A Home with a History: the 'corrugated chateau' where peace and creativity reign

The track to Waunbayvil is long and winding. As the landscape gradually opens out on to almost treeless grasslands, it is as if one has stumbled across a mini Welsh Serengeti. You can almost imagine a cloud of dust rising up on the horizon as a herd of skittish wildebeest approach.

At the end of the track a cluster of cottages, sheds and a huge, barrel-vaulted, Dutch-style corrugated iron barn appear, surrounded by gardens, orchards of nutteries, pear, apple and cherry trees, meadows, marshes and ponds linked together with wooden bridges and paths.

From the outside, the barn looks imposing and utilitarian, but there are splendours within: art, antiques and rare artefacts including a collection of buttons and vintage fastenings kept in a Jacobean travelling cabinet – an heirloom which once belonged to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son, of James I.

Waunbayvil is home to Hugo Colville and his wife, Annette de Mestre (known as Neti). Hugo is a sculptor, poet, author and landscape designer; Neti is a painter of mysterious, dreamlike scenes. In iridescent colours she paints elemental planets, crepuscular landscapes, bathers, a gold-ground Madonna and child, a monk in the gloaming by the seashore and a solitary chapel on a wintery horizon; universal themes though painted in her own idiosyncratic way.

Hugo is half Neapolitan and half English. He trained as an actor in Paris and London before leading a travelling theatre, The Boumlaya Theatre Company, through France in his 20s. Neti, meanwhile, ran The Theatre on the Hill in Herefordshire. Having led such peripatetic lives, they finally came to settle in Pembrokeshire 20 years ago.

The cottage and barns have been designed and converted by Hugo and Neti with dramatic effects influenced by their former years in theatre. Together, they have composed each living space with an inherent instinct for daring colours, every corner a seemingly effortless still life. Peace and creative endeavour reign here.

There are few mod cons at Waunbayvil. There’s no TV or machinery – just a lawn mower. All other gardening is done by Hugo using hoes and scythes. Neti and Hugo’s lives are firmly planted in their land. The land is nurtured with gentle husbandry and shared with friends and family who come to stay and revive in their garden of Eden.

Hugo Colville: “After a long adventure travelling France and Ireland in our live-in truck, we returned to England via Pembrokeshire in search of a home. We visited friends living nearby and they told us about this working farm of 40 acres owned by three Polish prisoners of war from the village of Aberporth …

“There was a huge, corrugated barn falling apart and a 280-year-old cottage in need of renovation. So we set to it: first the cottage, then the little barn for guests, followed by Neti’s first wooden studio out on the marsh, then the big barn, followed by the tool and wood workshop.

“We gutted the cottage. The ground floor – our kitchen, dining and living room – has been done in a simple, Welsh style with Welsh country chairs, a larder, washroom and bathroom. Upstairs, four pokey rooms were knocked through to form one enormous bedroom. We had a huge bed built and put a little butler’s basin in the corner of the room. Most of the windows are practically at floor level. The fire surround was transformed into a large open chimney fireplace, juxtaposed by an ornate antique gilt looking glass on the mantelpiece.

“The French marble basins and sinks we bought from a reclamation yard in Gloucestershire. We erected a balcony with views of the meadows and steps leading into the garden. The exterior has been painted in many shades of lime wash, but it was all washed off by the Welsh weather. We finally found a blue limewash from St Astier in France, which remains intact.”

Annette de Mestre: “The next stage was to renovate the barn, which was falling apart. We began by corrugating the entire exterior. We lined it with plywood walls and floors, intending to use it for theatre and workshops. However, after six years in the cottage [which is now available for rent] and two in the little barn, we couldn’t resist moving in. We lived in it as a workshop for many years with an Esse cooker, gradually changing things around. Three years ago, we built a wall of bookcases with library steps (an old orchard ladder) to give us two separate rooms: one for a gallery and one for living in.

“Crossing the threshold, you’ll find Hugo’s gallery of drawings and sculptures assembled from rusty tools, pebbles, found objects and tribal artefacts such as the African head rest, made to protect women’s elaborate hair styles.

“We painted the walls a warm chalk red (‘Burgundy’ by Annie Sloan) to make the paintings and objects sing. The paintings are mine from 2012. The one over the desk is called ‘The Message’ and the one opposite ‘The Messenger.’ One windowsill is laid out with Hugo’s Derby Blue glassware, an Italian terracotta head and my stained-glass window. The other windowsill is home to our Japanese teapots, a David Garland pottery jug and a Georgian silver teapot.

“The main living room is spacious, soaring 15 feet up to the rafters. Everything is left raw and exposed. Beyond the living room is our bathroom and bedroom, Hugo’s second study and my new, bright studio.”

Hugo: “The upper-level houses my study, which is full of towering ziggurats of books, sketchbooks and journals and sandbanks of more books and papers. There are two narrow passageways displaying smaller prints and my illustrated books, the ‘Humble Pencil’ and ‘Multifarious Pen and Pocket Surprises.’ There’s also a larger gallery space that is hung with Neti’s paintings and furnished with two Regency chairs, a green early American chair and an African drum which has lost its skin. When at last all the spaces came together, we coined the great barn our Corrugated Chateau.

“There are two further barns, both made with the same ethos of simplicity juxtaposed with rare objects or antiques. The first has the same corrugated iron structure as the big barn. Downstairs is a basic kitchen with a wood-burning stove, bedroom and bathroom. The floors are of slate and wood while the walls are white plaster distemper. It looks out over the pond and a wooden bridge which leads on to the marshes, where wild orchids grow.

“The smaller and more primitive barn is made of clapperboard. The veranda – which is glassed in – provides a basic kitchen: two gas rings, a basin and an old mahogany thunder-box as there is no sanitation or power. Partly partitioned with wood frames is a living room with a table, some chairs a sofa bed and a box bed. In many ways, it resembles a camp base hut you might find on a safari, with a viewing balcony to spot the wildlife …”

Neti: “From the beginning, it felt as if Waunbayvil was a place where we could unleash our vision – bring it to some kind of fruition in a natural and wholly unpremeditated way. Step by step, we’ve been led to be and live out what was us. From the moment we first visited, we felt we wanted Waunbayvil and it wanted us. For this, we are incredibly lucky and grateful.”

You can visit the Corrugated Barn Gallery by appointment. Email annettedemestre@gmail.com or hgcolville@gmail.com

Annette de Mestre is exhibiting at Messums West in Wiltshire from 4th-26th January 2025

Annette de Mestre

Hugo Colville