Wilkinson's world

Design whizz Mark Wilkinson has left his style signature on every aspect of Brook House, discovers Jeremy Mason BROOK House sits in 100 acres of glorious, prime Wiltshire real estate, and is the kingdom of Mark Wilkinson.

He boats on his own manmade lake, and goes to work to his own onsite factory.

His free-range chickens scatter as he walks, and everything you see is designed by him, from the jewelcoloured glass finials on the roof to the great hulk of stone fireplace in the dining hall - he has truly carved out his own environment.

As we speak, the house's owner is busy whizzing around his well- appointed kitchen, rustling up (freshly laid) scrambled eggs on toast for eight people.

During his career, the founder of an international, high-end kitchen-and-furniture company has tried his hand at designing pretty much everything, from shoes to jeans to bath taps to paints.

The fruits of his labour are very much in evidence on every surface of what is, by today's minimalist standards, a full house.

Affectionately known as Wilksworld, the house is a very different proposition to the one that Mark and his wife, Cynthia, took on 10 years ago.

Then it was small, covered in concrete cladding and had four tiny bedrooms and a maze of little rooms downstairs. Thirty planning applications later, the Wilkinsons have got the house that they want and are tinkering with a garden that extends up vast terraces and down to the lake, which has its own bat cave on the banks. "The grand plan went out of the window within about 25 minutes of the builders arriving on site," explains Mark.

"The planners were a bit sceptical about somebody wanting to do something radical - we wanted to vastly increase the size of the house. And they were saying to us, 'No, we don't want radical around here'.

"However, as work progressed, they could see we were doing a nice job and let us change the plan a little bit. So we kept going and, in the end, we got what we wanted and the council got what it wanted. We ended up proving to the planners that they were right to have gradually put that amount of trust in us. We started the house with the gardens, firstly digging out the lake and then terracing the land. I didn't want to finish the house then have people dragging all the mud from the garden through the house."

The most visually impressive room of the lot is a vast dining hall, which sits at the heart of the home. Although medieval in feel and scale, it is new and the focal point is an enormous, roughhewn sandstone fireplace. Mark found the piece of stone in an abandoned quarry and not only designed it into a fireplace, but also had to craft a special sleigh to transport its bulk from quarry to dining room. Around the top of the room is a gallery, off which are the bedrooms.

Sitting at the top of the stairs is a dresser bearing the Gustav Stickley quote: "Just as we should be truthful, real and frank ourselves, and look for these same moral qualities in those whom we select for our friends, so should the things with which we surround ourselves in our homes be truthful, real and frank. We are influenced by our surroundings more than we imagine." For Mark, this encapsulates how he operates in his 25-yearold kitchen business, Mark Wilkinson Furniture.

The mantelpiece groans with awards that he's won for, among other things, his apprenticeship scheme, his commitment to rural employment and his sustainability and eco-friendly credentials.

His ethos is open, friendly and kind rather than dictatorial: "I always have a very strong vision about everything, but only very seldom am I absolutely committed to it. I'm always open to new opinions, or someone else's vision of what I'm doing. If it proves to be better I'm perfectly happy to take it on and to adapt. After all that's part of the fun." And so it is in the house.

What started as one man's vision 10 years ago has ended up as a collaboration with Cynthia, his team of builders and craftsmen and anyone else who cared to offer an opinion.

The end results speak for themselves.

Mark Wilkinson Furniture, Overton House, High Street, Bromham, Wiltshire (01380 850004; www.mwf.com). He has designed the celebrity kitchen for the House Garden Fair at Olympia from 30 June to 3 July. Call 0870 121 2525 for tickets.

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