Martin Gane Converts Victorian Pigsty

For a builder to have a penchant for Grandma’s 1950s dainty, flowery teacups is somewhat peculiar, but for New Zealander Martin Gane, an artisan builder, and his English wife, the interior designer Elle Kemp, seeking out the traditional has always been preferable to the new-fangled, Hannah Newton writes for The Observer.

Their family home, a listed Victorian pigsty in Gloucestershire, is a masterclass in traditional techniques and design, Newton writes.

As a child, Elle had grown up in a series of new-builds and Martin, on the other side of the world, was the son of a farmer in the untamed hills of the Southern Alps of New Zealand. They met when Martin was living and working on a large English country estate, falling in love over a shared obsession with historic buildings.

Every element of their work is exposed. “It is honest, because it is seen,” Gane says.

The couple own and operate interior design business, Ridge & Furrow.

Original article by Hannah Newton, The Observer, June 12, 2021.

Photo by Claire Worthy.