Witness for the Restoration

There may have been no stopping an over-remodeling of Raymond Chandler’s old home in La Jolla, California (see here and here), and the fate of Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate in Hindhead, Surrey, is uncertain after its purchase by a real-estate developer two years ago. But the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, a British conservation organization, is looking for the public’s help--and money--to launch a “major restoration project at Greenway in Devon, the only surviving home of Agatha Christie.”

“Sadly,” the National Trust reports, this Georgian residence overlooking the Duart Estuary--which was purchased by the “Queen of Crime” in 1938 and used as a vacation retreat until her death in 1976--“is in urgent need of repair before it can be opened to the public. ... We hope to re-create the atmosphere in the house as it was in its most recent heyday, as a much-loved holiday home in the 1950s.” Work has already been done to 30 acres of gardens surrounding the house, and those grounds are now open to the public. They, along with the house, were offered to the National Trust in 1999 by Dame Agatha’s daughter, Rosalind Hicks, who lived in the house with her husband, until they both passed away earlier in this decade. The National Trust acquired the property after their deaths, and the mystery novelist’s grandson Mathew Prichard has since “made the hugely generous gift of the house’s collections and interiors.”

“With your support,” the Trust says, “we are determined to start the work as soon as possible, with the goal of opening this wonderful house from March 2009.”

More information about this refurbishment project and how to contribute to it can be found here.

READ MORE: “Whoddunit? The Evidence Points to Repton” (BBC).