Stephen Wright’s House of Dreams deserves its place amongst London’s most unusual art spaces. Here’s what you need to know about this quirky home in South London.
Bizarre, eclectic, and sometimes a little creepy, welcome to one of London’s most unusual art exhibitions.
Stephen Wright’s House of Dreams, on the ground floor of a three-bedroom Victorian house in East Dulwich, is an art project quite unlike anywhere else in this city, itself known for pushing the boundaries.
Here’s what to know before you visit.
Why visit?
With the likes of the Tate Modern, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts, to mention just a few, London certainly isn’t short of places to see world-famous art. And don’t get us wrong, all excellent choices, but sometimes you need something different. Very different.
House of Dreams was created by artist Stephen Wright, who lives on the floors above this multifarious collection of weird and wonderful oddities. It’s been evolving since 1998 and has become one of the capital’s more peculiar, yet wildly interesting, art projects, one to keep you fascinated for hours.
Walk around this outlandish wonderland and you’ll come face to face with dolls, mannequins and mosaics, and just about every inconceivable item that, on its own, would be uninteresting, but all together creates a visually trippy experience that will leave you with plenty more questions than answers.
The story behind it
At first glance, House of Dreams may appear like the brainchild of someone who’s taken eccentricity to previously unimaginable heights. But behind the truly extraordinary facade lies a touching story that combines love, loss, anger and plenty of fun.
The friendly face behind it is Stephen Wright, an artist and designer who spent roughly a decade in the commercial world from the mid-1980s, first in textiles, then running his own design company that sold to the likes of Harvey Nichols, Liberty, Harrods and Selfridges. But by the mid-90s, he’d become disillusioned with the industry and was looking for a new challenge.
Outsider art inspiration
In 1998, after watching a television series on outsider art, Wright was inspired to begin work on a project still ongoing today, one that would eventually encompass the entire ground floor of his home along with the garden.
Outsider art is gloriously expansive but typically includes pieces created by those considered well outside the mainstream. Often found in private homes or public places, the art form is closely associated with unconventional ideas, extreme mental states and, at times, worlds that border on the fantastical.
If you’ve never experienced outsider art up close and are yet to visit the unassuming house at 45 Melbourne Grove, which Wright bought in the 1980s for just £49,000, you’re in for a real treat.
After visiting countless outsider art locations, Wright began putting together his own vision, starting with a mosaic face on the floor, completed with the help of his then-partner, Donald Jones.
Little by little, items, artwork, and just about anything that took his fancy began appearing at his home. House of Dreams was coming alive.
Devastation, and what came after
Then came the pain. Donald died in 2004, six years into the work at 45 Melbourne Grove, and Wright’s parents died within a few years either side of him.
Suddenly, House of Dreams evolved into a vehicle to help him process his grief. He created artwork out of some of his parents’ clothes, while murals and diary-like panels that spoke of his pain and the need to move forward began appearing, all of which can still be seen today.
Walking around the house, it’s easy to see it as a bizarre jumble sale of weirdness, but peer closer and you’ll see it’s filled with heart, passion, and yes, plenty of oddities. Everywhere you look you’ll be intrigued, fascinated, and perhaps even a little unnerved.
The many dolls that hang throughout the museum have more than a slightly creepy edge to them, but together, the many thousands of items collected by Wright, or sent to him from around the world, fuse into a genuinely unusual art experience.
Stephen has since found love again too. He now shares the house, and the work of welcoming visitors, with his partner Michael Vaughan, who’s just as warm and enthusiastic about the collection as Stephen himself.
Here’s the part most visitors don’t know: Wright has bequeathed the whole thing to the National Trust, so the house is destined to outlive its maker as a collection in its own right.
Quirky and wonderful
House of Dreams has been open to the public since 2010, now well over 15 years, though it opens only about ten times a year, usually on the last Saturday of the month between March and early December, and never in January or February. Visits run as timed slots of an hour and a quarter and you wander at your own pace, with Michael giving a welcome briefing at the start and both he and Stephen on hand to talk you through it. Do note that photography isn’t allowed inside, only out in the garden.
As we said at the beginning, London isn’t short of places to see art. But nowhere, and we really mean nowhere, comes close to the experience you’ll find in House of Dreams.
We’re often constrained by what we’ve been told is “normal” and “beautiful,” but at 45 Melbourne Grove, you can throw all of that out of the window. This is fun, fascinating, shocking, creepy, moving, and just about every other human emotion we’re capable of. This is art with a real difference, and we’d love to see more of it.
The London x London Take: the detail that gets us every time isn’t the dolls or the mosaics, it’s that this whole thing began as one man processing multiple, overlapping losses, and turned it into something he’s spent over a quarter of a century building, with a new partner now helping him keep it going and the National Trust set to inherit it. That’s a genuinely rare thing to witness up close.
Practical information
Address: 45 Melbourne Grove, East Dulwich, London SE22 8RG
Opening times: Around ten Saturdays a year, usually the last of the month from March to early December, closed January and February. Tickets sell out weeks to months in advance, so book as early as you can rather than waiting until the month you want to visit.
Tickets: £12 for adults, £7 for students, booked through Stephen Wright’s own site.
