Majori Manor Membership
The entrance hall at night: glazed timber doors lit from the far side, the staircase beyond them, a chequered marble floor
Majori Manor

Members & guests

The Club

The house, once you are inside it

Past the front door the estate stops being something to look at and becomes a set of rooms.

Come in
01

The Club

A house, used as a house.

The club is not a room inside the manor house. It is the house: the same doors, the same floors, the same windows onto the park, kept as rooms to sit in rather than as rooms to be shown.

Nothing here is arranged around a service. A member arrives and is in the house rather than seated in it, and which room is for what tends to be settled by the hour and the company.

Two open doors either side of a white glazed stove portal, a further room visible through the right-hand one
02

Inside

One room leads to the next

The enfilade

It is a private house before it is anything else, and the people in it belong to it.

Not every room is open at once. The house is being brought back one at a time, in the order the building allows rather than the order a plan would prefer, and a room opens when it is finished and not before.

03

The rooms

Opened one at a time.

The hall at night, a fire lit in the marble chimneypiece and the staircase reflected in the mirror above it
01 The hall
A drawing room with a gilt-framed settee and armchairs under a lit chandelier, a glazed door standing open
02 The drawing room
A library lined to the ceiling with books, a fire lit under a portrait, leather chairs drawn up to it
03 The library
A long table laid for a private dinner in a dark panelled room, a fire at the far end
04 The private dining room
A room with a bay window, fitted timber banquette seating beneath it and an oval table on the parquet
05 The window room
A white tiled corner stove with a moulded crown, between two dark timber doors
06 The stove room
  1. 01 The hall Marble underfoot, walnut to shoulder height, and the staircase standing in the mirror over the chimneypiece.
  2. 02 The drawing room A settee, four chairs and a door left open onto the landing.
  3. 03 The library Shelves to the ceiling on three walls, and the fourth given to the fire.
  4. 04 The private dining room One table the length of the room, and the door shut behind it.
  5. 05 The window room A banquette under the bay, and the park on the other side of the glass.
  6. 06 The stove room One of the historical tiled stoves, and the room built around it.
04

Detail

What the house was made with.

Six things you only notice once you have stopped walking.

  1. A white marble chimneypiece with a mirror above it, the staircase reflected in the glass

    01 The chimneypiece

  2. A moulded plaster ceiling and the brass chandelier hanging from its rose

    02 The ceiling

  3. The carved apron of a timber oriel bay under a coffered ceiling

    03 Carved oak

  4. The fluted pilasters and carved crown of a white glazed stove portal

    04 A stove portal

  5. The glazed doors of the hall and the leaded transom above them

    05 Leaded glass

  6. The staircase seen from above: turned balusters, winder treads and a tall leaded window

    06 The stair

A dining salon under a crystal chandelier, round tables laid in white linen, candles alight
05

Dining & gatherings

A table that runs long

The dining salon

The house keeps a table, and it is the same table all day.

Coffee in the morning, in whichever room has the light. Lunch that is still sitting well after it has stopped being lunch. Dinner that nobody is asked to give back.

What is on the table follows the season and the people around it, and it is settled in conversation rather than printed.

A dark panelled room with buttoned leather armchairs drawn up to a lit hearth, portraits on the walls
06

The Members' Room

A quieter room.

The hearth

For members and their guests.

Which door it is behind is something to ask about rather than to read.

07

A house of dialogue

What the rooms are for.

  1. A tall dining room under a chandelier, round tables laid the length of it

    01

    Capital & conscience

    Two things usually discussed in separate rooms, and here in one.

  2. A lit terrace at dusk, seating arranged in small groups, the house behind it

    02

    Social opportunity

    A club is a set of introductions that happens to have a building around it.

  3. People in evening dress standing in conversation across a chequered marble hall

    03

    Diplomacy

    Nothing here is on the record. That is most of what a private house is for.

  4. A timber staircase hung with portraits, a lamp lit on the half-landing

    04

    Culture

    Books, music and the people who make them. The house was built with somewhere to put them.

08

The people

Quietly, and in small numbers.

The house is private, which means that what happens in it is not reported anywhere, including here.

What can be said is the shape of it: a small number of people, most of whom know one another, and the guests they bring.

A gloved hand on the open door of a dark car at night
Arriving
Four people in evening dress standing apart in a panelled room, none of them facing the camera
A small number of people
A long bar of dark timber, one figure behind it, bottles lit on the shelves
And whoever is behind the bar

Majori Manor

The house, and the people in it.

The house has not opened. Every application to join it is read individually.

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