house, built in 1836 for local merchant William Sloggatt, with an Ionic-pilastered porch and sash windows.

‘The whole approach was blanketed with purple bluebells, and we discovered a pathway running straight down to the sea. When we did see the interiors, we knew this was the one.’

They weren’t the only house-hunters instantly smitten by Penally House, which is set in 3.5 acres of wooded and formal grounds. ‘Other people were prepared to offer more than the asking price of about £1m, but we knew we couldn’t go higher than this,’ says Anouska, who runs Noushka Design.

‘We wrote a proposal to the vendors, who had lived in the house for decades, telling them how we planned to cherish Penally as our family home, where our grandchildren would eventually play. I cried when we found out it was ours.’

Although structurally pretty solid, the grade II-listed home – which came with intriguing rumours of a smugglers’ tunnel linking it to the coast – would need to be gutted before Anouska could give it its wildly colourful contemporary character.

‘It had a warren of old fuse boxes, bulky radiators and water tanks, so needed brand-new electrics and plumbing,’ she says. ‘We also quickly realised that a lot of the features actually dated from the 1990s, so weren’t worth salvaging. We had to take a harsh approach.’

The couple ripped out the dated dark-wood kitchen and disposed of cheap polystyrene ceiling roses, dusty patterned carpets, fusty drapes – and thousands of jars of home-made chutneys and jams that had been left in the cupboards. The custard-yellow paint that covered many of the walls also had to go.

Anouska says her love of pink meant she instinctively knew what the main colour scheme would be, ‘although because the house is on such a large scale, getting the right flow through the whole place was hard’. The couple had saved up about £200,000 for the refurb, but wanted to budget where they could, so decided to project manage all the work themselves.

They called in a host of local tradespeople and artisans to painstakingly refurbish the home, among them handyman Omur Lockyear, who had known the house since his childhood, and Plymouth-based decorative plasterer Lee Vanstone. Anouska and Lee worked together to create bespoke, intricate cornices, ceiling roses and wall panelling.

As she knew this was to be her family’s forever home, Anouska took the opportunity to tick off a longstanding wish list. First was a pastel pink Everhot range cooker in the kitchen, for which she chose woodchipand magnolia.co.uk’s delicate botanical Onism First Light Pink wallpaper as a backdrop. Next were vividly coloured bathrooms – in the main bedroom, a freestanding tub from high-end bathware specialists BC Designs is painted in bespoke hue ‘Penally Pink’, created by Victory Colours.

Anouska’s dream of collaborating on a design project with her husband – who runs creative production firm The Logical Choice – also came true, as they transformed a formal drawing room into a dining room with a quite literally ‘off the wall’ scheme.

The pair commissioned Icelandic-born artist Kristjana S Williams to create a seascape inspired by Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which Greig made reality on his 3D printer, complete with Perspex features that allow the creatures, including butterflies, to come to vivid life.

This ambitious undertaking was – nerve-rackingly for Anouska – documented on Channel 4 Show Renovation Nation last October.

Throughout Penally, antique pieces have been cleverly updated into contemporary statements. Sourcing many of them at Sunbury Antiques Market, at Kempton Park Racecourse in Surrey, Anouska has had them revivified by Hartley Upholstery & Antique Restoration.

The expert handiwork of cushion maker Sonya Larkspur (@larkspur interiors), sumptuous UK-made fabrics by Blithfield.co.uk and heritage wallpapers by cole-and-son.com all add to the luxury drenched atmosphere.

Anouska isn’t done yet, though. The next phase of works will take in the basement, where she plans to create two more bedrooms, a bathroom, utility room and cinema. She’s also keen to find out if the tales of a smugglers’ tunnel are true.

Don’t expect to see Penally House hit the market any time soon. ‘It’s just so magical here all year round, but there is nothing better than a Cornish pub in the winter,’ Anouska says.

‘The hub of the community is the Cobweb Inn, which is full of locals, but welcomes tourists with open arms. We love to join in with the sea shanties sung there every Sunday evening.’

@penally_house_cornwall

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