British government considers man’s art-filled apartment a historic site – The Washington Post Achi-News

When Claire Jones entered her husband’s late uncle’s apartment for the first time, she discovered what looked like the trappings of a carnival.

A huge concrete sculpture of a roaring lion’s head stood in the living room and surrounded the fireplace. In the next room stands a huge minotaur head. Paper mache sculptures littered the hallways and colorful murals decorated every wall and ceiling, even in the bathroom.

Jones and her family knew Ron Gittins as an eccentric and lonely artist. But they didn’t realize until shortly after his death in 2019 at the age of 79 that he carved, sculpted and painted his passion on the walls of his rented flat in Birkenhead, a riverside town in northwest England, where he lived alone.

It can’t stay, Gittins’ landlord said. But Jones knew she wanted to preserve the scene.

“I was just like, ‘We can’t just let it go,'” she told The Washington Post.

For years, Gittins’ family worked to protect his whimsical life’s work, insisting that the apartment, “Ron’s Place,” is an irreplaceable art installation worthy of preservation. This month the British government agreed. Historic England, a national body that designates sites of historical significance in England, has added Ron’s place to its National Heritage List, the family announced in early April.

The zoning, which prohibits owners from making changes to Ron’s place without government approval, places Gittins’ apartment among the ranks of mid-Victorian churches and villas that typically receive such recognition in the country, ensuring an unlikely legacy for Gittins’ work. The flat has been given a Grade II listing, which is given to “particularly important buildings of special interest”, according to Historic England.

“It was Ron, who led a very small private life,” said Paul Kelly, board member of the Wirral Arts and Culture Community Land Trust, an organization set up to run Ron’s Place. “Suddenly he was recognized as someone who had done something interesting on such a scale. … What an extraordinary thing.”

Gittins, a freelance artist and theater actor, was ostracized by his family, his niece Jan Williams wrote to The Post. He appeared at meetings flamboyantly dressed and spoke in codes, joking that he was a secret agent. He became known in Birkenhead as the local eccentric who sometimes walked around town dressed as a Roman centurion.

He was, Williams said, “colorful, larger than life, loud, opinionated, argumentative, yet affectionate.”

Gittins alienated his family. He let few people into his apartment, which his lease allowed him to decorate “to his taste,” according to the Ron’s Place website.

Walking into Gittins’ home after his death felt like finally discovering the world he lived in, Williams said. The lion’s head glittered with eyes made of shards of glass, and a pan sat in its mouth. Scattered throughout the apartment were smaller models, such as an Egyptian sarcophagus that opened to reveal a model mummy. While sorting through Gittins’ belongings, Williams found a postcard he had written addressed to her, saying he couldn’t wait to show her his creations.

“Ron created a fantasy world for his enjoyment,” Williams said. “A kind of setting in which he played the main role.”

Williams, herself an artist and photographer, led the effort to save Gittins’ apartment. First she arranged to continue renting the apartment from his landlord, fundraising to cover the cost and established a community organization to manage the area. Recommendations poured in from singers, writers and sculptors who visited Ron’s place at the invitation of the family. They landed an article in the Guardian and a video feature from the BBC.

In November 2022, the building that housed Ron’s Place was put up for auction. Buyers turned away, and Williams scrambled to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars they needed to win a bidding war. It ended in a “fairytale-style” miracle, Williams said: On March 1, 2023, the last day of the auction, a donor sent an email offering to lend Williams’ organization most of the money it needed to purchase the building for about $400,000. The donor told Williams she learned about Ron’s Place that morning while reading the newspaper on her drive.

“It felt like it was meant to be,” Williams said.

In Shalom Mary’s bid to delay the sale, Williams also asked Historic England to list Ron’s Place as historically significant. It was a long shot – the designation is usually given to churches, inns and mansions with centuries of history longer than Gittins’ apartment.

Historic England, however, granted her request, even after Williams and the Land Trust secured ownership of Ron’s Place. When Sarah Charlesworth, an appraiser at Historic England, visited the apartment later that year, she immediately noticed the same floor-to-ceiling lion sculpture that had greeted Williams and Jones years before.

“I actually thought, ‘This is a slam dunk’ as soon as I walked in,” Charlesworth said.

Ron’s Place struck her as a prime example of “outsider art”—artwork created by people with no formal art training and no intention of exhibiting or selling. It was, said Charlesworth, a facet of Britain’s history as worthy of preservation as its churches and castles.

“Listing is not just about fancy houses and chocolate box cottages,” she said. “It’s about being representative and inclusive and making sure we represent all aspects of the nation’s history.”

The apartment is closed to visitors while it is undergoing repairs. Williams and Kelly, board member of the Wirral Arts and Culture Community Land Trust, said the organization had plans after purchasing the entire building that houses Ron’s Place, which also includes a garden and three upstairs apartments. They hope to preserve Gittins’ artwork on the ground floor as a museum and art space and renovate the remaining apartments into low-cost housing units for artists.

It’s an unlikely legacy for Gittins after spending much of his life in the secret world of his apartment, Kelly said. But he thinks Gitin would be happy to see others take notice.

“Ron was a real outsider,” Kelly said. “But… it was recognition for his work. He’ll love it.”