When Luciana’s parents drove past Woodthorpe, an Art Deco house in Worcester Park, Surrey, they knew they had to buy it.
Thought to have been built in 1935 by the architect L. Norman Holt, Woodthorpe is a white building with black detailing —windowsills, garage, door and ship railings, for example— curved edges and Crittall windows. It had a ‘for sale’ sign outside.
“Dad fell in love,” says Luciana who owns it with her sister. “He was prepared to buy it regardless of what it looked like on the inside. They put in an offer without even seeing the inside.”
There was an obvious downside to this approach: the condition of the interiors. “It was awful. It was really horrible. But they saw the potential,” says Luciana.
“Everything needed to be done. It had to be rewired, replumbed, there were storage heaters that didn’t heat up anything. There were Crittall windows, and if you opened a window, I remember that my father would have to go out and push it while my mother was pulling it from the inside to try and close it.”
Did they have any regrets? “No, they would have bought it regardless. They fell in love with it. People do.”
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The family moved in in 1972, when Luciana and her older sister were at primary school. The renovation was a long, drawn-out process, as the family didn’t have the budget to do it all at once. “We used to move from room to room while they made a room habitable,” says Luciana.
“My sister and I discovered that in every room there was a button which was a bell, and it sounded just like the front doorbell. We’d be running up and down the stairs pressing these, and my mother would go nuts because she was answering the door all the time. As I’m sure you can imagine, that was one of the first things to go.”
The couple added an ensuite to one of the house’s four bedrooms, as well as full-height windows to the sitting room on the top floor. But one thing had to remain the same: the house’s pink bathroom. “My mother absolutely adored it and refused to change it — that’s why it always stayed pink. It’s an extra-long cast iron bath and it’s really deep. You could put water in there and it would stay hot forever.”
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The wooden floors are also original, each laid with a different wood. There is mahogany across the reception space on the ground floor. “When they’re sanded and polished, they’re beautiful. You won’t find it in a house these days.”
More recently, the windows were replaced with double glazing, in keeping with the original style. “Mum refused to change them unless she could find somewhere they could curve the glass…A lot of glass was broken, apparently, to try and get those curves right. She honoured the soul of the house.”
Today, Woodthorpe covers 1,933 square feet over its three floors, with a kitchen, dining room, reception, sunroom and garage on ground level and the bedrooms above. Outside, there is a roof terrace, balcony and 60-foot rear garden.
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During the family’s 50 years at the property, it caught the attention of passers-by. “We had people knocking on the door asking if we would sell it,” says Luciana. “Dad would say no, and mum would get a piece of paper with their name and address on, just in case. Dad would throw them away and say: ‘I’m never selling’. And he never did.”
Both of the sisters, who now own Woodthorpe, grew up at the property. “There is something about the house. There’s an energy to it when you walk in. It’s like being hugged, as if there’s love in the walls. This is a house that’s always felt right,” says Luciana. “We couldn’t have been brought up in a better place.”
The sisters’ mother passed away in 2018, and their father in 2022. With some difficulty, the sisters have listed the house for £1 million with Savills.
“After our father died, we weren’t emotionally ready to sell it — I don’t think we’re even emotionally ready now,” she says. “The week before it went on the market, we both bought one ticket for every lottery for a week. We said: ‘If we win it, the universe has told us we have to keep it.’ We didn’t [win].
“When it does sell, I’m going to be pleased, because the house deserves to be loved. It deserves its new forever family. But will I have trouble driving past it, knowing that it’s not linked to our family anymore? Yeah. When there’s a connection with a property that you’ve grown up with, it’s not just bricks and mortar, it’s a home. The memories go with you.”
