Rosemary Cottage is the home of master plaster caster Peter Hone. It blends the boundary between accommodation and expression. Not everything is about the price, or the space.
Sometimes it’s about the story. Born in 1941 and orphaned as a baby, Peter Hone grew up to become, among other things, a pastry cook, a museum attendant, a garden-ornament salesman and, eventually, a master plaster caster (try saying that after a few beers). His works turned his one-bedroom flat in London’s Notting Hill into an extraordinary museum.
He held two auctions — one in 2016 and another in 2023 — raising more than £1 million. Those proceeds were used to buy somewhere special to him: Rosemary Cottage in Penzance. Rosemary Cottage is now for sale with Lillicrap Chilcott for £315,000 and it is perhaps one of the more unusual and intriguing houses we’ve featured on this site.
He had long been a fan of Rosemary Cottage and Penzance, holidaying at the home each September for several years. In the seven years he’s owned it, he’s made it quite special. The exteriors and indeed the interiors of this two-bedroom retreat on New Street are, and I think this is one of the rare times I can get away with using the word, unique.
The property itself is tucked away in a walled courtyard garden in Abbey Place, behind the Abbey Hotel and mere moments away from the harbourside and the town centre. It’s a gloriously artistic little bolthole in one of Cornwall’s best towns. When does a house itsel.