Built principally at the start of the 20th century, The White House began its life at the turn of the 18th. Then it was a simple, un-named rural cottage with an adjoining large stable. In 1901 a new owner incorporated both buildings in creating a substantial new 5-bedroomed house clad in white glazed clay bricks. Thus, The White House was born. In 1903, after it was completed, some of the new beams and tiles were cut away to add the afterthought of a red-brick belvedere tower to the south-west corner. Since then, the house has remained largely unchanged, although sympathetic 20th century additions have altered the entrance arrangements, enlarged the kitchen and added a utility room. The present owners have remodelled the central staircase and modernised other features, but the distinctive original layout is intact, and glimpses of the Georgian cottage can be seen both inside and out. The handsome white bricks did not wear as well as the red, and in the 1960s the whole exterior apart from the tower was stuccoed and painted – always white.
Of further note: The White House is positioned a stone’s throw from The Sailors’ Path which follows a beautiful trail walked by sailors for hundreds of years from Aldeburgh to the Crown pub in Snape.
A virtual tour is available upon request.
Accommodation:
Living Room 20’2 x 18’8 (6.15m x 5.70m). With original pine flooring, open working fireplace with stone hearth. French windows to terrace.
Library Hall 10’4 x 10’1 (3.2m x 3.1m). With decorative fireplace.
Study 14’9 x 10’7 (4.49m x 3.23m). With wooden flooring.
East Sitting Room (includes a summer dining area) 29’4 x 13’7 (8.93m x 4.15m). Triple aspect windows, half-carpeted, with Italian ceramic tiled floor in dining area. Fireplace with log burner effect (Calor gas) and slate hearth. French windows to the garden.
Dining Room & Kitchen: Open plan and featuring integral lacquered solid oak cabinets and cupboard units by Henry Gordon Jones. Black granite worktops over base units in kitchen.
Dining room: 21’7 x 13’8 (6.58m x 4.16m). With tiled flooring. Aga (electric. 4-oven). Stable door leading out to rear garden.
Kitchen 18’4 x 8’0 (5.59m x 2.45m). With Suffolk brick flooring. Range of base units with granite worktop. Double oven and 4-hob electric cooker. Inset Belfast sink. Plumbing for dishwasher.
Door to:
Larder 18’3 x 9’0 (5.6m x 2.77m). A large walk-in larder room with plenty of storage. Suffolk brick tiled floor. Wine cupboard. Space for two freestanding American style double fridge/freezers.
Utility Room. 14’10 x 13’11 (4.53m x 4.25m) With tiled flooring. Camray oil-fired boiler, water softener. Sink. Plumbing for washing machine and dryer. Water pressure regulating accumulator. Multiple power sockets.
Off the inner hall:
Shower Room 9’10 x 7’11 (2.99m x 2.41m). With tiled flooring. Basin unit with marble top. WC, bidet and tiled walk-in corner shower cubicle unit, with overhead shower.
Stairs from the hall leading up to the first floor landing:
Shower Room 10’1 x 8’0 (3.06m x 2.43m). With underfloor heating. Tiled flooring. WC and wash hand basin unit. Shower cubicle with overhead rain shower. Cupboard housing pressurised water cylinder.
Bedroom One: 25’2 x 11’2 (7.67m x 3.40m). With decorative fireplace and fitted wardrobes either side.
Bedroom Two: 16’11 x 12’10 (5.15m x 3.91m). With decorative fireplace and wall of fitted wardrobes.
Bedroom Five/Study: 11’6 x 6’10 (3.50m x 2.09m). A single bedroom currently used as a study.
Bedroom Three: 14’2 x 13’7 (4.33m x 4.13m). With corner decorative fireplace. Range of fitted wardrobes.
Bedroom Four: 17’5 x 13’7 (5.30m x 4.13m). With painted wooden fireplace surround. Cupboard housing pressurised water cylinder.
En-suite Bathroom: 7’10 x 6’6 (2.39m x 1.98m). With part tiled walls. Panelled bath with overhead shower, WC with hidden cistern, heated towel rail. Wash hand basin set on marble worktop unit.
Steps from the landing area lead up to:
Attic Room. 13’10 x 10’ (3.96m x 3.04m). Formerly used as a children’s playroom. With pine floor, Velux and casement windows, light and power Access to the belvedere tower.
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Heading out to the garden.
The Garden Studio:
Completed in 2011, of brick construction, the garden studio sits under a pitched pan tiled roof. Internally the studio features open vault ceilings. Open-plan sitting room and kitchen 17’3 x 16’1 (5.26m x 4.90m) with wooden floors, Velux window. Electric radiator and heating. Single run white worktop and white base units, inset electric induction hob, stainless steel sink unit, integrated fridge with freezer compartment. Bedroom 9’7 x 8’5 (2.93m x 2.57m), cleverly partitioned with curtains hung from a cross beam. Shower room 8’5 x 6’6 (2.57m x 1.98m) with under floor heating, wash hand basin unit, WC. Shower cubicle with electric shower.
The Garden:
The beautiful gardens (circa 0.75 acres STMS) surround the property and are mostly laid to lawn with a mixture of ornamental trees, shrubs, and fruit trees including apples, pears, plums, fig, gooseberries, raspberries, redcurrants. There is a kitchen garden section on the western side of the garden. On the western flank of the house, french windows from the sitting room lead out onto a terrace area with awning and buxus borders. Garden rainwater storage: 3,000 litres pumped storage in tanks beside oil tank.
The property benefits from two separate gated entrances.
Cart Lodge and Garage:
With electric gate entrance. Single garage with light and power. Adjoining cart lodge. Ideally suited for installation of an electric car charging point. Tool shed, potting shed with light and power, log store.
Systems and Services:
Heating/hot water: Oil fired central heating and hot water (boiler heats hot water for downstairs bathroom). There is an 1800 litre oil tank located in the rear of the garden. NB hot water for the remainder of the house heated by a solar collector and/or by an electric immersion heater (when central heating is off, downstairs bathroom hot water supplied by separate immersion heater.
Solar Energy: 2.25kW solar photovoltaic panel array on SW roof generates electricity throughout
the year and benefits from the Government's quarterly Feed-In Tariff payments. Separate 30-tube Thermomax solar collector contributes to heating water throughout the year and heats all hot water in summer months.
Council Tax:
Main house – band G
The Garden Studio – Band A
Broadband:
22.4 Mbps download (measured by uSwitch).
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Personal comment from the owner:
Living at The White House has many delights. They include its spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, the peaceful garden of flowers, fruit and birdsong that surrounds it, and the lovely country footpaths that wind from near its gates. A less obvious charm is the knowledge that we are just one of its many custodians, ranging from farm labourers in the original cottage to the 4th Earl of Cranbrook, who owned the house for 30 years. In the 1880s came the widowed Mrs Clarke and her two young sons. George Clarke was to be a Suffolk carpenter all his life, but adventurous William sailed for Australia, found work at a remote sheep station in 'New South Wales Colony' and never returned. In 1903 the new house was bought by Herbert Fox, an Oxford University don who taught Latin and Greek but remarkably also played first-class cricket for Somerset and the MCC. Later there was Lance Sieveking, dashing First World War pilot who when released from German captivity joined the BBC's new wireless service. He had a stellar career in writing and producing radio drama, and brought to the house a succession of writers, artists and composers including E M Forster, Ronald Blythe, Paul Nash and Michael Tippett. Perhaps most memorable was the stunningly beautiful Natalie Denny, artist and artists' muse and later the lover and companion of Randolph Churchill while still married to the second of her three husbands. Belying her socialite reputation, she spent World War Two determinedly organising scrap metal collection for the war effort throughout East Anglia. Mark Gertler's vivid painting of her hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and we have her own pastel drawing of the house interior and garden. The White House has no ghost, but it echoes with the lives of the ordinary and extraordinary people who have made it their home over two centuries. We like to think of them enjoying all the same pleasures that have made it such an enchanting place for us.
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Location:
There are wonderful walks from the property particularly the Sailor’s Path off Priory Road that leads to Aldeburgh. The village of Snape has a primary school, a garage shop, three public houses (The Crown, The Golden Key & The Plough and Sail) and there are several varying shops affiliated within the Snape Maltings music and arts complex, less than a mile away. The A12 is only a short drive away and provides ready access to London which is about 90 miles from the property. Saxmundham station, within 10 minutes' drive, has ample parking and regular services to London via Ipswich and to Norwich via Lowestoft. Situated in the sought-after Suffolk Heritage Coastline, the town of Aldeburgh is also easily accessible and provides ample facilities for sailing, golf, and the fishing enthusiast.
Terms:
Guide price: £1,500,000 subject to contract
Tenure: Freehold
