La Casa Blanca, 13 Elmstead Road
| La Casa Blanca, 13 Elmstead Road | |
|---|---|
 | |
| LL ref: | 435 |
| Start date: | 1929 |
| Architect: | Charles Crofton Black (Jr) |
| Builder: | unknown |
| Original use: | Residential |
| View on map: | Local List | Bexhill-OSM |
Missing details? Email us. | |
La Casa Blanca on Elmstead Road was built in 1929 and named The Close until the c1990s. It is a rare survivor of the Colonial Spanish style popular in England and the United States of America (particularly Florida and California) in the 1920s. It is a substantial two-storey villa with a hipped clay pantile roof, white smooth rendered walls and chimneys, . The principal (south-facing) five-bay garden elevation has multi-paned windows with green shutters on the arched ground floor windows (sadly those to the first floor windows have been lost in recent years) and an elegant balcony over the ground floor centre window. The two bay west elevation faces the sunken garden and the east elevation faces the road with Spanish-style ironwork over the three slit-windows and an arched front entrance (the shutters at first floor level survive on this façade). The property is enclosed with white rendered walls surmounted by beautiful honey-brown ceramic tiles, highly ornate iron Spanish style gates lead into the front courtyard and side passage.
The house was designed, most unusually by its first occupier Mr Charles Crofton Black, a barrister and liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights in the City of London. Educated at Chigwell public school and Emmanuel College Cambridge he was called to the bar at the age of 23. He was an advisor to the Parliamentary Committee on Land Taxation, legal advisor to the Land Union and author of several works on land and agriculture. He played an important role in the development of the town until his early death aged only 56 in 1937.