A garden designer from England built a mushroom-shaped house for his daughter, bringing her imaginary world to life.
“I think she was always a bit away with the fairies and always drawing, and she knew that I could build things,” Ben Swanborough, 53, who owns Swanborough Gardens in Surrey, England, said of his 20-year-old daughter, Elsie Swanborough.
That’s why it likely didn’t surprise him when, in 2015, his daughter, then 11, asked, “Dad, can you build me a house the shape of a mushroom?”
Mr. Swanborough replied, “Of course! I will one day.”
After a few months had passed, the young girl reminded her daddy of her request. But Mr. Swanborough said he was busy.
Eventually, she told him that she’d saved 500 pounds ($600) and wanted him to use it to build the house. Seeing his daughter longing for her dream house, Mr. Swanborough couldn’t say no.
Although Mr. Swanborough had done other builds involving fencing and decking, he had never built anything like what his daughter requested. He was motivated by the challenge.
“Once I started, I got carried away,” he said. “I was doing it every single chance I got, on weekends and evenings, and sparing no expense, really, to just get it to be as amazing as I could.”
Building the Home
Mr. Swanborough built the home in the shape of a hexagon but started with the mushroom stalk. The inside of the stalk is big enough for an adult to stand in but still quite small.
The building process involved several challenges.
Since England can be rainy, Mr. Swanborough often worked under a tent. Accessing the house was another challenge—Mr. Swanborough had to put up scaffolding so that he could climb to the higher points of the home. Another obstacle was the simple issue of having a large building above a small central building.
“And then the real hard bit was the curved roof,” he said. “[I] had to get special plywood that bends and had to get a few layers of that and sort of force it into shape.”
Ms. Swanborough helped a bit, as did her dad’s colleagues, but the bulk of the work was done by Mr. Swanborough himself—alongside many wasps. He learned to work alongside the wasps instead of battle them and soon fell into a steady rhythm.
Intending the home to have an old-fashioned, quirky feel, he snagged a beautiful stained glass window from a car boot sale and another vintage window from a reclamation yard.
The home, which cost about 8,000 pounds ($10,000) to build, was completed in 2017 and won the Cuprinol Shed of the Year Award.
“We were completely blown away and weren’t expecting to win,” said Mr. Swanborough.
Today, the house stands proudly in their garden. At the heart of the structure, a central pole rises to the roof. The upper, large part of the mushroom home is around 13 square feet. It has one flat side that sits against a neighbor’s fence—Mr. Swanborough needed at least one flat wall to hang things up on.
There is one main living room upstairs boasting a stained glass window and a trapdoor that goes down to the lower level of the house. It also boasts a glass floor that looks down on a seasonal stream flowing underneath and a roof window through which one can admire the stars.
The home contains several “suites,” complete with a bench and a desk for Ms. Swanborough to do artwork on. The home does lack a bathroom, but that’s because it wasn’t intended to have one.
“This was purely just for a fun room, a fun place for the children to have sleepovers and things,” Mr. Swanborough said.
Ms. Swanborough, who is now studying fine art, was thrilled to see the finished product.
“I think it was way beyond her expectations,” her dad said. “I think it was way beyond all of our expectations.”
The Life of the Home
Mr. Swanborough has listed the house on Airbnb, which has proved successful—there has been no shortage of people interested in the mushroom abode.
“Everybody loves it, and everybody who sleeps in it says how relaxing it is to be able to hear the river below and listen to the birds in the morning. So there’s never been a bad response,” he said.
Mr. Swanborough’s son, Sebastian, who is now 22 and works in the music industry, has also made good use of the home. The family held parties and sleepovers there for the children when they were younger.
The creative dad’s recent projects include a sensory gym with a meadow roof and some treehouses. Interested garden enthusiasts can follow his journey on Instagram, @swanboroughgardens.
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