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

People who research genealogy internet sites frequently discover beginning and marriage data, newspaper clippings, pale images or maybe a extensive-lost relative.

Hopwood DePree uncovered a 60-area English manor.

As a youngster growing up in Holland, Mich., in the 1970s, Mr. DePree was transfixed when his beloved maternal grandfather, Pap, a history buff, told him about a substantial slice of rolling land across the ocean in which his forebears had a grand household identified as Hopwood Castle.

A castle in Britain owned by his loved ones? Named for his loved ones? No way.

Speedy ahead three and a half a long time. Mr. DePree, by then an actor and producer in Los Angeles, was at his laptop or computer early one particular night time in the spring of 2013, trawling an ancestry site.

The past experienced turn into a most loved spot for him after Pap’s demise in 2008 and, two many years later, the unexpected loss of life of his father, Thomas, from a enormous heart assault. Mr. DePree was remaining unmoored, uncertain about the way ahead. Tracing his roots was a comfort.

That fateful evening, he noticed a hyperlink to a story about a Lord Hopwood of Hopwood Hall and an aged black-and-white image of a incredibly stately home in Middleton, England, just exterior Manchester. More and more curious, Mr. DePree manufactured some e mail inquiries and booked a flight to see firsthand the spouse and children seat.

A 50,000-square-foot, brick-and-stone manor created in a quadrangle close to a timber-framed hall, Hopwood Corridor experienced witnessed much better hundreds of years. The roof leaked prodigiously, dry rot was ascendant, dampness seeped from the partitions, plaster was falling from the ceilings, windows have been missing panes, flooring were being lacking boards, a lot of sections of the household experienced been vandalized. Trees had been rising out of the chimneys.

And however … there were being doors dotted with rivets from the medieval interval — some sections of the property day to 1426 — and doors with their original hand-cast components. The wooden-paneled walls in a person of the parlors were embellished with intricate carvings from baseboard to ceiling. The fireplace in a place recognized as the reception corridor was embellished with an iteration of the Hopwood family members coat of arms the family’s heraldic animal, a stag and the Hopwood family members motto, “By Levels.”

“When I walked in, I felt something in me improve almost immediately. I realized this place was special,” Mr. DePree, 52, claimed. “But I was informed for the duration of that first check out that if practically nothing was finished, within just five or 10 several years, Hopwood Corridor would crumble.”

He chronicles his efforts to conserve the corridor in “Downton Shabby: A person American’s Greatest Diy Experience Restoring His Family’s English Castle,” a memoir revealed late last thirty day period.

Hopwoods lived in the property right until the early 1920s, in accordance to the guide. But soon after the two heirs were killed during Environment War I, their grieving aged parents shut up the residence and moved to London. A cotton organization employed the corridor for the duration of Planet War II, and in 1946 an order of monks moved in for a couple of many years. By the late 1980s, the assets experienced turn out to be the obligation of the community authority, which had neither the will nor the wherewithal to preserve it. Then came Mr. DePree.

The “DIY” in the book’s title is, potentially, more than a little bit deceptive: Mr. DePree, who bears a passing resemblance to Owen Wilson, isn’t the man reglazing the windows, plastering the partitions, stabilizing the foundation or changing floorboards. Hopwood Hall’s longtime caretaker, Bob Wall, has joked that the acronym genuinely stands for “Dim Inexperienced Yank.”

But credit history exactly where credit history is owing: The Yank has come a extensive way from the humiliating minute when he stood in a parking lot of a Residence Depot in Los Angeles, just about in tears because he couldn’t determine out how to operate the stick-on tiles he had bought for his lavatory flooring.

“I’ve uncovered how to blend mortar and make plaster molds. I have discovered to do pointing on bricks,” stated Mr. DePree, who marketed his household in Los Angeles five several years in the past and moved full time to Middleton to immerse himself in the preservation efforts. “But I wouldn’t say at all that I’m a expert craftsman by any stretch of the imagination.”

However, he has done a great deal of weighty lifting given that 2017, when he signed a deal with the Rochdale Borough Council, the local authority, to suppose responsibility for Hopwood Hall. (The Council had 1st confirmed his familial bona fides.) The offer gave Mr. DePree five a long time to occur up with a practicable and thoroughly in depth approach to save his ancestral property and make a sustainable design to hold the lights on.

“His quest genuinely is the things of desires,” Neil Emmott, the chief of the Council, wrote in an e mail. “When we first listened to about Hopwood’s ambitions, we weren’t absolutely sure if they constituted a viable proposal. Even so, slowly and gradually but surely, we have viewed how his really hard function and determination coupled with the assist of quite a few community volunteers is turning the fantasy into reality.”

“Hopwood was just feeling his way when I initially met him, but he’s develop into additional confident,” said Geoff Wellens, a nearby historian. “I genuinely believe that if any one can get the position carried out, it is him. It is his family’s outdated home. He has that family members tie.”

Bit by little bit, Mr. DePree has turn out to be the community confront of the energy, its cheerleader in chief and dedicated fund-raiser. The latest grants from Historic England, a govt agency, and the Rochdale Borough Council overall more than $1 million.

Many thanks to an acquaintance, Mr. DePree was also invited to sign up for Historic Houses, an association comprising the owners of many of Britain’s most significant non-public residences. At the 1st accumulating of the group that he attended, he achieved the extremely welcoming Lord and Girl Carnarvon — “Geordie and Fiona” — the homeowners of Highclere Castle, wherever considerably of “Downton Abbey” was shot. He also achieved Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey” and the operator of Stafford Dwelling, a grand pile on the south coastline of England.

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

Quickly just after his transfer to Britain, Mr. DePree began a YouTube channel, publishing films for friends and supporters to chart the progress of the restoration. He also wrote a one particular-male demonstrate about his travails and triumphs, and toured it at comedy festivals around the state.

The cost tag for the property improvement is $13 million, with yearly running fees believed at $800,000, Mr. DePree claimed. Proceeds from his show have been contributed to the cause a chunk of the royalties from his book will go toward it, far too.

“Many nation houses in the U.K. have had to obtain ways to reinvent on their own to preserve up with the great charges of functioning, staffing and upkeep, and Hopwood Hall is on a comparable route,” Mr. DePree claimed. He hopes to convert the manor into an arts hub for the nearby neighborhood and a tourist vacation spot. A wedding day desired destination, much too. Hopwood Corridor will have all around 25 bedrooms to accommodate the festivities.

There are now sometimes as lots of as 30 paid out employees and eager volunteers at the corridor on a offered day. “We’re moving forward rather immediately,” reported Mr. DePree in the course of a latest Zoom call as he walked via the carriage entrance, currently a keeping area for the huge squares of slate that will before long pave the roof. “This year has been interesting for the reason that I have been going for walks into rooms that it experienced not been secure to walk into just before.”

But progress isn’t always steady. “A several months back, there was proof that maybe there ended up bats in the corridor, so we had to straight away halt what we were undertaking and check out with experts and do a bat study, due to the fact bats are a secured species,” he claimed.

Traveling mammals are amongst the many difficulties. Hopwood Hall is also a “Grade 2* listed” developing, a designation by Historic England for structures of individual architectural or historic fascination. As a result, partitions can’t be knocked down willy-nilly a recently found door can not be pried open without the need of permission.

Little by little, Mr. DePree has grasped that he isn’t in Los Angeles any longer. “I’m mastering about heritage competencies and comprehension that you just cannot use modern supplies,” he explained.

In other text, drywall from House Depot is not an alternative. Alternatively, you have to track down some goat hair and, using medieval methods, combine it with lime mortar. And no off-the-rack home windows — you have to use certain glass, Mr. DePree mentioned, “and load it into a leaded-glass window, which is a complete skill unto itself.”

Underneath the phrases of his agreement with the Council, Mr. DePree can transfer into Hopwood Corridor as before long as it’s secure to do so — maybe this yr. At some level, he’ll formally turn out to be the proprietor of the assets. “We’re having nearer to the issue that it can be entrusted to me,” he mentioned.

“Obviously, the family members connection was a promoting point with the Council,” Mr. DePree ongoing. “I don’t imagine any of this would have took place with out that connection.”

His grandfather, he explained, would be very pleased. “He cherished historical past and he cherished his Hopwood id,” Mr. DePree claimed. “Maybe a number of hundred years from now, individuals will examine about this job and there will be a person or two strains about me.”

For weekly e-mail updates on residential authentic estate news, signal up listed here. Abide by us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.