Have you ever dreamed of living in a palatial theatrical estate? Escaping the United States? Of wandering the same shadow draped halls as Shakespeare's greatest actors? Well, you're in luck: Laurence Olivier's Sussex home has appeared on the market.
Priced at £2,000,000, the home is actually on the lower end of the price range for homes of this size in the rolling hills of Sussex, located only a few hours from London and a stone's throw from England's southern coast. Called The Malthouse, the estate was home to Lord Laurence Olivier and Lady Joan Plowright for their entire marriage, with Joan continuing to live in the home until the end of her life earlier this year. Laurence passed there peacefully in his sleep in 1989.
Having homes in both Brighton and London in the early 1960s, the couple developed the original Elizabethan farmhouse into their personal escape from the highs and lows of showbiz life. Originally two small cottages, the Oliviers bought two surrounding fields and spent several years crafting the four and a half acres into their own natural wonderland. With seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, three reception rooms, tennis courts, a maintained maze and apple orchard, a paddock, and more, the home offered the Oliviers every comfort and entertainment they could wish for in the countryside.
Several outbuildings were also constructed over the years of the family's occupancy, including self-contained yoga and art studios and an indoor swimming pool which Laurence Olivier loved to do lengths in. The home was the center of the Oliviers' life as party hosts and entertainers, with countless private stories revealed from various soirees in private memoirs over the years. In 2017, Dames Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, and Joan Plowright herself filmed Roger Michells’ documentary Nothing like a Dame in the house.
As Laurence would often quote to guests while walking them around the garden, "this royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, This other Eden, demi-paradise…this little World…” (Henry IV part 1). See a glimpse of the Olivier's little world in the gallery below.
