From the outset, Talliston was conceived as being a living space inspired by ancient practices, such as alchemy and the occult. Mixing the unsettling with the feeling of home; all in one. To this end, each room has been inspired by the elements and a series of numbers (3, 5, 11 and 101). Dividing the whole plot (rather than the house alone) into separate areas, I get thirteen ‘sacred spaces’; three in each sphere. Today I’ll just list the names of the rooms, their element - and expand later about their themes, style, sounds and smells.

THE LABYRINTH : An old rectory garden, encircled by a thicket hedge, entered through a gothic door with no bell or handle, and giving egress into a vegetable garden, a cottage garden and finally leading to an earth-fast standing stone carved with an ancient labyrinth.

THE VOODOO KITCHEN : Hugging the bank of the huge, swiftly moving Mississippi River and lying barely above sea level is the Vieux Carré [view-ka-ray], or French Quarter, in New Orleans, Louisiana. This was the ‘Old Square’, a Creole neighbourhood with buildings that crowd each other and the narrow streets. Cast-iron and wrought-iron balconies overhang the sidewalks, providing shelter from hot summer sun or sudden downpours. Cool, inviting courtyards can be glimpsed down narrow alleys or carriageways, and the smells of shrimp remoulades and seafood gumbos waft from hidden kitchens. Cathedral bells, jazz trumpets, and ship horns serenade residents and visitors. The Quarter is the heart and soul of modern New Orleans and serves as a continuous reminder of the city’s Creole, colonial past.

THE CABIN : 1940s log cabin in the heart of the wildernesses of Canada.

THE WATCHTOWER : Situated in the Lledr valley in Gwynedd, overlooking Yr Wyddfa (Welsh; the tomb; Snowdon), stands this square stone keep. Built by Welsh princes, it watched the road between the Conway Valley to Llanberis, most famously the tanist and bard Huan Caius Mereddin (c. 645AD) when it was given the name the Mead Hall of Twr-â-Gân (Welsh; the tower of song) when the Celt heard the cries of the ravens roosting in the ruins. The tower was redesigned in the thirteenth century, and then again in the late 1870s by entrepreneur and spiritualist Jonathan D’Ante and his Spiritualism friends. D’Ante became interested in this after the deaths of his son and his wife. In ancient Scandinavia a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room, while from the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Though this area of the original tower is the largest of the downstairs rooms, it is unlikely that the notion of its origins in anything other than an Victorian fantasy.

THE HAUNTED BEDROOM: An Art Nouveau children's bedroom with fabric walls and en suite washroom, now sadly empty and abandoned after tragedy befell this Edwardian family.

THE OFFICE : Set within an impressive neo-Gothic manor house of great architectural and historic importance is the office of J E Trevillian & Associates (established 1925). An architectural and historical treasure, hidden in the woods, the house is approached through the old lodge gates and a drive bordered by pine trees and rhododendrons. The house stands high above the beautiful wooded Glynn valley, enjoying the peace and tranquility of pine woodlands edged by the rivers Fowey and Loveny. It nestles on the southern slopes of Bodmin Moor, and is within easy reach of both the north and south coasts of Cornwall. Pre-War office for detective of the occult and bizarre.

THE FOUNTAIN COURTYARD : The symbol of the walled garden recurs throughout the cultures of the globe – from the various incarnations of the Garden of Eden in paintings, tapestries and literature across the Judaeo-Christian world, to formal Islamic gardens and their philosophical counterparts in the Far East, whether they be classical Chinese parklands or Zen landscape design. In works such as The Garden of Paradise (c.1415) by the Master of Oberrheinische Kunst, the Virgin Mary sits safely with her companions in a garden with castellated walls; they read, pick fruit and play musical instruments, surrounded by blossoming flowers. The painting is not just a leisure scene, but also an image for religious meditation, dense with Christian symbolism such as the slayed dragon of evil and the fountain, source of spiritual life and salvation. The physical arrangement of the Renaissance garden bore a close resemblance to a stage set, a similarly enclosed and contained area for playing out fantasies and dramas, a space of transformation, dream and fantasy. However, while the early garden emphasised small-scale, enclosed spaces, later ones took inspiration from the open expanse of the Biblical wilderness. The opposition between garden and wilderness reflected man’s complex relationship to nature, where an impulse to shape, tame and control the natural world lived alongside a desire to yield to its wildness and its danger – a duality that has shaped and influenced the way gardens have been visualised, both in life and art. Other notes All the evidence shows that early British gardens were essentially rectangular walled enclosures which provided their owners with a place to grow plants and an opportunity to enjoy some of the pleasures of outdoor life. In the middle ages a garden of this type was known as a hortus conclusus (L. hortus, a garden or orchard, and conclusus, closed off).

THE HALL OF MIRRORS : PHASE I TO START 2013

THE BOATHOUSE : Riverside boathouse, rebuilt as a bathroom outhouse. Dusk lying beside a swift-running river, the stillness broken by owl calls and the haunting sounds of the gathering night.

THE STARHOUSE : Here we enter the future through a twenty-third century near-space ark studio combining the style and sophistication of the golden age of travel with an entertainment and hi-tech living space.

THE ROOM OF DREAMS : Known by the Arab name, Eish Al Kamar (the moon’s nest) this room is a North African bedchamber, complete with collection of artefacts and treasures collected from travels around the world.

THE TREEHOUSE SANCTUARY : 1960s bamboo treehouse temple in Cambodia on the outskirts of Angkor Wat.

THE LODGE : Native American tipi sleeping up to eight authentically made to the design of original Sioux tipis. The lost room in the hidden place and our home-from-home when we travel.