COASTAL CALLING
Getting their home decked out in good time is key to one couple’s relaxed Christmas by the sea
Getting their seaside bolthole decked out in style is key to a couple’s stylish Christmas
If Christmas on the beach sounds more sandy Bahamas than shingle in Kent, then Mark Hampshire and Keith Stephenson’s railway carriage home tells a different story. The couple behind homeware brand Mini Moderns, they design and sell wallpaper, ceramics and accessories around vintage-inspired themes. They already had strong associations with Dungeness and were staying nearby in 2011, when Mark came across two properties for sale on the beach. ‘By Monday morning, we’d had an offer accepted on one of the old railway carriages,’ he laughs.
How these railway carriages happened to be on the beach at all is answered when Keith reveals their history: ‘In the early years of last century, employees of Southern Railway were allowed to buy old carriages and drag them to the beach as holiday huts.’ And their carriage is just one in the higgledy-piggledy row facing the sea along the shingle, recently made famous by the fundraising effort to save the late film
director Derek Jarman’s old home and sea-garden that sits among them.
‘As soon as our purchase went through, we made regular trips to Dungeness at weekends and began to strip out the carriage and make plans for how to reconfigure the space,’ Keith continues. ‘It took us the best part of a year to get it to a state fit to stay in.’ Mark and Keith live most of the week above their London studio-cum-warehouse, and Christmas is always an extra-special time for them, as Mark explains: ‘It’s the one time in the year when we can take a whole week away from running the business and hunker down in Dungeness. Otherwise, it’s where we come at weekends, summer and winter.’
Each year, getting ready for Christmas happens in the middle of December, when they come down specially to put up the tree, hang the lights and decorate the carriage. ‘We both absolutely love Christmas,’ Mark enthuses. ‘It’s not all about presents, it’s the feel of the season. Then, when we arrive for Christmas itself and step through the door, it’s ready and waiting for us to celebrate.’ Their decorating style mixes rustic with Scandinavian, in tune with the way they have arranged the interior around a love of mid-century-style furniture, colour and pattern.
One aspect of the carriage that delighted them is that it was one of the few designed for the guard and equipped with a rooflight that enabled him to look down the track for oncoming hazards. Now, this generous glazing throws extra light into their living room. The pair created this sizeable space by taking down stud partitions between three bedrooms along the front of the carriage, where windows deliver the main view of the beach. The next question was about the choice of a decorating colour. ‘There was so much brown wood everywhere with cladding, interlinked joists and tongue-and-groove boarding that the space still felt incredibly small,’ Keith explains. ‘By painting the walls, ceiling and woodwork white,
except for the few walls we’ve papered, the space opened out and was suddenly so much lighter. It also helped integrate the ceiling divisions where the carriage was extended along the front in the 1950s.’
Furniture is mainly mid-century, and one signature piece is the Guy Rogers New Yorker sofa dating from the 1960s, a design sold through Heal’s in London. Keith purchased it on Ebay without realising he had. ‘I didn’t mind though,’ he laughs. ‘It’s perfect here as the green tweed has helped establish other colours in the room, including our tendency to use green and bright patterns when decorating for Christmas. Another point about mid-century furniture,’ he adds, ‘is that it stands on spindly legs so you can see under it, which helps increase the sense of space.’ Tucked into the corner are more spindly legs, this time in aluminium, belonging to 1950s Eames DSS side chairs set around the dining table.
Keith and Mark gutted the kitchen then removed the door and
‘There was so much brown wood everywhere. By painting the walls, ceiling and woodwork white, the space was suddenly so much brighter’
a section of the passageway wall making it instantly open plan. Then they called in a joiner to give new Ikea cabinets the bespoke treatment. ‘Again, the units we chose sit on thin legs,’ Mark says, ‘and the worktop is stainless steel, a bit like a fishmonger’s, so quite appropriate for Dungeness. There isn’t a lot of cupboard space here but there’s a surprisingly roomy pantry and the shelf along the wall for display.’
To this pair of designers, decorating for Christmas is about detail and the homemade. ‘Dungeness is swathed in mystery,’ Keith says. ‘And you can never tell myths and legends from the truth so it’s always an exciting place to be, especially at Christmas. For us, this is the home where we can light the stove for warmth, with candles and tree lights for festive atmosphere. We love making decorations too,’ Mark adds, ‘collecting fir cones to paint white and making our wreath from broom, other grasses and seed heads of sea kale we’ve picked to dry in summer. We like to amuse friends by telling them we make our Christmas wreath from beach holly!’ So the magical spirit of Dungeness that brought them here even has a hand in the decorating.
The decorating style mixes rustic with Scandinavian