The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
PERTH HOME FAIR PRETTY
A handsome house close to the centre of the Fair City has been given a stunning makeover by its interior designer owner. Jack McKeown is enthralled by the home at Tullylumb Terrace
Like many homes built in the early years of the 20th Century, 11 Tullylumb Terrace is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Stone mullion windows, cut sandstone edging and other architectural flourishes are among its many delights. Where 11 Tullylumb Terrace differs from some other homes of its era is in having an interior that is every bit as special as its outside.
Each room is painted a different colour, with dark greens, blues and purples creating a harmonious feeling of warmth.
Generous sizes and high ceilings mean the rooms can take dark colours without feeling looming or enclosed. With the open fires and wood burner in the study on, this must be a wonderful home to shelter from the worst winter weather in.
It’s owned by David and Jody Brown, who bought the house 13 years ago.
“You never really own a house like this,”
David smiles as he greets me at the door. “You’re just its custodian for a while and you try to pass it on in better condition than you found it.”
The couple ran the house as a bed and breakfast for several years before renting it out when work took David to London.
“We moved back to Scotland two and a half years ago and started the bed and breakfast back up,” David explains. “Bookings were really good, but then Covid came along and everything fell off a cliff.”
The house is located opposite Perth Royal Infirmary and is less than 10 minutes’ walk into the centre of the Fair City.
“The train station is nearby, so it’s easy to commute into the centre of Edinburgh or Glasgow,” David continues.
“Jody’s a keen hill walker – she’s climbed Kilimanjaro and hiked the Camino De Santiago trail – and the mountains of Glenshee are not far away. In fact you can see them from the upstairs windows.”
With six bedrooms, four bathrooms and six reception rooms spread over three floors and 325 sq m there is plenty of living space for even the largest family.
The house is believed to have originally been built for the Gloag family around 1906. There is a choice of two main doors, both large timber affairs, leading into vestibules with original tiled floors.
David, 53, and Jody, 56, have sympathetically restored the interior. The windows have been renovated and repainted while the original timber flooring has been sanded and stained.
“There are so many great original features and we’ve made sure to keep them all and restore them whenever we could,” David says.
Jody runs her own interior design business – Jody Brown Design – and 11 Tullylumb Terrace is the perfect showcase of her talents. Exploring the house is like walking around
a boutique hotel. The living room is painted a deep purple colour and has a four-bay window at one end and an additional window to the side. There’s an open fire with castiron surround, wooden flooring and original cornicing. The windows all have beautiful ornate stained glass in their uppermost panes.
The spacious dining room has another fourbay window with stained glass top panes and timber surrounds. A smaller sitting room has an open fire and is a cosier and less formal space than the main living room.
David opens the office door and the couple’s lovely 14-year-old golden Labrador Finn clambers to his feet and bounds over to give the visitor a good sniff and a cuddle.
The office has another stunning array of windows looking out into the garden and a wood burner to keep David warm through the winter.
As an IT consultant, David’s work used to take him all over the world before Covid struck. “For a while I was commuting to America every week,” he says. “Having worked from here for the past year, I now can’t imagine going back to that kind of lifestyle.”
Warmed by a large Aga, the kitchen is a lovely room that is the perfect spot to enjoy a pot of coffee.
“When we ran the house as a bed and breakfast we basically lived in this room and the sitting room,” David explains.
“Even now it’s just us in the house, where we spend most of our time.”
An original timber staircase is lit by a large stained glass window and leads up to the firstfloor landing.
There is a choice of master bedrooms – an extremely large room with bay window looking over the front garden and double side windows, or an only slightly smaller room with its own en suite bathroom.
There are two more double bedrooms and a shower room on the first floor. this is
The staircase continues up to a spacious attic landing. Up here are two more bedrooms, another shower room and a box room. At this height, the views across Perth to the hills beyond are even more impressive.
At one point 11 Tullylumb Terrace was owned by Tayside Health Board, which converted it into several flats. However, the owners prior to David and Jody restored it back into one house.
The couple had a summerhouse year, which has power and light intended to become Jody’s studio.
There is a stone garage and storehouse, with the garage having its own car pit.
The gardens wrap around the house, with stone walls, hedging providing privacy, and mature trees.
There are seating areas to the front and side of the house. “Because the gardens wrap around you can have the morning sunshine in the back garden then catch the evening sun sitting in the front garden,” David explains.
A gravel driveway and parking area has plenty of space for a good number of cars.
The couple are now looking to move to County Tipperary, where Jody comes from and where the rest of their family now live.
Jody contracted cancer last year and, while she has undergone successful treatment, the experience has made the couple rethink their lives.
“Our three children and six grandchildren are all in Ireland,” David says.
“We always intended to move back there at some point to be closer to them, but going through this has made us decide to accelerate our plans. You never know what life will throw at you next, so we’ve decided to focus on the most important things, which for us is our children and grandchildren.” built last and was
11 Tullylumb Terrace is on sale with Savills for offers over £685,000.