The Grey House at 85 Swains Lane in Highgate in north London, is a house built in 2008 by the architectural firm Eldridge Smerin.
The house was one of the 97 recipients of the RIBA Award in 2009 and was shortlisted for RIBA's London Building of the Year award. [1] [2]
The house overlooks the West Side of Highgate Cemetery. [3] In the late 1960s the site was occupied by the Dissenter's Catacombs and owned by the London Cemetery Company. [2] The catacomb was declared unsafe in 1967 and demolished. The coffins were removed. [2] Three houses were built on the site in the late 1960s; the land having been sold due to the financial precariousness of the cemetery. [4] A 99-year lease was taken on the site in 1967 with plans for a house on the site by John Winter which was never built. [2] Winter subsequently built a house on the site in 1981. [5] The 1981 house had a nautical appearance with blue cladding with white steel framing and large porthole windows. It was described as a "quirky box of tricks" by Building Design magazine. [2] The house was built on poor quality soil and its proximity to graves caused structural issues. [2] The house was built around a central concrete pillar and the first floor was "[trussed] up" as a cantilever. [2] The house was eventually supported by the cemetery wall after the cantilever failed. [2] The house was sold in 1998 for £520,000 to Richard Elliott, a photographer, chartered surveyor and developer who eventually built the present property. [4] [6] Elliott lived in the 1981 house for seven years and received planning permission for two separate remodelling schemes in the early 2000s, but he eventually decided to demolish the property. [4] [2] He subsequently commissioned a new house from Eldridge Smerin having been inspired by another house in Highgate the firm had built, The Lawns, completed in 2001. [2] The new house was completed in 2008. [2] Elliott also bought the adjoining house and redeveloped it as it had restricted the height of the new house. Its redevelopment allowed him to build an extra storey on the new house. [4] Elliott felt that living in the house was like living in an "enchanted forest" and that at " ... three in the morning it's no less enchanted than at three in the afternoon". [4]
The house appeared in an episode of the BBC drama series Luther . [3] It was for sale in 2008 for £5.95 million and in 2022 for £7 million with the agency Knight Frank. [3] It sold in August 2025 for £5 million. [7]
The Friends of Highgate Cemetery and The Highgate Society were strongly opposed to the construction of the house following the announcement of the initial design. A trustee of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery described it as a "totally unacceptable intrusion on the privacy of the Cemetery," which showed "complete disrespect towards the grave owners". [2] It was described as "an excessive and overwhelming massing of buildings" by The Highgate Society. English Heritage objected to the proposed additional floor, which would overlook the cemetery. [2] The objections were disregarded by Camden London Borough Council as they felt that the design "illustrates an inherently sensitive grasp of the site's context ... unique and responsive, but suitably neutral" and that "small intervention is not so significant" due to the large size and greenery of the cemetery. [2]
It has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, with three reception rooms. The basement has a home theatre and industrial equipment for the automated lighting and blinds of the house. [3] Each bedroom has a balcony. [3] The kitchen is situated on the top floor and has a retractable glass roof. [3] It is 4,162 sq ft in size. [3] The exterior to Swains Lane features steel panels and black granite which was described by The Robb Report as a "foreboding appearance". [3] The house has open-plan living areas and the south and west facades of the house is distinguished by a curtain wall of glass. [3] [2]
The Grey House has attracted praise from critics. Ian Dungavell felt it was a "remarkable building, robustly finished ... and filled with light" with the extensive use of glass making "you feel like you're standing in the Cemetery itself". [2] Writing in The Guardian, Ros Anderson felt the house was "uncompromisingly modern and unashamedly masculine in feel" and that the "sharp angles cut against the soft foliage around it, but the glass reflects tree trunks and leaves, giving it a fluid, almost ethereal, feel" but that the view from the house was "the real attraction. ... everything focuses your attention outwards". [4]
The prominent use of glass in the Grey House followed the precedent set by John Winter's own modernist residence, 81 Swains Lane. Upon completion of the Grey House in 2008, Winter described it as "near to being a faultless building as I have seen for a long time" and that he was " ... lost in admiration for the excellence of the building work and the thorough rigour of the design". [2] Writing in the newsletter of Highgate Cemetery, Ian Dungavell described the house as a "A strikingly modern intervention in a landscape of crumbling monuments and overgrown trees". [2]
