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6 Bacons Lane

6, Bacon’s Lane, located in the Highgate Conservation Area of London is a Grade II listed house that was designed by the architect Leonard Manasseh for his own family, completed in 1959. It is one of the most important post-war houses in Britain, influenced by Corbusier’s use of raw materials such as brick and concrete in his 1955 Maisons Jaoul that also produced Stirling and Gowan’s Ham Common flats of 1958. He lived there until his death in 2017 at the age of 100.
His son Amos and his family became custodians of the house in 2019 and JPA were appointed to restore the exterior of the house and breathe new life to its interiors, without upsetting the highly prized mid-century feel.

The house is an intricately planned box of tricks, with split-levels, double-height interconnecting spaces set around an open tread staircase. A steep stair leads to an attic space, Manasseh’s home studio that has gallery overlooking the first floor sitting room.

The interiors are largely built using a beautiful cream exposed brick, salvaged (along with marble slabs used on floors and bathrooms) from a demolished church in Southgate) with concrete floor edges and lintels exposed. We retained and cleaned the brickwork and carefully maintained hidden electrical services that run around recessed gaps between doorframes and walls.  Bathrooms and the kitchen were stripped out and rebuilt – the latter taking its form and materials from the original, in contemporary form.

Externally, the roof tiles and dormer were replaced, all windows refurbished and concrete cleaned. 

Within the garden, a sculpture salvaged from the 1951 Festival of Britain called ‘Youth’ by sculptor Daphne Hardy-Henrion, was suffering from 60 years in the British weather and its internal steel skeleton was rusting, so the concrete was falling off. It too was Grade II listed. It was carefully taken away and restored by specialists Taylor Pearce Ltd. and now stands back on its brick plinth, fully restored to its former glory.

The project owes great deal to the conservation officer, Antonia Powell at Camden Council whose father, the late Geoffrey Powell of the acclaimed architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, had been friend of Leonard Manasseh. 

Client Amos Mannaseh
Status Completed (2020)
Project Team Pete Humphry
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