Hidden in the English countryside stands a remarkable architectural anomaly that few people know about: the only surrealist house ever built in the United Kingdom, with direct contributions from none other than Salvador Dalí himself.

Most people familiar with Dalí's architectural works would likely mention his house in Cadaqués, where he lived for several years with Gala, or his theater-museum in Figueres, which houses the world's largest collection of his works. These two projects allowed the artist to profoundly transform the appearance of existing buildings - a former fisherman's cottage and a municipal theater, respectively.

However, the great master also contributed to another construction located far from Catalonia: the Monkton House. This typically English residence was built between 1902 and 1903 by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens for wealthy businessman William Dodge James and his family. The cottage served as a retreat at the heart of an estate covering more than 2,400 hectares.

William had only one son, Edward, who dedicated the family fortune to promoting art. While studying at Oxford, he published the first collection of poems by John Betjeman, and in the 1960s, he contributed to saving the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, an unusual example of American outsider art. But this passionate supporter of marginal creation distinguished himself above all through his role as a patron of surrealism, a passion he gave free rein to in the family cottage.

"I wanted to get away from that country house atmosphere that Lutyens was so fond of," he later declared, after the residence had already become the only surrealist house ever created in the United Kingdom. The transformation was carried out by Christopher Nicholson and Hugh Casson, under the direct advice of one of Edward's closest friends: Salvador Dalí.

A Treasure Box Interior

Even though Edward opposed some of Dalí's most audacious ideas - such as creating walls in the living room capable of moving inward and outward, like a dog's stomach - the exterior underwent numerous transformations. The house's exposed bricks were covered with purple stucco, and the front door was painted pink. The entrance columns were redesigned to resemble palm trees, while the gutters mimicked bamboo stems. Whimsical plaster curtains were hung from the window ledges, and each of the three chimneys took on a different shape.

The interior was equally spectacular. Edward, at the request of his artistic advisors, filled the house with surrealist artworks and objects, including two sofas designed by Dalí representing Mae West's lips. In one of the hallways hung a dreamlike painting by Paul Delvaux, accompanied by a chair designed by Dalí featuring two human arms stretched upward in despair. Edward's own bed was inspired by a sketch of Napoleon's hearse, and his bathroom was covered with translucent alabaster, through which electric images of the sun and crescent moon shone.

The contrast was remarkable because the interior, unlike what happened in Cadaqués or Figueres, had nothing Mediterranean about it but was, even in its fantasies, profoundly English. The interior fireplaces, for example, were in the Regency style. Antique furniture had been installed, and the walls of the living room and dining room were upholstered and buttoned with gray linen, as if they were a Victorian sofa. The floor was covered with green billiard carpet, and as could not be otherwise in an English house, the spiral staircase was carpeted, but with a curious detail: the bare footprints of Edward's wife (which, after their divorce, he had redone with his dogs' paw prints).

A Battle for Possession

When Edward divorced his wife, he commissioned new carpeting, this time featuring his dogs' paw prints instead. Architecture historian Clive Aslet told The New York Times, "It's the finest interior of its period to survive in this country. Many people were being imaginative in the 1930s, but there was nothing left in England that could be compared to Monkton." He made this statement in 1987, while a battle for possession of the house was raging.

Upon Edward's death, the estate had passed to his foundation, which was forced to sell it when it wanted to expand the arts and crafts college that bore his name. English Heritage, the organization responsible for protecting England's heritage, attempted to acquire it, but ultimately, the surrealist house remained in private hands. The new owner removed all the objects that were inside but preserved the distinctive exterior.

For many, this missed opportunity is painful. Today, this "ingenious, creative, captivating little masterpiece, completely different from anything I've seen elsewhere," as architectural historian Mark Girouard describes it, is no longer accessible to the public, and it's more than likely that its highly unusual interior has been modified. We are left with only photographs to enjoy this totally unique work of art.

The Monkton House stands as a testament to an extraordinary collaboration between British eccentricity and Spanish surrealism. Edward James's vision, guided by Dalí's artistic genius, created something that had never existed before in Britain - a complete surrealist environment that challenged conventional notions of domestic space.

The house featured numerous other surrealist elements that made it truly unique. Clock faces were adorned with sculpted curtains on the exterior, creating the illusion that time itself could be dressed and undressed. Inside, the bathroom's translucent alabaster walls created an otherworldly atmosphere where visitors felt suspended between dream and reality.

The famous Mae West Lips sofa, one of Dalí's most iconic furniture designs, found its perfect home in this English surrealist sanctuary. The piece, which transformed the actress's sensual lips into functional seating, embodied the surrealist principle of transforming the familiar into the fantastical.

The loss of public access to this architectural marvel represents more than just the privatization of a historic property. It symbolizes the disappearance of a unique moment in art history when surrealism briefly took root in the English countryside, creating something that was neither fully Spanish nor fully English, but entirely magical.

The photographs that remain serve as the only window into this lost world, where purple stucco walls met Regency fireplaces, where bamboo-inspired gutters channeled English rain, and where the footprints of dogs were forever preserved in carpet, telling the story of an eccentric patron whose vision brought Salvador Dalí's surrealist dreams to life in the most unlikely of places.