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

Men and women who research genealogy web sites usually obtain delivery and marriage documents, newspaper clippings, light photographs or maybe a very long-lost relative.

Hopwood DePree identified a 60-home English manor.

As a boy or girl expanding up in Holland, Mich., in the 1970s, Mr. DePree was transfixed when his beloved maternal grandfather, Pap, a heritage buff, instructed him about a big slice of rolling land across the ocean the place his forebears experienced a grand dwelling named Hopwood Castle.

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

Quickly forward 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 night in the spring of 2013, trawling an ancestry web site.

The previous had grow to be a beloved spot for him soon after Pap’s death in 2008 and, two a long time afterwards, the sudden dying of his father, Thomas, from a huge coronary heart attack. Mr. DePree was left unmoored, unsure about the way ahead. Tracing his roots was a convenience.

That fateful evening, he noticed a website link to a tale about a Lord Hopwood of Hopwood Hall and an aged black-and-white photograph of a very stately property in Middleton, England, just outdoors Manchester. Increasingly curious, Mr. DePree produced some e mail inquiries and booked a flight to see firsthand the family members seat.

A 50,000-square-foot, brick-and-stone manor created in a quadrangle around a timber-framed hall, Hopwood Hall experienced witnessed much better hundreds of years. The roof leaked prodigiously, dry rot was ascendant, moisture seeped from the partitions, plaster was falling from the ceilings, home windows were being lacking panes, flooring were being lacking boards, numerous sections of the home experienced been vandalized. Trees were developing out of the chimneys.

And still … there were doorways dotted with rivets from the medieval period of time — some sections of the house date to 1426 — and doorways with their initial hand-forged hardware. The wooden-paneled partitions in a single of the parlors were decorated with intricate carvings from baseboard to ceiling. The fire in a area recognized as the reception hall was embellished with an iteration of the Hopwood family coat of arms the family’s heraldic animal, a stag and the Hopwood spouse and children motto, “By Degrees.”

“When I walked in, I felt a little something in me alter pretty much instantly. I understood this location was distinctive,” Mr. DePree, 52, stated. “But I was informed for the duration of that 1st visit that if almost nothing was finished, in just five or 10 decades, Hopwood Corridor would crumble.”

He chronicles his endeavours to save the hall in “Downton Shabby: A person American’s Ultimate Diy Experience Restoring His Family’s English Castle,” a memoir released late past thirty day period.

Hopwoods lived in the dwelling right up until the early 1920s, in accordance to the e book. But after the two heirs ended up killed for the duration of Globe War I, their grieving aged mothers and fathers closed up the residence and moved to London. A cotton company utilised the hall throughout Entire world War II, and in 1946 an order of monks moved in for a number of a long time. By the late 1980s, the home experienced develop into the duty of the local authority, which had neither the will nor the wherewithal to maintain it. Then came Mr. DePree.

The “DIY” in the book’s title is, possibly, much more than a little bit misleading: Mr. DePree, who bears a passing resemblance to Owen Wilson, isn’t the man 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 seriously stands for “Dim Inexperienced Yank.”

But credit history exactly where credit rating is owing: The Yank has appear a long way from the humiliating moment when he stood in a parking lot of a Household Depot in Los Angeles, almost in tears for the reason that he couldn’t determine out how to get the job done the stick-on tiles he had purchased for his rest room flooring.

“I’ve realized how to combine mortar and make plaster molds. I’ve realized to do pointing on bricks,” mentioned Mr. DePree, who offered his residence in Los Angeles five years in the past and moved whole time to Middleton to immerse himself in the preservation endeavours. “But I would not say at all that I’m a qualified craftsman by any extend of the creativeness.”

Still, he has done a great deal of significant lifting since 2017, when he signed a contract with the Rochdale Borough Council, the community authority, to presume obligation for Hopwood Hall. (The Council had 1st verified his familial bona fides.) The offer gave Mr. DePree five decades to come up with a practicable and absolutely detailed program to conserve his ancestral property and build a sustainable model to continue to keep the lights on.

“His quest truly is the stuff of goals,” Neil Emmott, the leader of the Council, wrote in an e mail. “When we very first read about Hopwood’s ambitions, we weren’t certain if they constituted a viable proposal. Nevertheless, slowly and gradually but undoubtedly, we have found how his really hard operate and dedication coupled with the aid of lots of group volunteers is turning the fantasy into fact.”

“Hopwood was just feeling his way when I very first achieved him, but he’s become more self-confident,” mentioned Geoff Wellens, a community historian. “I definitely believe that if anybody can get the occupation finished, it is him. It’s his family’s old house. He has that household tie.”

Little bit by little bit, Mr. DePree has turn out to be the general public encounter of the work, its cheerleader in main and dedicated fund-raiser. Latest grants from Historic England, a govt agency, and the Rochdale Borough Council total extra than $1 million.

Many thanks to an acquaintance, Mr. DePree was also invited to join Historic Properties, an affiliation comprising the proprietors of lots of of Britain’s major non-public residences. At the 1st gathering of the team that he attended, he met the pretty welcoming Lord and Girl Carnarvon — “Geordie and Fiona” — the house owners of Highclere Castle, where significantly of “Downton Abbey” was shot. He also fulfilled Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey” and the operator of Stafford House, a grand pile on the south coastline of England.

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

Before long right after his go to Britain, Mr. DePree commenced a YouTube channel, submitting videos for close friends and supporters to chart the development of the restoration. He also wrote a one particular-guy clearly show about his travails and triumphs, and toured it at comedy festivals around the country.

The cost tag for the house advancement is $13 million, with once-a-year working charges approximated at $800,000, Mr. DePree reported. Proceeds from his display have been contributed to the lead to a chunk of the royalties from his reserve will go towards it, also.

“Many place residences in the U.K. have had to come across means to reinvent them selves to preserve up with the huge expenses of operating, staffing and servicing, and Hopwood Corridor is on a identical path,” Mr. DePree claimed. He hopes to change the manor into an arts hub for the regional group and a vacationer vacation spot. A marriage destination, way too. Hopwood Hall will have all around 25 bedrooms to accommodate the festivities.

There are now often as a lot of as 30 paid personnel and keen volunteers at the corridor on a supplied working day. “We’re going ahead quite rapidly,” mentioned Mr. DePree all through a recent Zoom call as he walked by way of the carriage entrance, currently a holding location for the significant squares of slate that will soon pave the roof. “This calendar year has been thrilling mainly because I’ve been going for walks into rooms that it had not been risk-free to stroll into prior to.”

But progress is not automatically continuous. “A several months back, there was proof that probably there were bats in the hall, so we had to straight away halt what we have been doing and test with gurus and do a bat survey, mainly because bats are a secured species,” he claimed.

Traveling mammals are amongst the lots of troubles. Hopwood Hall is also a “Grade 2* listed” setting up, a designation by Historic England for constructions of distinct architectural or historical fascination. As a result, partitions simply cannot be knocked down willy-nilly a freshly learned doorway just cannot be pried open without having permission.

Little by little, Mr. DePree has grasped that he isn’t in Los Angeles any longer. “I’m finding out about heritage expertise and knowledge that you just can’t use contemporary materials,” he mentioned.

In other words and phrases, drywall from Dwelling Depot is not an possibility. Instead, you have to identify some goat hair and, applying medieval tactics, combine it with lime mortar. And no off-the-rack home windows — you have to use unique glass, Mr. DePree reported, “and load it into a leaded-glass window, which is a whole talent unto alone.”

Underneath the terms of his agreement with the Council, Mr. DePree can move into Hopwood Corridor as shortly as it’s risk-free to do so — perhaps this yr. At some position, he’ll officially come to be the owner of the home. “We’re having closer to the stage that it can be entrusted to me,” he stated.

“Obviously, the family connection was a promoting point with the Council,” Mr. DePree ongoing. “I really do not consider any of this would have happened without the need of that relationship.”

His grandfather, he stated, would be very pleased. “He loved historical past and he beloved his Hopwood id,” Mr. DePree reported. “Maybe numerous hundred years from now, people today will examine about this job and there will be 1 or two traces about me.”

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