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Capel Manor House is a minimalist, ultra-modern glass and steel private house located in Horsmonden, in Kent, Southern England. Renowned British architect Michael Manser designed it in 1971 for John Howard, the then parliamentary private secretary to the Prime Minister, Edward Heath. The house was constructed on the ruins of an Italianate mansion built by Thomas Henry Wyatt and destroyed after World War II. In 1999, Remy Blumenfeld, a TV producer, and entrepreneur, bought the house. The house is an excellent example of modern architecture in Britain, and in 2013 was designated a Grade II* listed building by National Heritage for England.

History
A mansion named Capel House, owned by the Austen family (forebearers of author Jane Austen), existed on this site since 1569. In the mid-19th century, the renowned architect, Thomas Wyatt built a 26-bedroom mansion in the Italian Gothic style for Fredrick Austin. During the Second World War, this mansion was occupied by an army unit. After the war, the property was abandoned and was eventually torn down in 1964, leaving the hilltop site with its terraced gardens, as a site for the Capel Manor House.

MP John Howard purchased the site in 1968 and commissioned British architect Michael Manser to build a new house on the raised Arcadian grounds of the former mansion, and the construction was completed in 1971. A swimming pool was constructed in the middle of the remains of the old winter garden.

TV Producer and Entrepreneur Remy Blumenfeld purchased the house in 1999 from John and Maisie Howard. It was a small house with 360-degree integrity of the building. The original house did not have a guest room or study area. In 2011, Remy Blumenfeld commissioned Ewan Cameron to build a guest pavilion that complements the house. Japanese gardens and temples influenced the final design. In 2013 The English Heritage recognized the house as one of the most important examples of modernist architecture in Britain, awarding it a Grade II listing.

Description
Micheal Manser was inspired by the 1929 Barcelona Pavilion created by Mies van der Rohe, a modernist architect, which influenced his design for the house.

Writing in The Telegraph, Dominic Lutyens notes, "Sleek and uncompromisingly modernist, Capel Manor overlooks a terraced garden crowned with an ornate Italianate balustrade and a broad flight of mossy stone steps.”

The house has a brown painted uncovered steel outline lying on a strengthened concrete foundation supported by its Victorian style basement's stone walls. Bronze colored glass in aluminum outlines is utilized to give a lustrous touch to external walls. The roof is comprised of lumber, purloins.

The interior of the house is minimalist-styled and open-planned. Internal walls are paint-rendered. External walls are glazed to have a clear view of lush gardens. The ceilings are wood-lined, and the floor is under-heated.

Each elevation of the house is a side of the building's rectangular glass envelope. There are points of access on all sides, although their angles differentiate the exteriors.

The guest pavilion is located to the West of the building, close to the old winter garden. It includes two separate guest suites divided by an open central walkway. each suite containing a bedroom, bathroom, and storage space. It has a shaded veranda and glass corners. The interiors are painted with a light shade of concrete and walnut wood. In the Architect's Journal, Cameron describes the guest pavilion as "an architectural haiku - ‘formal composition of separate planar elements to frame the formal garden."

Magazines, Books, Films and TV Programs featuring the house
Vogue and House and Garden magazines featured the house in 1971.

Historic England, which is the highest authority of architecture in the United Kingdom, stated about Capel Manor House, " the house achieves an absolute refinement of plan and form, executed with precision and a high quality of detail.”

The house was featured in Living With Modernism, a BBC4 programme in 2006.

The Good Night film (2007), starring Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow, was filmed in the Capel Manor House.

The house has been used in music videos of artists from Daniel Beddingfield to Take That.

In 2006, David Heathcote, the author of ‘The 70s House, devoted a chapter of this book dedicated to Capel Manor house said, ” It has a quality of being out of time. Neither new nor old. Just itself.”

The house is being displayed as a scale model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Financial Times describes Capel Manor House as "one of Britain’s finest post-war houses, eschewing bricks for steel frames and glass."

Caroline McGhie, in The Sunday Telegraph, describes it as a "deliciously minimalist 1960s glass oblong... a jewel of a building, influenced by Mies van der Rohe’ s idea of the 'transparent envelope."