This converted chapel Yorkshire Dales holiday let near Haworth is an artist's dream

“For me, it’s the other way around,” says Dr Shalini Vohra, who bought the property earlier this year as a holiday cottage available to rent. “I have kept the art at the heart of it, so it has been, how can I design this room to highlight this piece of art?

“It stems from my love for art, spending time in galleries and exhibitions and wanting to stay there a bit longer. just want to sit there and absorb, and almost feel, how can I immerse myself in this painting?”

Owning and designing an artistic holiday home has long been a dream for Shalini. She lives in a semi-detached house in the Mill Fields area of Sheffield with her husband, Sameer, who is a buy-to-let property developer in Sheffield, their eight-year-old son, Samay, and their two cats.

Until two years ago, Shalini had worked for more than a decade as a senior lecturer in Marketing at Sheffield Hallam University. She left to run her own marketing consultancy but, as it takes up only three days a week, she found herself looking for a new project. She had saved a little money and started the search for a property to buy as a holiday let.

“I wanted to do something which allowed me to express my creative side,” she says. “I had been itching to do something like this for a long time, I just didn’t have the time. I thought, I’ve got to find the right property which speaks to me, and I want to make it an experience for the people who come and stay there.”

She found the chapel in July last year. “As soon as I saw it from the outside, the beautiful church windows and the inscriptions on the bricks next to the entrance, I immediately felt this is something special.

“We walked in and it did not disappoint. We went up the main staircase and at the top is the dining room with beautiful windows overlooking Leeming reservoir. I remember standing there and thinking, this is just outstanding.”

Built in the 1920s, it was a Baptist chapel until 1996. “It was moved from Leeming to Oxenhope in 1927,” says Shalini. “I think it was deemed unsafe and it was moved down the road brick by brick.

“When it was converted to a private home in 1996, they managed to retain a lot of the original features, and that is what really drew me to the property.”

She got the keys in March. There was nothing structural to do and the house was in a good condition. “But I wanted to breathe colour and art into the property,” she says. “It was a blank canvas.”

The Chapel of Art is an upside-down house with a family bathroom and five bedrooms on the ground floor, each one with decor inspired by a favourite artist - Van Gogh, Kilmt, Matisse, Frieda Kahlo and David Hockney.

The Van Gogh room is the master bedroom with ensuite. Shalini began with prints of Sunflowers and Irises, then chose Little Greene’s Deep Space Blue and Yellow Pink for the walls.

All the paint is from Little Greene. “I didn’t want to have to do it again in a couple of years,” Shalini says. “It’s a dog-friendly property as well, so I wanted everything to be very sturdy and durable.”

Most of the beds are from Next. “The bedcovers are from Joe Browns, which is amazing in terms of the quality and the collection of colours,” she says.

“For the prints, I had to do quite a lot of digging. For the Frida Kahlo room, I got a reproduction from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. I really wanted that print, called The Frame, which is why that room is called ‘Frieda’s Frame’.”

On the first floor is the living room, kitchen and dining room, with a circular staircase leading up to the top floor, which has been converted into a gaming room. “We thought it would be nice for teenagers to escape to,” Shalini says.

The dining table and benches are from Next. “I wanted to be able to accommodate up to 10 people, but because of the staircase, it was tricky, so I had to go with a rectangular table and two benches,” she says.

There is a lower ground floor, which has a sauna and a large space that Shalini has turned into a cinema room. Outside there is a small garden area at the front and a larger paved area to the side with a hot tub, Tiki bar and garden seating. “We are lucky to have sheep for our neighbours,” she says.

The project has been very much Shalini’s own, although Sameer helped build furniture and Samay has been involved every step. “He has even helped come up with the names for some of the rooms,” she says.

They have stayed there themselves to enjoy it as a family and to make sure that everything works well. As Shalini points out, the chapel is a stone’s throw from Haworth and the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. “I have always been a great fan of the Brontes and Haworth is so lovely and the people are so friendly,” she says, adding that she also enjoys Haworth’s gift and art shops, especially Hawkbys.

The Chapel of Art welcomed its first guests in September and it is already booked for Christmas and New Year, and many days and weeks in-between.

“It has been a labour of love and a joy to bring it together. I look at it and think, this is as close as somebody can come to stepping into the painting itself. I hope it’s come close. It’s a dream come true.”

The Chapel of Art is at www.thechapelof-art.com

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