Life & Art at the Flower Loft, Trereife

 _{Looking through the kitchen window of the Flower Loft, out across the gardens and the parterre at Trereife that Lyn designed.}  

The Cornish artist Jeremy Le Grice (1936 - 2012) and his wife, the renowned interior designer Lyn, moved into the Flower Loft at Trereife in 1995.

Trereife is a beautiful 18th century country estate near Penzance, and has been in the Le Grice family for over 200 years. The Flower Loft, a large, cavernous space originally used for packing daffodils and anemones grown on the estate, was skilfully reimagined by Lyn as a welcoming and stylish home. Effortlessly instagramable, it has repeatedly featured in interior design publications.

Ruth Guilding, Bible of British Taste and World of Interiors writes...

Lyn Le Grice has an artist’s eye. She’s a consummately original putter-together and assembler of beautiful things, a maker and re-maker of old houses for herself and so many others. Her clients and friends chose her for her abilities with colour and pattern and a feeling of comfortableness that was luxurious - but not too much so.
But when she decorated for herself she pulled all the stops out.

The wing at Trereife was the last of these homes that she made, a horizontal space forming an L-shape around the garden front of the Queen Anne house and the stableyard. The graceful 1700s rooms with their cool white plaster ceilings have been painted in mauvey lilacs, soft blue, apple green and blusher pink, the more utilitarian loft rooms were her kitchen and dining and library spaces and utilities, where an earthy scumbled plaster pink predominates. She used her trademark stencil patterns here - but sparingly - and hand painted the plank floor in giant chequerboards. Landscape paintings by her husband Jeremy Le Grice, with their brooding bulky forms of boat hull and headland, looked good on these walls. Jeremy and Lyn papered their walls with paintings – many by local friends and acquaintances such as Roger and Rose Hilton, Romi Behrens and Karl Weschke. Lyn hung her own decorative designs edge to edge in the apple green spine corridor outside her bedroom.

She had an unerring eye for art pottery and ceramics and the old glass and silver also beloved of the painters Ben and William Nicholson, dark Chinese lacquer work - some inherited - and old joinery. The lovely Bergere sofa and armchairs in her drawing room arrived here after a hospitable antique dealer invited her family to shelter from the rain inside his shop. She covered Georgian chair squabs in antique remnants, cut up quilts and bedcovers to make the most beautiful curtains and ranged Staffordshire pottery on her bedroom mantle before it came back into vogue. The courtyard garden and hortus closus here were made over in her own image of Eden too, filled with terracotta pots, planters and garden furniture. The outhouses were studio spaces with shelves full of fabric samples and remnants, portfolio designs and the stencils that made her famous - featured in Vogue and many other style magazines.

All this will be sold on July 17th & 18th...

Lyn Le Grice was a formidable talent in the world of interior design. She created extraordinary homes for rock stars and aristocracy, was influential in shaping the interior fashions of the late 20th century, wrote several books, ran her own shop, ‘The Stencil House’ in Penzance, all whilst raising her family.

She was the driving force behind the stencilling fashion of the 1980s and her stencils were sold around the world. Having started out in fashion at Hornsey College of Art, she has also turned her talents to stage and costume design, and in later life worked on several large opera productions.

Jeremy studied at the Slade School of Art (1959-61). Peter Lanyon was a great mentor to Jeremy and he was lucky enough to attend Lanyon’s art classes in St Ives. Le Grice was devoted to West Cornwall, the essence of its moody landscape, wild coastline and maritime history was in the blood of all his paintings. His large works are magnificent and dramatic, eulogies to old ship’s hulls and Penwith hillsides; his small oils are treasures, tiny love letters to his surroundings. He was an important figure in the post-war and later 20th century St Ives art scene, a founder member of the Penwith Galleries and an outspoken trustee of Newlyn Art Gallery. He exhibited in significant galleries throughout his lifetime, and Lyn placed his paintings in many of her most important design projects, impressive counterpoints to her remarkable interiors.

   _{Jeremy Le Grice, St Just, 1960. Oil on board}

At the Flower Loft, Jeremy’s bold and mysterious paintings adorn most walls, the perfect foil to Lyn’s inspired use of colour and space. His works hang harmoniously alongside the many beautiful objects and artefacts collected by both, the effect is an environment that is both breathtaking and yet serene.

 _{Lot 18. Jeremy Le Grice, 'Trembath Wood' 2002, hangs inside the Flower Loft interior}

Jeremy sadly died in 2012 and infirmity now forces Lyn to leave the beautiful home they created. We are honoured to be handling the sale of the contents, which includes fifty of Jeremy’s paintings, plus many other works by important artists, from the Le Grice’s friends and colleagues. This will be a very special sale indeed and a once in a lifetime opportunity to view and acquire works from these two extraordinary individuals.

Click here to view the full catalogue of the Flower Loft Sale, and register for the sale