A Private View: an artfully adorned coastal home where shore meets sky

Marc Taylor and Poppy Ellis’s love for their windswept house overlooking the beach in Littlestone, Kent, is palpable, both in the way they speak about it and the ways they have inhabited it over the last decade or so. Evidence of this is the way the pair have filled the house with art – both their own and others – adorning it, almost. This beautification is also representative of a shift in both of their lives that happened not long after they moved here from London, forging successful careers for themselves as full-time artists.

The house itself, however, was not exactly beautiful when they arrived. “People talk about ‘original features’,” Poppy says. “But the original 1920s details here were awful.” Built during a plaster shortage after the war, its walls comprised sheets of plywood over brick. “It might as well have been made out of eggboxes.” It was draughty and in need of attention but, just as sometimes “you see a painting and you have to have it” – a predicament this couple are familiar with – they had to have this house. Now, courtesy of some judicious ripping out and sensible additions, including a sealed front door, the house is both warm and well looked after, enlivened by Marc and Poppy’s irrepressible desire to create and make things feel beautiful.

So why leave? “We tend to do things in 10 to 12 year cycles,” explains Marc. “And we’ve been here for 13,” he continues. “It’s time for a new adventure.” They are, after all, artists: ever in search of inspiration, challenges and new things to see and do and paint. Their sights are set on Cornwall, though it’s clear how much Marc and Poppy will miss this house. “On a clear day, you can see the headlights of cars beetling along the roads in France,” Poppy says dreamily. “It’s just magic.”

Marc: “We left London just after our youngest flew the nest and, after a few false starts, had decided to rent down here, buying us time to find somewhere we really wanted.”

Poppy: “I remember so well the day we came to view a rental in 2013. We’d driven two hours to Rye and it was an absolutely vile day, so we thought we ought to make the most of our trip and look at this house. It wasn’t even in the right place, really – further down the coast – but we walked in and went: ‘Yep. This is it.’ We bought it on the spot.

“It was hilarious – like an old people’s home – but the views! The views here are incredible. It ticked all our boxes: detached, no immediate neighbours but not cut-off, lots of space and an easy commute to London – it’s only a 40-minute train ride away, but you feel like you could be on a different planet here. In fact, when you go to Dungeness, which is just down the road, you could be in a different universe."

Marc: “It’s so quiet. The path that runs in front of our house, separating us from the beach, is an unadopted road that never got developed. It doesn’t lead anywhere and so consequently, even in high summer, there’s very little footfall. It’s rugged and potholey, but it doesn’t matter because you wouldn’t drive on it anyway. If you walk across it from our gate and hop over the wall, you can be on the shingle in seconds.”

Poppy: “Because we’re so close to the shore and have extraordinary views that curve along the coastline, we get the most incredible skies. I love it best here when a storm comes rolling in, sheet lightning illuminating everything. Then, just as quickly as it came, the weather will clear and you’ll be able to see for miles.”

Marc: “There was so much to do when we moved in, not least plaster the walls, having ripped out the weird so-called panelling that had been built in the 1920s. We overlaid all the floors too and installed a brilliant sealed door, which keeps the sea breezes out.”

Poppy: “We were still working in London when we moved here, but when we sold our business, we found ourselves needing something to do. I had studied at art college and Marc convinced me to pick up a paintbrush. Soon he joined in – and it just snowballed. We wouldn’t do anything else now. And we can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner.

“We’ve worked in three different studios, travelling round the house, but now we’ve got the biggest room, which we’ve extended and given a new roof. We work there together – it’s wonderful, but my God, we bicker. Marc’s a pest! I’ve chosen the wrong end of the studio, in front of the cupboard, and you can guarantee that as soon as I’ve got into my flow, Marc will need something. I think we owe our survival to the fact that we both like listening to true-crime podcasts. That’s our middle ground.”

Marc: “We found such a great creative community when we moved down here, thanks in part to our gallery, McCully & Crane, in Rye, which represents some brilliant artists. Rye is such a lively place. It always feels like there’s somewhere new to try.

“It’s funny: I paint still lives and Poppy is a portraitist, so day to day, our environment doesn’t feed directly into our work. But we also collaborate on abstract pieces under the name Sandhill Studios and I can really feel the influence of our surroundings on those – the shapes, arcs and colours.”

Poppy: “Working together on the same canvas – and on abstracts – is a whole different ballgame. It’s like having a holiday from our day jobs – though with more squabbling!

“Making art is a big part of this house. We’ve had such fun over the years getting people in here to make things with us, like our dinner-drawing parties, during which someone has to pose on the coffee table to be drawn. Once, we ended up with 12 different models and turned the drawings into a calendar for the neighbours.”

Marc: “We live with our art, but we live with lots of others’ too – we’re open to all styles. Lots are local, other bits have come from junk shops and others are more personal, like the portrait of us by Jenny Jones we commissioned for our wedding. There’s a real mix. It shouldn’t all go together, but it does somehow.

I think this house stands as a lesson in going with what you love. I do think it’s important to act on that impulse; Poppy and I still speak about a painting we saw in Whitstable 30 years ago and didn’t buy. It was only £100. What were we thinking? When you love something, you should just do it. It’s how we got this house, it’s why we became artists and it’s why we’re heading to Cornwall. We love it. We’ve got to do it.”