A small inconspicuous doorway leads from The Monastery, the magnificent scale-defying business end of Alex MacArthur’s fantastical world, in Rye. It’s as though you open a gateway to another realm, albeit one that is Lilliputian in scale compared to the vastness of next door. Where one building is all about full throttle dramatic impact, the other, a tiny two-up-two-down Georgian cottage, is all about quiet pleasures and hidden gems. If ever there was an antithesis to the industrial, the ecclesiastical and the monumental, this is it.

Although compact in size, the cottage still offers a vision that could only have come from the singular imagination of interior and antiques expert, Alex. The architectural substance of the building has, just like The Monastery, been stripped back to its true self, divested of decades of decay and abandonment. Brick walls, open beams, a ceiling taken up to the eaves – all these features make the building, unquestionably smaller in scale in every way than its imposing neighbour, still retain many of the same visual details.

There is an honesty to the original architectural integrity of the house which has been combined with bespoke metal work artfully employed (combining both practicality and glamour), delicious vintage finds from European flea markets and antique dealers, hints of exotic travels and the same love of soft tones and tactile fabrics, like linen and velvet, that MacArthur has used next door. They are two very different chapters, but both from the same book and author.

From the kitchen, the through brick fireplace allows the light from the north-west facing snug to connect and flow with the back of the building. Juxtaposed with the exposed brickwork is the original pencil-beaded tongue-and-groove panelling painted in aqua. Brass features have been made or sourced especially for the space – a sink was handmade in Florence and Alex’s metalworker has created open brass, vintage luggage style shelving, that allows the French copper pans to sing against the creamy brickwork.

“I love brass,” says Alex. “It’s very traditional, with a sense of industrial, but also has a distinct touch of golden glamour to it.” In the centre of the kitchen sits a vintage French café style brass-topped table and bentwood chairs. A stunning larder cabinet was found at a flea market in Paris. “I won’t tell you how much it cost to ship it all over, but it was worth it!” he laughs. A 17th century painting of St Anthony nods to Alex’s ‘other’ life next door.

A heavily patterned pink and aqua Moroccan encaustic tiling scheme underfoot adds a dose of geometric pattern, tying together the floor, the brick work and the walls, painted in the same Corical lime covering from Belgium, as in The Monastery.
The snug, painted in soft pink, with deep fuchsia and burnt orange velvet curtains, is a continuation of the colour palette that Alex has used in the bedroom suite next door, which he offers to hosts as an escape boudoir, a place of elegant sanctuary as they prepare for their big event.

Back in the snug, a pair of pink and grey upholstered mid-century armchairs, a 1950s Sputnik centre piece light and a 19th century Ormolu writing cabinet from France sit next to gold framed Spanish icons on the walls. A heavily patterned rug and throw, both from Morocco, bring the room’s stylish colour scheme effortlessly together.

Coming from London via a Regency townhouse in Brighton, the ‘cottage aesthetic’ was not something that came naturally to Alex. So, as with everything he approaches, he has created his own interior language, one that takes the core elements of The Monastery, but scaled down into miniature.

“I tried to keep things more minimal here, whereas next door, I could really do whatever my imagination allowed, here it has to be more considered, more controlled, in a way.” The cottage had originally been decorated in darker colours, which Alex calls his ‘Abigail Ahern’ period.

However, as with next door in The Monastery, Alex has reclaimed colours such as pinks and oranges and has cleverly moved them away from the cute end of the colour spectrum and transformed them into elegant and slightly more masculine tones.
Winding your way up the dolls’ house size staircase, there is a double bedroom and bathroom. Alex has maximised the space of the bathroom by opening up the ceilings to the roof, creating a room that defies its own scale – a large copper free-standing bath and huge rain head shower and romantic linen shower curtain, worthy of the roomiest five-star hotel suite, takes precedence.

A stunning vintage marble washstand on brass legs, made bespoke by Alex, is topped with a 1940s French folding mirror and bespoke brass splashback. Just like next door, Alex really knows how to add drama to a bathroom and by maximising the size of the room, through painted floorboards and a soaring roof overhead (complete with a large antique French lantern light) you lose any sense that you are still in a tiny cottage in Rye.
Next door, the bedroom with roughly hewn dusky pink walls (again painted with Corical paint, packed with marble minerals that bounce light back into the room) has soft grey velvet and pink velvet curtains.

Painted floorboards bounce all available light back into the room from the double aspect windows. As with the bathroom, Alex has played with the scale, due to the unexpectedly high ceilings. The cottage, deserted since the 1950s, had a pigeon infestation and so Alex was allowed to open up the ceilings to the roof, exposing the chimney breast, allowing the architecture of the cottage to soar up to its very apex.
“It really has been my sanctuary,” he says with a sense of real fondness for this tiny house, that must have given him a huge amount of succour when the enormity of the renovation project he had taken on was in danger of overwhelming him.

“This building, both the cottage and next door, have both taught me to practise faith over fear. Every part of this project has been a huge challenge, but now it’s complete, I feel at peace with it all. Now I feel I have blown away a lot of the past, and now it’s ready to become a place of happiness and sanctuary.”

As with next door, Alex is also now offering the cottage for rent for couples or individuals who are celebrating big events at The Monastery. “Here they can come and escape, to the tiny cottage next door.

Somewhere that still has the romance of The Monastery but with a sense of intimacy that I hope will truly cement their celebrations and become a very fond memory for the rest of their lives.”

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For further details on renting the cottage visit themonasteryinrye.com