Historic house of sighs and promise

FOR Harrogate art dealer Andrew Stewart, his wife Gillian and two daughters the roof nearly fell in on their dream home last Christmas in literal fashion.

“We’d been having Christmas dinner in the first floor lounge when we heard what sounded like torrential rain outside,” says Andrew.

“I thought it was a bit strange because I’d looked out the window and the weather was fine. I decided to check the landing. Water was pouring down the stairs and down the walls.”

For a few hours it was all hands on deck as a battle began to stem the tide in the semi-derelict Victorian building’s woe-begotten rabbit warren of rooms.

The festivities were halted and Christmas crackers swapped for buckets as the search commenced to find the source of the leak and solve the mystery of the missing stop tap.

Two hours later with mission accomplished, family and relatives returned to the party and picked up where they had left off.

Everything about Cold Bath House at 16, Cold Bath Road, Harrogate had been a risk from the moment Andrew stopped with a start on spotting the “for sale” sign outside this three-storey, stone-built townhouse last July.

Securing the sale meant pushing the family finances way beyond their comfort zone. To raise the capital quickly, they sold their existing home at West End Avenue well below market value, having just transformed it into the perfect art house - a beautifully balanced combination of art gallery and family home.

It was here Andrew, a paintings conservator and owner of 108 Fine Art gallery as well as successful art dealer, had exhibited the work of “lost” Leeds master Joash Woodrow.

It’s something which would never have happened at all if the former head of paintings at Bonhams in Leeds hadn’t first rescued 770 of the long-forgotten Woodrow’s paintings from an awaiting skip in 1999 after a smart piece of artistic detective work.

Although Cold Bath House was a bigger, grander proposition on paper than their beloved West End Avenue, in the real world the building was at its lowest ebb since it was originally believed to have been built in the 1820s.

“It was a huge gamble selling our previous house cheaply. Lots of people were interested in developing 16, Cold Bath Road as a boutique hotel or offices but I felt strongly it should be kept as a family home.”

The floor plan showed a total of 26 rooms, not including the cavernous basement and sizeable garden. What it didn’t show was that there was no heating, nor any real electricity supply or that the water from the taps ran green.

Not that this convincingly Dickensian scene did anything to put off Andrew or his hardy family whose spirit of adventure wouldn’t be out of place in the novels of Sir Walter Scott.

“We got the keys on October 4 and we moved in on October 4. It was squalid. Damp was everywhere. But it was a magnificent house. The first time I saw it I knew it had to be mine.”

Part of the attraction of 16, Cold Bath Road must have been what lay buried beneath the dust – not just the hidden bath tub beneath the upstairs floorboards full of old 78 records, or the thousands of unopened port bottles in the basement but the history of Harrogate and a spirit of art and creativity.

“I’ve been told it was built in the 1820s by the Duchess of Devonshire, although parts of it may be older,” says Andrew.

“In the 1850s it was extended before being lived in by a doctor and his family for around 20 years. At the turn of the century, the mayor of the town Neville Shute took it over.”

As the 20th century wore on, number 16, Cold Bath Road briefly acquired a new career as a hotel; firstly as the Riveria and later the Croft.

But it was its most recent owners, the Douglasses, who piqued the interest of a man who has worked on both sides of the fence, public and private, in the world of art.

Ian and Sarah Douglass were well-known art collectors and great supporters of Harrogate’s Mercer Gallery for more than 30 years. It was their reputation that prompted Andrew to visit the house 20 years ago through the auspices of the gallery on first arriving in Harrogate. Even then it was clear that large parts of the bedraggled building were being left gently to go to rack and ruin by this highly creative but slightly eccentric couple. Too late, though, the unflappable Andrew was already smitten. “It wasn’t just the fact it was in the middle of this beautiful town and in the shadow of the Valley Gardens, it was such an unusual house, so higgledy-piggledy. I loved the design of it,” he says.

“The height of the ceilings, the fireplaces, the wonderful floors in the hall and the kitchen with their superb original encaustic tiles. The proportions of the rooms were just exquisite. I thought the whole thing was magnificent.”

As a successful art dealer noted for being in it for the long haul, a trait which has helped attract a coterie of famous young artists to his books such as Paul Reid and Michael Sandle, Andrew could see the potential amid the squalor.

“The house is so beautifully shaped. The walls are made for hanging pictures. The big veranda on the first floor would be great for sculpture.”

Surely such grand visions must have seemed an idle fancy to the rest of his family compared to the fact that that the house was basically unhabitable?

Scaffolding had to be erected from day one to secure the house’s structure and make it safe for Andrew and his wife Gillian and daughters Scarlett (21) and India (17) to move in.

With the only electricity supply being through extension cables leading from the basement, the family would wander the grand stairways and narrow corridors with hand-held lights. Seven months of scrubbing and rewiring and new plumbing means that 75 per cent of the house is clean and decorated and, well, liveable.

“I’m looking to convert part of the ground floor into an art gallery eventually with a permanent space for Joash Woodrow’s archives,” says Andrew. “I knew even before we moved in that it was going to be a huge task. Every day has thrown up a new problem. But it’s the only house in Harrogate I’ve ever wanted to live in. “Realistically it will take another five years to get it to the point where we will be happy. But we know what we want. We can see how it should be.”