For 40 years this Brighton apartment, set on an elm-shaded, stucco-fronted square in the city’s upper reaches, was the home of opera director John Cox, who used it as a bolthole while he was working at Glyndebourne. A creative crowd, including David Hockney, (his boldly graphic designs for The Rake’s Progress are a Glyndebourne perennial) mingled in the garden, screened by a heady curtain of white wisteria. When the season ended, Hockney’s parting gift to Cox was the art deco fireplace, which brings a dramatic flourish to the sitting room.
Today, the ground-floor apartment has a suitably theatrical new owner. Gary McCann, a rising star of opera design (he has productions opening in Venice, Bologna and Bilbao) bought the apartment from Cox in 2016. It has remained “pretty much unchanged” since then, says the historically minded set and costume designer, who describes the architecture as a “Frankenstein’s monster” of eras. “It was converted in the 1920s. There are elements of early Victoriana mixed with the 1980s.”
