Dream home or inauthentic: The faux-historic mansions dividing opinion

From faux Regency to mock Georgian, brand-new but period-style English country houses are increasingly in demand in the UK, US and elsewhere. But they divide opinion. To some they are inauthentic and lack character – to others they are ideal homes. What is their appeal?

You might be tempted to place a bet on this house being soaked in history. Its Palladian grandeur complete with a columned portico, and a generous sweep of sash windows is set within a terrain of mature trees, ornately clipped hedging and meticulously manicured lawns. This majestic mansion looks like it should have absorbed decades of Victorian leather boots climbing the wide-entrance steps, the delicate rustle of Edwardian dresses sashaying down the spacious staircase, a retinue of servants, heated family arguments, surely a litany of scandals, possibly a ghost. But this house is not what it seems.

Unlike the many period mansions that are dotted across the British countryside – such as Norfolk's Jacobean Blickling Hall, which is said to be haunted by the ghost of Anne Boleyn, or Highclere Castle, the real-life setting for Downton Abbey – this grand, historic-seeming house was completed just a few years ago.

Featuring elegant proportions, hand-carved cornicing, expansive stone doorsteps and porches, and with a flourish of columns, this house and others like it have all been built in recent years – but without a backstory of beheaded queens or servant entourages. Welcome to the world of houses built to look like they've always been there.

Architects are enjoying a surge in demand for these high-end homes in both the UK and the US. The advantages are clear – as architect and author George Saumarez Smith argues in his book The Romance of Classicism: Designing the English Country House for Today. With the use of classical materials like stone, marble and natural slate, these buildings "stand the test of time", he tells the BBC.

As post-war Britain looked to the future, Saumarez Smith argues, architects began to favour modernism, with materials such as concrete, glass and metals dominating. However, these materials are not as weatherproof as classical materials, and as a result in his view these modernist buildings have not aged well.

Instead, his clients come to him because "they want a nice-looking family house that is not going to date quickly and will improve with age."

So, what are the ingredients that make up a proper classical mansion – is it the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and drawing rooms, the sweep of the staircase, the square footage or width of the windows? "A successful modern classical house depends on more than applied style," Liz Smith, architect at Purcell, tells the BBC.

"It needs strong proportion, careful composition, high-quality materials, skilled craftsmanship and a deep understanding of setting. We would always begin by asking what is already there, what stories the site or existing buildings hold, and how new intervention can respond intelligently and sensitively to that context."

Saumarez Smith takes advice from the 2,000-year-old rulebook of Roman architect Vitruvius, whose three principles for good architecture: useful, well-built and beautiful, continue to inform his practice.

Materials and location instruct design decisions. "Everything starts with the landscape", he says. In the UK traditional buildings have long been created with various local materials, limestone flecked with flint, red brick, and Bath or Portland stone. These materials are "a huge part of making a new house feel at home in the landscape."

Detractors may argue that these houses are closer to theatre sets than homes, and that they are merely emulating the gravitas of houses like Blickling or Highclere. It's undeniable that a real-deal Georgian or Regency country pile will have plenty of authentic charm. But equally that home will be eye-wateringly expensive to heat and maintain – and, if listed, subject to strict restrictions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that a house can simply borrow the trappings of the past and call it classical. "There's the problem with pastiche," says Oliver Cooke, director at architecture practice Cooke Fawcett. "Traditional architecture was built in a different time, one of cheap labour, abundant craftsmanship, local materials and construction, and very different environmental priorities. You can't simply reproduce the appearance without reproducing the conditions that gave rise to it. At its worst, pastiche is a modern building dressed up as something it isn't."

The so-called McMansion has been much derided over the decades – the 1990s moniker originated in the US, combining the words "McDonald's" and "mansion", and referred to houses that were huge, generic and mass-marketed.

"What's implied in the word 'McMansion' is that it's been super-sized," Saumarez Smith says. "Everything is overblown, over-scaled, but it has no relationship with its context, like massive houses on small plots. Huge, pretentious porticoes, which have no real function other than to just look important." Done badly, he adds, the results can be almost comic, "like terrible plastic surgery".

But the McMansion is a caricature and the reality in the US is that there are many architects who are creating work way beyond this stereotype. According to a recent article in the New York Times, there's a keen desire for new homes built with classical traditions in a clear rebuttal of modernist design.

US practices such as Ferguson & Shamamian have long offered their clients new buildings inspired by classical traditions and the craftsmanship found in English country-houses, French châteaux or Georgian manor houses. "American building traditions are rooted in English design," the firm's Scott Sottile tells the BBC. These principles were then "adapted to fit new landscapes and local building materials, such as using plentiful timber instead of scarce masonry".

Among the projects by another US firm, Period Architecture, is a home in Delaware inspired by the style of the famous British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, with steeply pitched gables and vertical roofline. "English-inspired country houses have shaped the architectural landscape of the Northeastern US since colonial times, and the building traditions that came with them, like stone masonry and timber framing," Joseph Mackin Jr, co-founder of Period Architecture tells the BBC. "What's changed is that we're now seeing requests for country houses and English-style gardens from homeowners across the country."

British interior designer Nicholas Hodson Taylor says the risk of pastiche is real, but that it comes down to the details and, "the complete and utter avoidance of trends." In his interiors he favours traditional, upholstery Howard-style sofas and armchairs – with low, recessed arms and deep, plump seating – mixed with modern and classic lighting and decorative rugs on walls. "In projects like this, you often start with less and add layers and layers," he says.

Saumarez Smith agrees that good decoration in a classical modern house is a form of storytelling. "The best houses reflect the personality of the people who live there – blending inherited furniture and family pieces, rather than following any single period rulebook."

More like this:

• The historic US home that embodied the super-rich

• The homes revealing how Tudor people lived

• How the Nordics have perfected the summer cabin

Anya Lucas, director of The Georgian Group, is happy to see that classical design is being taken seriously in the 21st Century. "Although our work is mainly concerned with protecting and promoting buildings dating from the 18th or early-19th Centuries," she tells the BBC, "through our architectural awards, we celebrate new design in the spirit of the period."

Perhaps, a classical building is less about history and more about craft. As Hodson Taylor says, "we shouldn't be living in a pastiche of Downton Abbey any more than we should be living on the set of Star Trek". Get the balance right, he says, "take inspiration from one extreme and introduce elements of the other and you can create something that feels… dare I say it… timeless."

The Romance of Classicism: Designing the English Country House for Today by George Saumarez Smith is published by Rizzoli.

--

If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week. 

For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.