A tale of obsession

A gloomy, labyrinthine interior, leaking roof and bodged repairs: it was love at first sight for James Johnson-Flint. Penny Jackson hears how one man's vision restored a Victorian mansion in Kent

Often, those people who have fallen in love with a run-down house realise only too late that they are in the middle of an all-consuming affair. It preoccupies most waking moments, incurs bouts of despair and delight and takes inordinate amounts of money and time. But see it through the worst times and the finished house can bring huge rewards and not just for those who undertook the work. Old buildings that bordered on collapse are restored to the housing stock and in some cases to a prominent place in local history.

It is not everyone that can see potential in an ugly duckling, but for James Johnson-Flint, his first sight of a down-at-heel mansion in Chislehurst, Kent, bowled him over. "I knew instantly that this could be the house of our dreams. We love space but we had never had that luxury before. And here was somewhere that we could do up exactly as we wanted." He doesn't use the word "space" lightly – at one time the only way he and his wife Paula could keep track of each of other was by mobile phone. Chislehurst Hall has 43 rooms and if ever there was a Victorian mansion this is it, except that the gloomy and labyrinthine interior has now been transformed into a light-filled cream and white model of contemporary design.

The path there was not easy. When the Johnson-Flints bought the house two years ago it was a wreck. Bathrooms and some walls had been ripped out and the roof was leaking. "Before then an old lady of 90 lived in one room downstairs and let the rest of the house to students, which we learned about from cab drivers who would regale us with the goings-on. Nothing but bodge repair jobs were done to the house but luckily the beauty of the building was still intact," says James Johnson-Flint.

His certainty about its potential as a family home saw them through the difficult times, made no easier by having a one-year-old baby, and newborn twins. "I acted as project manager and that was far more of a challenge than I had expected. A low point was having no roof during a very wet spring."

While juggling the practicalities of his job and the refurbishment, James could see that he was beginning to go well over budget. The house that cost £1.5 million in its derelict state was eating money. "Of course I was prepared for some overspend, but not for the fact that I set out with a figure of £500,000 and ended up spending £1 million."

He cut costs where possible, even using connections in his hi-fi business to get hundreds of pieces of cast-iron balustrade made in China at a cost of $2 each instead of £50 in the UK, a saving that went towards extending the central staircase to the old servants' quarters on the lower ground floor and building on a terrace. The house had been used as a hospital during the First World War and converted into flats afterwards. Was there any problem in getting permission to turn back into one home? "Far from it – if we hadn't taken it on, it might have been lost altogether. It is just the sort of place that might deliberately have been left to go to rack and ruin or even burnt down so that something new could be built in its place."

Allowing buildings to fall into such a state of disrepair that they are beyond rescue is something that the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) tries to prevent. It produces a quarterly booklet of buildings in need of repair and for sale. An advice line is inundated with calls from people asking whether they should remove fireplaces, how to deal with damp or where to find a builder. This last is often the hardest and at SPAB, they find that that a neglected house is often healthier than one that has had money lavished on it insensitively. If a builder turns up with bags of cement in his van, he should either be sent packing or taken on a practical course on building with lime mortar. Owners increasingly prefer to pay for instruction rather than risk damaging a building with the use of modern materials. In the last couple of years four times the number of people have signed up for weekend courses.

At SPAB, Laura Gibbon says that restoring buildings is not a matter of preserving them in aspic. "Rather than recreating a perfect Victorian house by putting in a reproduction fireplace, it might be better to have a contemporary design. William Morris believed that design should be sympathetic to its surroundings while adding another layer of history."

The pressures of work have dictated a move back to central London for the Johnson-Flints. The highest-value houses have been affected most by the slow-down in the market and particularly in the Chelsea and Kensington area where they are looking to return – maybe even do a swap with a family wanting to head out of town.

So Chislehurst Hall is up for sale. The finished house is on the market at £3.5 million, which includes little extras such as every room linked into an audio system operated from a key pad. Music and lighting is controlled at the touch of a button. David Slack, of the country-house department of John D Wood says Chislehurst is a compromise between town and country, with excellent schools and a village feel.

Meanwhile James and Paula Johnson-Flint are preparing to downsize from a garden measured in acreage rather than feet and a house with a hallway the size of a children's playground.

Chislehurst Hall is for sale through Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward: 020 8468 7966