My Favourite Art Deco House in Bangor Northern Ireland- Plus Tonic Cinema Illustration From Hand Drawn Creative
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I shared with you my favourite house in Portstewart last week, so how about my favourite house in Bangor, where I actually live.
Its this pink beauty which resides in the wonderfully named 'Beverley Hills', in the Ballyholme area. Built in the 1930s it nestles amongst a neighbourhood of otherwise regular family homes, and backs onto a golf course.
I know what you're thinking- the cladding. I know. Cladding the exterior of a house in fancy stonework was a trend in the 1970s and you would wonder who in their right mind would have altered such an already high concept design building like this, let alone all over cladding, then painting it pink.
The photo below showing the house in its original form is so much better, the corner windows to the left side are totally lost under the heavy brickwork.
The current owner was not responsible for the cladding, or the pink, and they also say the original interiors have been stripped and changed too. So no retro futuristic interiors to observe, sadly.
David Wilson architects did some remodelling work recently extending the kitchen and living area on the ground floor. They appear to have done a good job, in keeping with the traditional design of the building.
Bangor has some beautiful Art Deco public buildings, one of which Neal McCullough from Hand Drawn Creative has featured in a clean crisp illustration, which you can buy on his Etsy Store.
The Bank of Ireland building is another example, right at the midpoint of Main Street. The building to the right which you can't see in the photograph has quite a few modernist qualities. I have an old Ulster Architrcture book somewhere that features it, I must dig it out to share with you on another blog post.
There's another section of Bangor, what I call the new-build sprawl of the East which is like a maze to me, but which has a pocket of home designs I've always loved.
Along the ring road and into never ending suburbia there are a couple of streets of these happy little chalets. They look like designs of the 60s or 70s, family homes with asymmetrical rooves, cute archways and novelty balconies.
There are several designs dotted along the Pinehill / Silverbirch area.
Incidentally Neal has a print that looks a little bit like these homes- Hand Drawn Creative Hollywood Bungalow A3 for £20. Apart from his Fisher Price retro toy illustrations, I think this is my favourite of Neal's work.
The last home of my favourites in Bangor list, is one I've been telling my parents I wanted to live in since I was a little girl, when we moved to the same road when I was aged two.
"The Sugar Cube", as its lovingly named by the family who live there, is a flat roofed design house on the same road as my parents' home. I always told my parents I would love there so I wasn't too far away from them when I moved out as an adult. Ironically I actually live almost this close now, although it's round the back of the Springhill Road, rather than down and opposite from my parents' house.
So have I got all th unusual homes in Bangor? Or do you know of any that I might like to nosy at too? Hit me up on Twitter- @rudedoodle
I may feature Holywood next- it would require a lot of time on Google Streeview going up and down the split-level, modernist heaven that is Marino!
One last bonus architectural oddity- the Ballyholme windmill, which peeks out from in between the streets of homes.
I would LOVE to live somewhere like that.
