Pemberley is of course the fictional estate in Pride and Prejudice which happens to be one of Lori’s favorite reads. Our own modest estate had picked up the moniker Pemberley Rose, and so when I convinced Lori the characters in her book needed a country estate, she named that one Pemberley as well.

Our Pemberley is located in Gladsmuir, Scotland which is about 14 miles east of Gladstone’s Land in Edinburgh. The concept for designing our Pemberley was that it was built on the site of a small country cathedral and used some of the ruins for the construction of the house. We saw a lot of this in our travels through the UK. Why go to the trouble of creating new stone work when you can just pilfer or recycle what is already available?

Turning a church’s enviable architecture into a home also tickled our theistic beliefs.

While browsing the 3D Warehouse, we found a very cool Gothic vaulted ceiling, and so the design of the house began to take shape so that we could incorporate it into the Grand Hall. I had envisioned a mostly symmetrical design, with just enough asymmetry to keep it interesting.

Like our other earlier Live Home 3D projects, this one went through a renovation when the program allowed you to create true topography. Since Scotland is a hilly country, I set the house on a small hill with the lake below. Being on a hill also meant I could redo the entire garden with a new design.

I originally started this design on my ancient iMac but the size of file grew so large it really strained the memory. When I got my new MacBook Air with the amazing M1 chip, I was disappointed that even though both machines had 16G of memory, I couldn’t open this file on the new machine.

I ended up having to create two versions of the file on my old Mac, one with the garden and the first floor furnishings, and a second one with just the second floor furnishings. Unfortunately, this means that when you tour the second floor, there aren’t any pretty views of the gardens outside the windows.

We start our tour of this lovely Scottish mansion by renting a 1937 Jaguar SS-100, which seems to be an appropriate car for cruising the winding one-lane country road that leads up to the house. We turn into a long gravel driveway bordered with mature oak trees. On our left is the dressage ring, horse stable, and barn. On the right is a large rolling field where the estate’s sheep can be found. Lori made it very clear that the sheep are only used for their wool.

A reminder, that since we’re in Scotland, what we would call the first floor is called the ground floor, and when you go up the first flight of stairs, you’ve reached the first floor, not the second.

As we clear the line of oaks, we get our first view of the mansion and begin our turn around the circular driveway. We park in front of the stone entrance that juts from the front of the house. This was part of the original church, and features a heavy wooden Gothic door.

Ground Floor

Foyer and Entry Hall

Upon entering the house, we find ourselves in a small foyer. A Gothic pew bench provides a place to sit, and you can hang your coat, hat and umbrella on the hall tree.

Passing through the arched doorway, the ceiling opens up and and we find the main staircase as well as three more arched doorways. Tucked underneath the staircase is a Turkish corner.

Parlour

We’ll start our tour by taking a right turn, where the arched doorway leads us through a short tunnel into the parlour. Here we find a massive fireplace, several comfortable seating areas, and a grand piano for entertainment. At the far end, the large Tudor style window provides an excellent view of the Long Border.

Drawing Room

From the parlour, we can pass into the drawing room, which also opens up to the grand hall. The main architectural feature of this room is the large Gothic stained glass window, a relic from the former church. The Gothic wainscot came from the same source.The wallpaper I used in the King & Queen Suite of the 1911 Tudor Revival Mansion makes an appearance here as well. From this room we can either travel to the music room or the great hall. Let’s take a look at the music room first.

Music Room

In Lori’s book, which is about an opera school, one of the lead characters is a talented musician, so this is a music room devoted more to creating and recording music, rather than entertaining guests. The old church organ found a home here, but there are plenty of modern synthesizers as well. Electric and acoustic guitars and basses, along with the drum set lend a hand for rock, jazz and blues compositions, while a string and horn section are for more classical compositions. The windows reminded us of the Center for Performing Arts in San Jose.

Great Hall

We exit the music room and come out at the back of the great hall. This room is what used to be the old Gothic church. The vaulted ceiling reached up three stories, supported by marble columns. A massive stone fireplace provides some warmth, although with such high ceilings, you have to be standing quite close to it. Two large trestle tables provide enough room for 18 people to dine. Tapestries hang from the walls. Almost the entire south wall is windows, flooding the room with light.

If you look up, you will see galleries on the second and third floors. During formal dinners, musicians can play from the second floor gallery, making use of the hall’s excellent acoustics.

Kitchen

A perfectly good modern kitchen was ripped out from my first design, so that Lori could have her vintage country kitchen. An island and hoosier cabinet make up for the lack of counter space in the kitchen she wanted. Another set of church pews have been repurposed into a breakfast nook in the southeast corner of the kitchen, the perfect location to catch those early morning rays.

Just off the kitchen there is a pantry, and the one bathroom on the first floor. There is a back staircase from the kitchen up to the second floor.

Library

Any large house that Lori helps design is going to have a library, and this one is no exception. Reached by passing back into the entry hall, we pass through the arched doorway opposite of the parlour. A comfortable seating area is provided for four, as well as an antique card catalog desk decommissioned from an old library when they went digital.

Half of the room is covered by shelves that hold a treasure trove of books. The shelves reach to the ceiling, and require use of the rolling ladders should you want to read something from the top shelf.

The library also has a door that leads out to the barbecue deck and the herb garden, but for now we’re going to once again backtrack to the entry hall and head upstairs.

First Floor

The first floor has the master bedroom and six themed bedrooms for the students to stay in on their weekends away from the school in Edinburgh. As the rooms are geographically themed, they are also laid out as if the house were a map.

Master Bedroom Suite (European Theme)

The master bedroom features a large Gothic styled canopied bed, and a fainting couch for taking naps by the bay window. The wallpaper is from Bradbury & Bradury’s Dresser II set. This is the wallpaper that inspired me to painstakingly hand stencil our bedroom because at the time we couldn’t afford the Bradbury paper.

The bathroom also has a bay window that provides a view of the landscape while soaking in the clawfoot bathtub. Behind the bathroom is a large walk-in closet.

The master bedroom also has access to the north balcony that is directly over the front door. Traveling west across the balcony we come to the first o f the themed rooms, the Greek Room.

Greek Bedroom

The Greek bedroom is decorated in high Victorian style, using Eastlake and Renaissance Revival furniture. The wallpaper is the Bradbury & Bradury Neo-Grec set which we will be installing in Lori’s sewing room once the molding I just finished painting gets installed. A fireplace sits in an arched alcove. Greek pottery and other artifacts complete the theme.

Native American Bedroom

From the Greek bedroom we travel further west through the shared bathroom into the Native American bedroom. A mix of artifacts from different native tribes decorates this room. Simple pine furniture is used throughout. The wallpaper borders were created from various patterns found on the web and do not depict any available wallpapers. The black-on-black wedding vase is inspired by one we purchased on a trip to New Mexico in the 1980s.

Hawaiian Bedroom

We head south turning through several hallways until we reach the Hawaiian bedroom. A pole beam ceiling, tropical fans, and a mosquito netted bed set the theme here. A surfboard sits in the corner, probably not seeing much action in the frigid waters of the North Sea. Above the aquarium is a photo of a humuhumunukunukuapua`a, Hawaii’s official state fish. Since the whole house is so musically oriented, there is of course a ukulele sitting by the bed.

From Hawaii, we travel across the south balcony that sits above the arched wall of the music room. When we reenter the house, we find ourselves in ancient Egypt.

Egyptian Bedroom

Since I had already created an Egyptian themed parlor for my 1911 Tudor Revival house, many of the same elements were recycled into Lori’s house. For the bed we used a very nice model of the Thomas Hope settee.

To get to the last two bedrooms, we have to navigate the hallways back around the great hall, to the other side of the house. While we’re doing that, we can look down from the galleries to get an entirely different perspective of the great hall.

Chinese Bedroom

A red chinoiserie wallpaper and Chinese bed are the main theme elements for this room. Black lacquered furniture, bamboo window shades, and a jade fireplace complete the look.

Japanese Bedroom

Next door, we find another Asian inspired room. Tatami mats, and photos of Japan set the scene. The wallpaper is surprisingly, yet another Bradbury & Bradbury set. The room uses several papers from their Japanese collection.

Second Floor

Up on the second floor there are a number of smaller rooms for servants. We ran out of memory before we got to those in the original model, but now that it’s split into two files, we may go back and finish those rooms someday.

Garden

The Long Border

This perennial border was inspired by many of the fine gardens we saw in England, Scotland and Wales. When the program was updated to add terrain, I put this border on a slope and designed the cascading water feature. I’m particularly happy with how the water ended up looking.

The Rose Garden

This garden was inspired by the rose garden that is part of my most favorite garden, Bodnant. The huge arbor covered in Cecile Brunner roses comes from our own garden, but the terrace design comes from Bodnant.

Croquet Lawn

After creating the terraces, we played around with what to do with the lower one. Lori suggested a topiary garden, and specifically a chess set topiary. I tried one out, but in the end since I now had a flat area, I decided to make it a bocce ball court and croquet lawn.

Pond

Along with a well stocked library, a pond is the other feature that Lori most desires in a house. Swans, ducks and geese, along with a rowboat and a canoe. I think that hits all the tickets.

Conservatory

Given that this house is in Scotland, an area not know for its nice weather, the conservatory is used more as a seating area to enjoy the garden when the weather is acting Scottish.

Herb/Kitchen Garden

Close to the kitchen, this garden provides fresh vegetables and herbs for the cook.

Dressage Ring, Horse Corral and Barn

Lori loves horses, so yeah, if we were this rich and had this much land, there’d be some horses for her to ride.

Bird’s Eye Views

Tour of ground floor and garden

Tour of first floor