‘Downton Shabby’: A Commoner Takes on an English Castle

People who lookup genealogy internet websites generally discover beginning and marriage data, newspaper clippings, pale photographs or probably a extended-misplaced relative.

Hopwood DePree found a 60-room English manor.

As a baby increasing up in Holland, Mich., in the 1970s, Mr. DePree was transfixed when his beloved maternal grandfather, Pap, a background buff, instructed him about a enormous slice of rolling land across the ocean where by his forebears had a grand home referred to as Hopwood Castle.

A castle in Britain owned by his relatives? Named for his family members? No way.

Speedy forward 3 and a 50 percent many years. Mr. DePree, by then an actor and producer in Los Angeles, was at his personal computer early one night time in the spring of 2013, trawling an ancestry web-site.

The past experienced turn into a favorite location for him after Pap’s demise in 2008 and, two a long time afterwards, the sudden demise of his father, Thomas, from a significant heart assault. Mr. DePree was left unmoored, uncertain about the way ahead. Tracing his roots was a comfort and ease.

That fateful night, he observed a website link to a story about a Lord Hopwood of Hopwood Corridor and an outdated black-and-white photo of a very stately dwelling in Middleton, England, just outdoors Manchester. More and more curious, Mr. DePree built some e-mail inquiries and booked a flight to see firsthand the family seat.

A 50,000-sq.-foot, brick-and-stone manor built in a quadrangle all over a timber-framed corridor, Hopwood Corridor experienced witnessed improved centuries. The roof leaked prodigiously, dry rot was ascendant, moisture seeped from the partitions, plaster was falling from the ceilings, home windows have been lacking panes, flooring have been missing boards, numerous sections of the home had been vandalized. Trees ended up escalating out of the chimneys.

And still … there have been doorways dotted with rivets from the medieval period — some sections of the home date to 1426 — and doors with their primary hand-cast components. The wooden-paneled walls in just one of the parlors have been embellished with intricate carvings from baseboard to ceiling. The fireplace in a room recognised as the reception corridor was embellished with an iteration of the Hopwood loved ones coat of arms the family’s heraldic animal, a stag and the Hopwood family members motto, “By Degrees.”

“When I walked in, I felt some thing in me adjust practically quickly. I understood this place was unique,” Mr. DePree, 52, stated. “But I was instructed in the course of that to start with go to that if nothing at all was finished, within just 5 or 10 decades, Hopwood Corridor would crumble.”

He chronicles his efforts to help you save the hall in “Downton Shabby: A single American’s Ultimate Do it yourself Journey Restoring His Family’s English Castle,” a memoir revealed late past month.

Hopwoods lived in the household until eventually the early 1920s, in accordance to the ebook. But soon after the two heirs have been killed for the duration of Globe War I, their grieving elderly mom and dad shut up the property and moved to London. A cotton company made use of the corridor in the course of Environment War II, and in 1946 an purchase of monks moved in for a several many years. By the late 1980s, the house experienced turn out to be the accountability of the nearby authority, which had neither the will nor the wherewithal to manage it. Then arrived Mr. DePree.

The “DIY” in the book’s title is, perhaps, more than a bit deceptive: Mr. DePree, who bears a passing resemblance to Owen Wilson, is not the male reglazing the home windows, plastering the walls, stabilizing the basis or replacing floorboards. Hopwood Hall’s longtime caretaker, Bob Wall, has joked that the acronym genuinely stands for “Dim Inexperienced Yank.”

But credit score wherever credit rating is because of: The Yank has come a long way from the humiliating moment when he stood in a parking ton of a House Depot in Los Angeles, almost in tears simply because he could not determine out how to function the stick-on tiles he had acquired for his lavatory ground.

“I’ve realized how to combine mortar and make plaster molds. I have figured out to do pointing on bricks,” said Mr. DePree, who bought his dwelling in Los Angeles five a long time in the past and moved total time to Middleton to immerse himself in the preservation attempts. “But I would not say at all that I’m a qualified craftsman by any stretch of the imagination.”

Nonetheless, he has accomplished lots of large lifting given that 2017, when he signed a contract with the Rochdale Borough Council, the regional authority, to believe obligation for Hopwood Hall. (The Council had first confirmed his familial bona fides.) The deal gave Mr. DePree 5 many years to occur up with a practicable and absolutely comprehensive plan to help save his ancestral property and create a sustainable design to keep the lights on.

“His quest really is the stuff of desires,” Neil Emmott, the chief of the Council, wrote in an electronic mail. “When we 1st listened to about Hopwood’s ambitions, we weren’t absolutely sure if they constituted a viable proposal. Even so, bit by bit but certainly, we have seen how his hard get the job done and determination coupled with the assist of numerous group volunteers is turning the fantasy into reality.”

“Hopwood was just experience his way when I to start with met him, but he’s develop into more self-assured,” said Geoff Wellens, a community historian. “I truly imagine that if any individual can get the task done, it’s him. It is his family’s old household. He has that spouse and children tie.”

Bit by little bit, Mr. DePree has come to be the public deal with of the work, its cheerleader in main and committed fund-raiser. The latest grants from Historic England, a govt agency, and the Rochdale Borough Council total much more than $1 million.

Many thanks to an acquaintance, Mr. DePree was also invited to be a part of Historic Residences, an affiliation comprising the house owners of numerous of Britain’s major personal residences. At the to start with accumulating of the group that he attended, he fulfilled the really welcoming Lord and Lady Carnarvon — “Geordie and Fiona” — the homeowners of Highclere Castle, the place a lot of “Downton Abbey” was shot. He also fulfilled Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey” and the proprietor of Stafford Household, a grand pile on the south coastline of England.

“Start with the roof,” Mr. Fellowes encouraged the novice about Hopwood Hall. “Make absolutely sure it is dry and go from there.”

Before long just after his go to Britain, Mr. DePree started out a YouTube channel, submitting video clips for buddies and supporters to chart the progress of the restoration. He also wrote a a single-gentleman clearly show about his travails and triumphs, and toured it at comedy festivals all over the state.

The price tag tag for the home enhancement is $13 million, with once-a-year functioning costs approximated at $800,000, Mr. DePree explained. Proceeds from his display have been contributed to the cause a chunk of the royalties from his book will go toward it, also.

“Many region houses in the U.K. have experienced to obtain approaches to reinvent by themselves to preserve up with the monumental fees of operating, staffing and upkeep, and Hopwood Corridor is on a similar path,” Mr. DePree mentioned. He hopes to turn the manor into an arts hub for the area community and a tourist spot. A wedding desired destination, also. Hopwood Corridor will have all-around 25 bedrooms to accommodate the festivities.

There are now occasionally as a lot of as 30 paid workers and keen volunteers at the hall on a supplied day. “We’re moving ahead pretty rapidly,” explained Mr. DePree all through a latest Zoom connect with as he walked by means of the carriage entrance, at the moment a holding region for the substantial squares of slate that will soon pave the roof. “This calendar year has been interesting because I have been walking into rooms that it had not been secure to stroll into prior to.”

But development is not essentially constant. “A couple months back, there was evidence that possibly there had been bats in the corridor, so we had to straight away halt what we were undertaking and examine with authorities and do a bat survey, simply because bats are a secured species,” he claimed.

Flying mammals are amid the several difficulties. Hopwood Hall is also a “Grade 2* listed” developing, a designation by Historic England for buildings of individual architectural or historic curiosity. For that reason, walls simply cannot be knocked down willy-nilly a newly discovered doorway simply cannot be pried open up without having permission.

Bit by bit, Mr. DePree has grasped that he is not in Los Angeles anymore. “I’m studying about heritage capabilities and knowledge that you just cannot use fashionable materials,” he said.

In other text, drywall from Residence Depot is not an selection. Alternatively, you have to locate some goat hair and, utilizing medieval tactics, blend it with lime mortar. And no off-the-rack home windows — you have to use precise glass, Mr. DePree reported, “and load it into a leaded-glass window, which is a whole talent unto alone.”

Underneath the terms of his arrangement with the Council, Mr. DePree can shift into Hopwood Hall as soon as it is safe to do so — possibly this year. At some position, he’ll officially turn into the operator of the house. “We’re finding closer to the level that it can be entrusted to me,” he said.

“Obviously, the family connection was a marketing level with the Council,” Mr. DePree continued. “I really don’t assume any of this would have occurred with out that connection.”

His grandfather, he explained, would be very pleased. “He cherished background and he beloved his Hopwood id,” Mr. DePree reported. “Maybe a number of hundred yrs from now, folks will study about this undertaking and there will be just one or two traces about me.”

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