This $852,000 Victorian London Home Was Once A Butcher’s Shop

Hand-painted art nouveau tiles and a mahogany payment kiosk feature in this London former butcher’s shop, which hit the market this month.

The north London home has an ornate 1900s interior from its former life as a grocery and butcher’s store. The 2-bedroom live/work home has been restored back to its former glory over the past decade and is for sale for $852,000 with The Modern House estate agency.

Set inside an 1890s terraced house, the maisonette features a fitted-out shopfront in its kitchen and dining room, which once belonged to family business A. Hancock Butchers who commissioned the interior in 1901, according to Richard Travers, the owner of the home. Retaining most of its original fittings and hand-painted shopfront sign, Historic England, the public body that lists historic homes in England, calls it “a rare survival”.

Grade II listed in parts, its walls are decorated with a tiled frieze with art nouveau and green and black tiles and panels of art nouveau tiles in a flower design. It has two long marble counters, one of which has a tiled front depicting rural landscapes. Metal meat racks with scrolled brackets meanwhile hang from its ceiling. Across its back wall is a Queen Anne Revival-style wooden kiosk, which features curved etched glass panels and a fitted desk and shelves behind it. Decorated with vintage lighting, the perfectly preserved room has the feel of a living museum.

Travers, who is an IT consultant and an architecture buff, found the property while searching for a rental home. “I was looking for an unusual home and the agent suggested I look at this place,” he said. “When I first stepped through the front door, my jaw dropped. It’s the most beautiful space I’ve ever been in.”

The 1,200-square-foot home, it turned out, was also for sale and had a buyer. When the deal fell through, Travers put in an offer to buy it, which was accepted. He bought it for $245,000 in 2006, and has spent the past 14 years carefully reviving its former late Victorian interior.

The two-level historic property, which was in poor condition and needed completely restoring, became a labor of love for Travers. “It was a disaster inside and it had only one plumbed water tap,” he said. “I’ve worked on it during my spare time, it has been my hobby.”

The wooden kiosk, in particular, was a huge task, taking his partner 500 hours to remove its many layers of white paint, which were painted on to give it a hygienic look, Travers said. Travers, who works from home, now uses it as his home office. “It’s a spectacular home, a work of art,” he said.

Beyond the kiosk is a sitting room with original wooden floorboards, open fireplace, and views across its courtyard garden, a redundant staircase converted into a storage space, and a workshop room, which has the potential to be a further bedroom. The lower-ground floor bedrooms and bathroom have underfloor heating while the whole apartment has an air-to-air heat exchange ventilation system, according to its sales details.

Travers, who is originally from the US, is selling the home as he relocating to California.

LOCATION

The two-bedroom property is part of a terraced house on Hornsey Road, an A road in the north London neighborhood of Archway. Crouch Hill Overground railway station is half a mile away.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.