In a time when modern home design is often defined by minimalism and utility, a quiet revolution has been building in the English countryside. It's not about flashy new materials or open-plan mega-structures. It’s about soul. About memory. About blending architecture, mythology, and domestic life into something far more poetic. The home of creative director Cruz Wyndham and her husband George in West Sussex is not merely a stylish country retreat; it is a living thesis on how eccentricity, emotion, and historical sensitivity can set the tone for an entirely different trajectory in home design—one that resonates with the past yet feels entirely of the now.
The twin Georgian follies that form the Wyndham family's country home defy categorization. Perched atop a wooded rise above Petworth House, they were never intended to be lived in. Built between 1756 and 1763 by Matthew Brettingham the elder for the third Earl of Egremont, the two structures—known locally as Gog and Magog—served as ornamental gate lodges and possible venues for scandalous affairs. They were designed to delight, to surprise, and to frame the landscape with artful intent. When Cruz and George took them on in 2021, they found themselves confronting not just decaying stone and misplaced staircases but a philosophy of space rooted in frivolity and aesthetic pleasure. In transforming these forgotten buildings into a single, unified home, they have articulated a vision that challenges prevailing norms in architectural restoration and interior design.
In the era of industrial-scale renovations, the temptation to gut and modernize is overwhelming. But for homeowners like Cruz Wyndham—whose creative practice straddles continents and cultural idioms—there’s a different approach, one that favors empathy over efficiency. This is evident in the choice of architect Giles Holland, who brought a deep reverence for the original geometry and craftsmanship of the buildings. The key decision to maintain the autonomy of each lodge, while linking them conceptually through design language and purpose, is emblematic of a growing trend in high-end residential architecture: preservation through interpretation. This isn't about freezing a building in time, but about coaxing it gently into the present.
Gog, the southern lodge, had long stood vacant. Its interiors had been stripped back, and yet beneath a false ceiling, the team uncovered a domed structure that would become the gravitational center of the new home. It is now a double-height sitting and entertaining space, dressed in lime-washed walls and anchored by a period-appropriate fireplace. This room doesn’t scream design; it whispers story. A grand piano sits quietly in a corner. Flemish tapestries hang like suspended memories. Bespoke sofas become amphitheaters of domestic life, where children tumble and guests linger long past midnight. The aesthetic is at once monastic and operatic, borrowing from Italian ecclesiastical hues and 18th-century grandeur.
This kind of interior storytelling is precisely what distinguishes the new wave of heritage-informed home design. There is a conscious rejection of the flat, fast aesthetic of online furniture brands and Pinterest boards. Instead, we see a move toward narrative architecture—spaces that feel authored rather than assembled. Cruz’s home is not a pastiche of Georgian tropes; it is a deeply personal novel written in fabric, stone, and light. Even the walk between the two buildings—some thirty meters through woodland—becomes a kind of domestic punctuation mark, a moment of reflection that most modern homes would never dare to allow. It is impractical. It is beautiful. It is unforgettable.
The north lodge, Magog, once a dark and awkward worker’s cottage, now serves the more utilitarian aspects of home life: bedrooms, baths, and quieter corners. But even here, the design choices are fearless. Staircases no longer obscure windows. Historic proportions are respected. The textures chosen for floors and fabrics invite touch and suggest care. There is a rhythm to this home—one shaped not just by floorplans but by the movement of light, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the seasons shifting through old glass. This attention to atmospheric continuity is becoming increasingly central in high-end home design. Rather than isolate rooms by function, Cruz has allowed them to speak to each other across distance and time.
In larger cultural terms, this restoration reflects a broader shift in post-pandemic living. After years of lockdowns, uncertainty, and technological saturation, people are seeking emotional refuge in the physical world. The home is no longer just a showcase or a shelter; it is a sanctuary for identity and imagination. And perhaps nowhere is this better exemplified than in how Cruz balances her life between the UK and Cairo, where she serves as creative director for Anūt Cairo, a lifestyle brand rooted in Egyptian culture. That duality—rootedness and cosmopolitanism—is echoed in every corner of the lodge transformation. It’s not about choosing between heritage and modernity, local and global, rustic and refined. It’s about weaving them into a tapestry of living that honors all their tensions.
This home is not static. Its evolution is ongoing. Cruz describes herself as a dreamer constantly in battle with the practical, but that tension is precisely what gives her design language its edge. Dreamers, after all, make homes that transcend blueprint logic. They turn eccentricities into rituals. An outdoor walk from sitting room to bedroom becomes a moonlit journey. A forgotten dome becomes a theater of memory. What many would have seen as obstacles—distance, disrepair, spatial fragmentation—become in Cruz’s vision the very elements that elevate the home into the realm of the mythic.
Home design in 2025 is undergoing an identity shift. As algorithm-fed aesthetics reach saturation point, as smart homes grow sterile with data and voice controls, the true luxury is increasingly found in slowness, idiosyncrasy, and craftsmanship. The story of Gog and Magog is not just about a remarkable couple creating a family home. It’s about the return of the home as an artwork. About the idea that walls can hold more than heat—they can hold meaning. And meaning, as it turns out, doesn’t come from coordinating color palettes or resale value. It comes from context, courage, and a certain disregard for conventional wisdom.
As more architects and designers take cues from projects like this, we are seeing a rise in what could be called spatial storytelling—a way of arranging space not just by use but by narrative flow. Design here is not something applied; it is something discovered. And in an age of prefab perfection and digital renderings, this approach offers a potent antidote. It says: go slow. Look again. Let the building tell you what it wants to be. The result, as seen in this Sussex retreat, is a home that doesn’t just house life but amplifies it.
SEO trends indicate that high-net-worth readers are increasingly searching for terms like “heritage renovation,” “creative restoration,” “eccentric home design,” and “luxury family retreats UK.” The story of Cruz Wyndham’s gate lodges fits squarely within this search intent, offering not only visual inspiration but a model of how values—cultural, emotional, ecological—can guide the design process. The use of antique materials, adaptive reuse, and atmospheric lighting are all aligning with broader lifestyle trends that prioritize experience over appearance, meaning over minimalism.
In fact, Google’s trending interest in “emotion-driven architecture” and “storytelling interiors” suggests a turning tide. Blogs and content platforms that can tap into these topics with authentic case studies—like this one—are poised to see significantly improved AdSense performance. Unlike homogenized listicles or surface-level design guides, a post like this offers organic keyword density around terms that convert: “restored Georgian gatehouse,” “Sussex weekend retreat,” “creative family home UK,” and “bespoke architectural revival.” These are terms with low competition but high emotional appeal—ideal for long-form, slow-read content optimized for luxury consumers.
Ultimately, what makes this home—and homes like it—so relevant is not just their aesthetics but their invitation to reconsider what living well really means. In a culture dominated by metrics and buzzwords, the restored lodges of Gog and Magog remind us of a more elemental metric: delight. They invite us to trade efficiency for enchantment, functionality for feeling. They offer a portrait of a home not as a static showcase but as an ongoing collaboration between people, place, and time.
This is where home design is headed—not toward the future in the conventional sense, but toward a more intimate, poetic relationship with the past. And in that convergence, something rare emerges: homes that are not just designed but dreamed into being.