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FINDERS KEEPERS A centuries-old house in East Sussex provides a charming and characterful home for an antique dealer’s most treasured pieces.
Finders KEEPERS
A centuries-old house in the historic town of Rye in East Sussex provides a charming and characterful space for an antique dealer’s most treasured pieces
FEATURE SARA EMSLIE PHOTOGRAPHY RACHEL WHITING
OPPOSITE PAGE The solid wooden structure of the house is clearly evident from the exposed beams in the sitting room. The layout of the house did not need altering at all. Instead Jackie focused on the decor, creating a calm white backdrop for some of her favourite statement antique pieces and paintings. THIS PAGE The shelves in the kitchen house the eclectic collection of antique and vintage signage, ceramics and earthenware Jackie has gathered over the years, including the ‘Mrs Puckhaber 1876’ chalice (towards the left, lower shelf) which provided the inspiration for the name of her antiques business.
The dining room has a more traditional look than the rest of the interior. A latenineteenth century French dining table is accompanied by a collection of different styles of nineteenthcentury Swedish chairs.
Beautiful, rare and interesting pieces are offset against a neutral palette. ‘Everything has been sourced from my love of antiques’
This house really suits my lifestyle. It has a great feeling of space and light,” explains Jackie Harris of the fourteenth-century property in the historic Cinque Port town of Rye, East Sussex, she shares with partner Allan, and youngest daughter Amelia, when she’s home from university.
Nestled in a conservation area amidst the town’s labyrinth of winding cobbled streets, passageways and half-timbered medieval buildings, Jackie’s townhouse is overflowing with original features. Wonderfully wonky walls, superb centuries-old wide-plank floorboards, exposed low beams and areas of patchworked bricks all point to a house that has been lived in and loved over its time and which, despite its low ceilings, really is flooded with natural light. “That is the reason I have gone for a more minimal style with this house than previous properties,” she says.
“Living in nearby New Romney and wanting to move, Jackie knew that Rye had everything to offer someone like her who is passionate about old buildings, antiques and curiosities. “The historic charm of the house and the history of Rye all had a huge influence on my wanting to live here,” she explains. “Not needing to change the layout in any way, apart from some cosmetic work to the kitchen and bathroom, was a major draw, too, as I work full time in as an antiques dealer.” The interior of Jackie’s home is a testament to her 30 years of experience as a professional antiques collector, with the beautiful, rare and interesting pieces she has sourced sympathetically offset against a considered palette of neutral tones. “Everything in my home has been sourced from my love of antiques,” she explains. She runs through the origins of some of the pieces in the sitting room: a mid-twentieth century industrial floor lamp sits alongside nineteenth-century
ABOVE LEFT Jackie on her patio, surrounded by lush greenery. The garden table and chairs are French turn-of-the century pieces. Visit puckhaberdecorative antiques.com to find out more about Jackie’s antiques. ABOVE RIGHT The kitchen has a rustic-industrial feel with wood, brick and steel finishes and was already in situ when Jackie moved in. Similar floor tiles are available from Floors of Stone.
landscape and portrait paintings, an early nineteenthcentury Windsor comb back chair and a pair of nineteenth-century tea caddies with painted numbers. Jackie has chosen the sophisticated off-white tones of Strong White in the sitting room and Old White in the dining room, both by Farrow & Ball, to create a clean and minimal studio-like space. “I have decorated with what I call a continuation of the Puckhaber style,” she explains, a reference to the antiques business she runs in partnership with her son Martyn.
Specialising in country primitive and Swedish and French decorative antiques from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Jackie’s son heads up the original London Puckhaber showroom whilst she runs the second space in Rye. “It really has proved to be the perfect spot for showcasing our style,” she says. The exposed beams, whitewashed walls and stripped wooden floors of Puckhaber No1 The High Street have clearly influenced the gallery-style interiors at home. Indeed, throughout the entire house are
The sitting room is light and bright with views over the garden. “Even my sofas are antique. I have had them reupholstered with fabrics from Merchant & Mills, who are based in Rye,” says Jackie. The cushions are made out of vintage Hungarian grain sacks.
paintings of all styles and eras: “The lovely portrait of the young lady that hangs above the wooden chair in the living room, my son Martyn found in the UK on his buying travels. It is nineteenth-century English and quite captivating.” Not only are there paintings on the walls, but also propped up casually on cupboards, sideboards and the floor, leaning rather than hanging. “I’m a great fan of propping pictures rather than hanging – they are easy to move around which makes for a great way of refreshing a space and prevents a room looking static and cluttered,” says Jackie.
Upstairs, too, in Jackie’s bedroom, strategically placed on the wall that greets the eye on entering, is a sublime French unframed oil of a nun that dates back to the mid-nineteenth century.Softly shrouded in daylight from the nearby window and set against moody grey walls, it adopts an almost ghost-like feel and imbues the room with a calm, serene feel, nicely complemented by Jackie’s fine antiques, of course. “This is my favourite room in the house and is full of really special pieces,” she says.“The bedstead is English nineteenth-century, with its original paint finish still intact. The mirror is eighteenth-century French from a chateau, and the unusual inlaid continental concave commode dates back to the early nineteenth century. I also have a huge collection of lovelyantique French linen sheets.”
Jackie and son Martyn source a great deal of their stock mainly in France and Belgium,and some of the very special pieces never get much further than Jackie’s
ABOVE Above a nineteenth-century Windsor comb-back chair and wooden table is a delightful nineteenth-century English painting of a young lady Jackie’s son Martyn found in the UK on one of his buying trips. FAR LEFT Many of Jackie’s quirky finds are from local antique fairs such as Ardingly and Kempton Park.
Jackie’s bedroom walls are painted with Manor House Gray by Farrow & Ball. The eighteenth-century French mirror originally hung in a chateau. Jackie recommends the weekly markets in Paris such as Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen for similar beautiful antique pieces.
The unusual inlaid French antique concave commode in Jackie’s bedroom dates from the early nineteenth century.
front door, such as the late nineteenth-century French dining table and the lions in the inglenook fireplace.
The garden table and chairs outside are also French antiques, hunted out by Jackie and Martyn’s keen magpie eyes and still loved by Jackie as much as the day she bought them. “Only ever buy things you love because they don’t always go up in value,” she advises. “Antique buying, believe it or not, is a fashion-led industry as well, so don’t just buy for investment sake. Wherever I look at home there are wonderful things accumulated from being an antique dealer for over 30 years and I have found some amazing, quirky things over the years.”
Which brings us nicely to the well-worn humble china chalice tucked in amongst an eclectic mix of antique and vintage jugs, mugs and bowls on the kitchen shelves, bearing the legend ‘Mrs Puckhaber 1876’. “This simple ceramic chalice is one of my favourites and was picked up many years ago,” Jackie explains. “It has been given a new lease of life now as it inspired the name of our business.” It sits comfortably in its new home alongside Jackie’s beautifully curated collection of antique pieces. Mrs Puckhaber, whoever she was, would most likely have approved. n
ABOVE RIGHT A traditional wooden plank door, wide floorboards and beams all add character to the main bedroom. LEFT The bathroom had already been updated with a contemporary-style bateau bath and freestanding bath tap when Jackie bought the house. For similar, try Victoria Plumbing. Jackie’s addition of a tiny, framed painting, an antique stool and a French nineteenthcentury decoy duck combines old and modern beautifully. The Berber-style bathmat is from Graham & Green.
